Eli Smith (born September 13, 1801, in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (Whitney) Smith, and died January 11, 1857, in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

, Lebanon) was an American Protestant

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

and scholar. He graduated from

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

in 1821 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1826. He worked in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

until 1829, then in company with

H. G. O. Dwight Harrison Gray Otis Dwight (1803–1862) was an American Congregational missionary. Biography Harrison Gray Otis Dwight was born on November 22, 1803 in Conway, Massachusetts. His father was Seth Dwight (1769–1825) and mother was Hannah Stron ...

traveled through

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''O ...

and Georgia to

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. They published their observations, ''Missionary Researches in Armenia'', in 1833 in two volumes. Eli Smith settled in Beirut in 1833. Along with Edward Robinson, he made two trips to the

Holy Land The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...

in 1838 and 1852, acting as an interpreter for Robinson in his quest to identify and record biblical place names in Palestine, which was subsequently published in Robinson's '' Biblical Researches in Palestine''. He is known for bringing the first

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...

with

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

type to

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. He went on to pursue the task which he considered to be his life's work: translation of the Bible into Arabic. Although he died before completing the task, the work was completed by C. V. Van Dyck of the Syrian Mission and published in 1860 to 1865. He married three times. Sarah Lanman Huntington Smith b. June 18, 1802 in Norwich, CT to Jabez and Mary (Lanman) Huntington and died Sept. 30, 1836 in Smyrna, Izmir, Turkey (m.July 21, 1833 in Beirut, Lebanon) was also a missionary; Maria Ward (Chapin) Smith b. May 31, 1819 in Rochester, N.Y. to Moses and Esther Maria (Ward) Chapin and died May 27, 1842 in Beirut, Lebanon (m. March 9, 1841 in Rochester, N.Y.); and Mehitable (Hetty) Simkins (Butler) Smith b. Sep. 15, 1816 to Daniel and Elizabeth Butler and died July 26, 1893 in Lyons, Michigan (m. Oct. 7, 1846 in Northampton, MA), who was also a missionary. His daughter Mary Elizabeth Smith, was educated at the Female Seminaries in Hartford, Connecticut and Ipswich, Massachusetts and taught at the Female Seminary at Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati. She was listed In the Women's Who's Who of America by John William Leonard 1914–1915.

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