Elihu Hubbard Smith (1771 - 1798)

Elihu Hubbard Smith

Elihu Hubbard Smith is an American author, writer, and physician.

Smith graduated from Yale College as early as age 11 with a liberal arts education, followed by a medical degree. He worked at New York Hospital and published historical articles on plague and plague fevers.

Elihu Smith was a very active writer: he was a member of the Hartford Witters, wrote the first American comic opera "Edwin and Angelina" (1796), was the editor of the first book anthology of American poetry ("American Poems, Selected and Original," 1793) and the first national American medical journal ("Medical Repository"), and corresponded extensively with many writers and writers of his time.

Smith died at age 27 of yellow fever, which he contracted while treating patients during an outbreak in New York City.