James Smithson, an English chemist who never set foot in the United States, left his fortune to found 'an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge' in Washington. A decade after his death, Congress finally acted, and Polk signed the charter creating the Smithsonian Institution on August 10, 1846, launching what would become the world's largest museum and research complex.
James Smithson was an illegitimate son of a British duke, a chemist who cataloged minerals and once had a zinc carbonate named after him (smithsonite). He never visited the United States and had no obvious reason to leave it his considerable fortune—roughly $500,000 in gold, an immense sum at the time. Yet his 1826 will stipulated that if his nephew died without heirs, the money should go to Washington to found an institution for increasing and diffusing knowledge among men.
The nephew died childless in 1835, and the gold arrived in America packed in 105 sacks. Congress debated for a decade what to do with this strange foreign gift—some worried it was beneath the dignity of the republic to accept it, others wanted to fund a national university, still others a library. John Quincy Adams fought hard to ensure the money wasn't squandered on speculative investments (an earlier Treasury Secretary had lost some of it in bad Arkansas bonds).
On August 10, 1846, President Polk finally signed the act creating the Smithsonian Institution. Today it comprises 21 museums, 21 libraries, and the National Zoo, all traceable to one eccentric Englishman's posthumous act of faith in a young country he'd never seen. Smithson's remains were later moved to a crypt inside the Smithsonian Castle, making him a permanent, if silent, resident of the institution that bears his name.
Key people: James Smithson, James Polk, John Quincy Adams