William Penn Smith (ca. 1796–1866), educator and tax collector, was born and educated in Philadelphia. He resigned from the United States Army in 1820 after serving briefly as a second lieutenant of artillery. That same year he was the secretary for meetings of “Old School” Republicans supporting Joseph Hiester’s election as Pennsylvania governor. Smith worked in Philadelphia as an accountant, 1823–24, and as a teacher, 1825–30, including chairing the English department at Episcopal Academy. He was appointed a city tax collector in 1829, a position he held until 1844. Smith was still living in Philadelphia in 1850, when he owned real estate valued at $20,000, but he died in Bristol, Pennsylvania (Smith to TJ, 8 June 1824; Heitman, U.S. Army description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1903, repr. 1994, 2 vols. description ends , 1:905; Philadelphia Weekly Aurora, 6 Mar. 1820; Philadelphia Democratic Press, 12 Sept. 1820; Robert Desilver, The Philadelphia Index, or Directory for 1823 [(Philadelphia, 1823)]; Desilver, The Philadelphia Directory, for 1824 [(Philadelphia, 1824)]; Thomas Wilson, ed., The Philadelphia Directory and Stranger’s Guide, for 1825 [Philadelphia, 1825], 131; Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, 22 July 1826; Register of Pennsylvania 3 [1829]: 16; Desilver’s Philadelphia Directory and Stranger’s Guide, 1830 [1830], 181; McElroy’s Philadelphia Directory for 1844 [1844], 293; DNA: RG 29, CS, Pa., Philadelphia, 1850; Philadelphia Inquirer, 28, 29 May 1866).