Harrison Smith

Tribute to the Late Harrison Smith

From Our Own Correspondent MR. HARRISON SMITH died at his home at Vaiari, Tahiti, on January 2, 1947, after a long illness. He was born at Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in the year 1872.

He was a graduate of Harvard Univer sity. Later he became a professor at the great engineering college, the Massa chusetts Institute of Technology. He served with distinction with the United States Forces during World War I.

Retiring from his professorship about 1920, he led a scientific expedition into the interior of Borneo from Sarawak as a base. His careful studies of plant life and tropical agriculture during his sojourn in Indonesia laid the foundation of his valuable services to Tahiti and the colony of French Oceania.

Twenty-five years ago he settled in Tahiti, where he acquired an extensive estate in the Vaiari district. At his own expense he has, through the years, im ported from Indonesia, Burma, Mada gascar and other countries, a great variety of ornamental and fruit-bearing trees, food plants and so forth. After establishing and propagating them on his estate, he has presented them to planters throughout the colony.

The stately and beautiful flowering trees which adorn and shade the long avenue of New Papeete, are Harrison Smith’s gift to the colony.

One can but indicate his many services to Tahiti and its people.

Twice the French Government has offi

cially recognised these services by be stowing the highest of its decorations.

Harrison Smith loved the Tahitian people. One would wish to record his innumerable acts of kindness and bene factions. But, as I knew Harrison Smith, he would beseech me to make no men tion of them.

His last resting place is on a high hill overlooking his estate, and the dis tant mountains of Tai’arapu—the view he loved most of all during his lifetime.