what did alvin smith died from?
Poison
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 Smith attracted thousands of devoted followers before his death in 1844 and millions in the century that followed . Among Mormons , he is regarded as a prophet on par with Moses and Elijah . In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time , Smithsonian magazine ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures . 

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 Smith 's body was cremated and a public burial site or memorial was never formally announced . 

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 Meanwhile , the Smith family faced financial hardship due in part to the November 1823 death of Smith 's oldest brother Alvin , who had assumed a leadership role in the family . Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers , a type of magical supernaturalism common during the period . Smith was said to have an ability to locate lost items by looking into a seer stone , which he also used in treasure hunting , including several unsuccessful attempts to find buried treasure sponsored by a wealthy farmer in Chenango County , New York . In 1826 , Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for " glass @-@ looking " , or pretending to find lost treasure . The result of the proceeding remains unclear as primary sources report various conflicting outcomes . 

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 On retirement from MIT in 1969 , Smith became a professor emeritus of the History of Science and Technology , professor emeritus of Metallurgy and Humanities and Institute Professor Emeritus , an unusual title " reserved for only a few whose work transcends the boundaries of traditional departments and disciplines " . He died of colonic cancer in his Cambridge , Massachusetts home on 25 August 1992 . He was survived by his wife of sixty years , Alice Kimball Smith , his two children , Anne Smith Denman , chair of the Department of Anthropology at Central Washington University , and Stuart Marchant Smith , a marine geologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography , and a sister , Mary Smith . His papers are in the Niels Bohr Library in College Park , Maryland . His collection of antiquarian metallurgical texts was left to the Burndy Library at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology . 

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 News of Smith 's death strengthened the abolitionist movement in Britain . Quamina , who is thought to have been the actual leader of the rebellion , was declared a national hero after Guyana 's independence . Streets and monuments have been dedicated to him in the capital of Georgetown , Guyana . 
