Mary Russell Smith was born at Edgehill, close to Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. She was a true lover of nature and all the things of nature, wandering the fields and woods near her childhood home, gathering objects that caught her eye. Smith had much influence to become an an artist because all in her family were painters. Her father, Russell, was a well-known landscapist, her mother a painter of flowers, and her brother Xanthus, a marine painter, was also well-known. She attended no art schools, and started to paint at age fourteen, when she was taught by her mother.
When she died in 1878 at age 36, her father summed up the inspiration nature held for Smith, and her love of it, in "A Brief Sketch of the Life of Mary Smith, the Painter." "Such habits early in life no doubt laid the foundation of that strong love of nature that was more a passion than a predilection, and remained the ruling principle of her life and art." As a child, she had enjoyed tending her flock of chickens, and these birds were often represented in her paintings.