While working at the publishing house in Rochester, New York, as one of James White’s editorial assistants, Annie Smith contracted tuberculosis (a very common disease). Although, according to her mother, she made use of hydrotherapy treatments, the disease progressed rapidly, and she was dead in eight months. Very gifted and almost indispensable, she died in 1855 at the age of 27½. 5Rebekah Smith (mother) Poems With a Brief Sketch of the Life and Experience of Annie R. Smith (Manchester, N.H.: John B. Clarke, Printer, 1871). MOL 289.1