One of the most prominent Loyalists during the American Revolution was William Smith Jr. (1728-1793), a member of the royal Council of the Province of New York from 1767 to 1783, and the Province’s last royal Chief Justice, from 1780 until his departure for England in December, 1783.
He spent the early years of the American Revolutionary War in self-imposed exile and was later placed under house arrest at the Hermitage, formerly located on Wire Road in Livingston, NY.
In 1776, he moved to Albany to avoid the contentious politics but in 1778 declared his allegiance for the loyalist cause and joined the British in the city of New York.
Smith was escorted across the lines by Aaron Burr and became an important adviser and confidant of the British military and civilian officials including both Governor William Tryon and General Henry Clinton.
He was also a historian, and published an early history of New York, The History of the Province of New-York, from the First Discovery to the Year 1733. To which was annexed, A Description of the Country, with a short Account of the Inhabitants, their Trade, Religious and Political State, and the Constitution of the Courts of Justice in the Colony in 1757.
The Columbia County Historical Society is launching an America’s 250th Anniversary Lecture Series this Sunday, February 22 at 2 pm, at the Hudson Area Library, in Hudson New York, with a talk about Smith by Germantown Historian Thomas Shannon.
Shannon will discuss highlights from the kept by Smith from October 1776 through July 1778.
The second lecture in the series will take place on Sunday March 8, at 1 pm at Kinderhook Library, 18 Hudson Street in Kinderhook, NY.
Dr. Kevin Bronner, Professor at University at Albany and author of Albany During the American Revolution will lecture on the aspects of the Tories and the Patriots in the Kinderhook area during the Revolutionary War.
Hudson Area Library is located at 51 North 5th Street, in Hudson.
Read more about Loyalists in New York State.
Illustration: William Smith.
Source link
