Supported planned mass slave escape in Washington, DC, in April 1848, organized by William L. Chaplin. Provided land in North Elba, New York, to support Timbuctoo settlement of Black farmers, 1848. Sold land in North Elba to John Brown "for a bargain price of $1 an acre". Major benefactor of New-York Central College, 1850s. Helped with legal expenses of Fugitive Slave Law violators, 1850s. About 1855, gave $25,000 () to build the Oswego City Library, and $5,000 for books. Leading figure in the New England Emigrant Aid Society (Kansas Aid Movement), assisting abolitionist settlers and John Brown working to make Kansas a free state, 1850s. Paid for printing of James Redpath's The Roving Editor: or, Talks with Slaves in the Southern States, 1859. One of Secret Six that helped finance John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, 1859 One of guarantors of Jefferson Davis's bond, 1867. William G. Allen and family, in or near poverty in London, 1870s and 1880s. After his death, a newspaper reported his philanthropic activities as follows: Writings Smith paid for the printing of hundreds of broadsides, with his views on a variety of subjects. His own collection of his pamphlets is in the Syracuse University Library. A number of recipients bound those they received into volumes, different contents for each collector. Probably written by Smith. Includes (pp. 16–23) an "Extract from a letter by Gerrit Smith to Rev. Wm. H. Brisbane". Archival material Smith's grandson, Gerrit Smith Miller, was the final resident of the Smith mansion. In 1928, before it burned, he donated Smith's enormous collection of letters, documents, diaries, and daybooks to the Syracuse University Library, along with a pamphlet and broadside collection of over 700 items. There is nothing like it for any other businessman of his day. Gerrit Smith Papers, Syracuse University Special Collections Research Center. 10,000 letters, 74 boxes. Library description of holdings: "Business, family and general correspondence; business and land records; writings; and maps. Notable correspondents include Susan B. Anthony, John Jacob Astor, Henry Ward Beecher, Antoinette Blackwell, Caleb Calkins, Lydia Maria Child, Cassius Clay, Alfred Conkling, Roscoe Conkling, Charles A. Dana, Paulina W. Davis, Edward C. Delavan, Frederick Douglass, Albert G. Finney, Sarah Grimké, Elizabeth Cady and Henry B. Stanton, Louis Tappan, Sojourner Truth, and Theodore Weld." The collection has been microfilmed, and together with materials of his father Peter Smith, fills 89 reels. A partial calendar of the general