Short answers, pulled from the story.
Smithfield was first settled in 1663 by British colonists including John Steere, operating initially as a farming community within Providence's boundaries. The General Assembly incorporated it as a separate municipality in February 1731, with its first town meeting held on the 17th of March, 1731. The town was named after John Smith, one of the original six founders of Providence Plantations.
Bryant University moved to its current Smithfield campus in 1971 after Earl Silas Tupper, the founder of Tupperware and a Bryant alumnus, donated 428 acres of land for the new site. The university offers programs in business and the arts and sciences, and is one of the largest employers in town with over 1,100 employees.
Elizabeth Buffum Chace, born in Smithfield in 1806, was a prominent activist in the anti-slavery, women's rights, and prison reform movements. The town's Quaker community along Great Road also produced abolitionists Effingham Capron and Abby Kelley Foster, and had ties to Adams, Massachusetts, where Susan B. Anthony was born.
Smithfield transformed from a farming community into a textile manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. By 1819, nine cotton mills operated along the Woonasquatucket River, and after the Woonasquatucket River Company built three reservoirs to stabilize water supply, the mill count had grown to 20 by 1876.
Smithfield had a population of 22,118 residents and 7,797 households according to the 2020 United States Census. The median age was 43.7 years and the median household income was $101,653.
Notable people born in Smithfield include Gina Raimondo, who served as the 75th Governor of Rhode Island from 2015-2021 and as U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 2021-2025, and Sullivan Ballou, the Civil War officer known for his letter written before Bull Run. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, abolitionist and women's rights advocate, and Cyrus Aldrich, a U.S. Congressman from Minnesota, were also born there.