A portrait of Edward Staples Cousens Smith, the only child of James G. Cousens Smith (a merchant, later mayor and state legislator) and Eva Lorena Staples Smith, born in Biddeford. E.S.C. Smith attended Bowdoin College as a chemistry major, graduating in 1918. Too small for the army, he devoted a year to First World War work with Dupont, then entered MIT for graduate study. After one semester he transferred to Harvard, where he studied geology. Despite additional graduate study during two years as a teaching assistant at Radcliffe College, Smith never obtained a PhD. He was a member of the geology department at Union College in New York for many years.