Daniel Townsend Smith was born August 9, 1842 on Edisto Island, SC to Thomas Peter Smith (1814-1903) and Theodora Elizabeth Townsend (1820-1899), fifth daughter of Captain Daniel Townsend and his wife, Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend.

Smith attended South Carolina College before serving as a member of Washington Light Artillery from Charleston during the Civil War. He earned an A.B. from Furman University in 1867, and then graduated from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Greenville in 1869.[1] Smith taught in the Furman’s School of Ancient Languages 1871-1881, and in the School of English Language and Literature 1877-1881.[2]

Smith’s father, Thomas Peter Smith, was on the Furman University Board of Trustees for many years (1866-98). He served on the Board of Trustees of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (1868-1897) and was a member of the committee responsible for the decision to relocate the seminary to Louisville, Kentucky in 1877.

Smith married first, Elizabeth Sloan “Betty” Mauldin (1843-1874), and second Mary Tallulah Tyler (1852-1933). He and his second wife had eight children, five living to adulthood; Daniel Townsend Smith Jr., Thomas Pressley Smith, Mrs. R.W. Matheny (Carrie), Mrs. George A. Adams (Theodora Elizabeth), and Mrs. E. Brooks Walker (Ella May). Smith died June 13, 1929.