James Smithson

James Smithson was a British chemist and mineralogist, born in Paris around 1765, the unacknowledged son of the Duke of Northumberland. A mineral, smithsonite, is named for him. He never married, never had children and never once visited the United States, yet his will said that if his nephew died without heirs, his fortune should go to the United States to found in Washington an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.

The nephew died without heirs, and in 1838 the money crossed the Atlantic as 104,960 gold sovereigns, reminted into $508,318.46. It became the Smithsonian Institution. In 1904 Alexander Graham Bell brought Smithson's remains from Genoa, and his crypt is inside the red sandstone Castle on the National Mall, in a small room just left of the north entrance, behind an iron gate that was once the fence around his grave in Genoa. It is free, quiet, and a two minute detour on our Mall walk.