Page 15

Towns of Bloominggrove, Cornwall and Monroe

Page 15

TOWN OF MONROE.

CLAUDIUS SMITH.-The inhabitants of Monroe, Cornwall, Bloominggrove and Goshen, and indeed all the southern part of the county, suffered severely during the Revolution from a nest of traitors, tories and a species of robbers and midnight plunderers, called Cowboys. The make of the country furnished great facilities for such gangs of rogues to issue forth and prowl abroad during the night, commit all kinds of depredations, and then retreat in safety and hide themselves in the deep glens and inaccessable fastnesses of the mountains. Smith's Clove-west of the Highlands and along the valley of the Ramapo-nourished many infamous rascals of this description, who were guilty of all kinds of bad deeds, from theft to murder.

Among those, and foremost in daring wickedness was the family of Claudius Smith, himself the leader-the oldest, greatest and most daring villain of the gang; and who, on the 22d day of January, 1779, in Goshen, expiated his bloody crimes on the gallows. Some of his associates in criminality were tried and convicted at the same time, and executed with their leader.

This gang of felons was numerous, as appears from the convictions had at the time, from the confessions of some of them, taken in New Jersey, after the execution of Claudius, and from their written threats, which we place before the reader. The most notorious were Claudius Smith, his sons Richard, James and William, Edward Roblin, William Cole, John Mason, Mathew Dolson, John Ryan, Thomas Delamar, James Gordon, etc. The names of many others will be found in the papers submitted.

The Smith family was of English origin, and came to this county from Long Island; but at what time we are not informed. It must have been many years before the war; for the family gave name to the Clove, and at that time the children of Claudius were grown up. His father, as we suppose, came from the Island at the same time, for he lived in the Clove during the war. Before emigration, they lived at Brookhaven, Long Island, where Claudius was born.

We have been told by Mrs. Abigail Letts, an aged lady, that the father of Claudius was a bad man-that he was cross, self-willed and abusive-that before his death he became blind, and would strike his wife with his cane when she came near him, and had been known to move around the room in pursuit of her for that purpose-that it was a common occurrence for the neighbors to go in and quell the old fellow, and stop the noise in the house. He lived at McKnight's Mills, near the residence of John McGarrow, Esq. That on one occasion, when Claudius was secreted in the mountains, pursued and watched by the scouts who were after him, his father, who had been up to his place of secretion to carry some provisions to the gang, while returning was seen by the scouts, who fired upon him and killed his horse.

We have heard it said, that Claudius was vicious from his youth, and that his mother, who was aware of the great tendency of his nature to the commission of crime, and knowing of some of his evil deeds, on one occasion said to him- “Claudius, you will die like a trooper's horse, with your shoes on.” At the time of his execution, while on the scaffold or just before he was taken out of prison, he recollected and remarked on the prediction of his mother. Not content to disgrace her and her memory for being the mother of such a villain, by the cause and manner of his death; but to prove her a liar and false prophetess, and for that purpose publicly expressed, he threw off his shoes and was executed in his stockings. History cannot produce an act evincing wore infernal depravity, deep and ingrain, in the hour of death than that. It equalled the conduct of the demon Nero, who, to deliver himself from the troublesome control of his mother Agrippina, ordered her assassination, which was carried into quick execution.

We have beard it said that the thieving propensity of Claudius was encouraged by his father. The first thing he ever stole was a pair of iron wedges, which had the initials of the owner's name stamped on them, and in order to disguise them and escape detection, his father assisted him to grind out the letters. We have also heard it stated that his mother gave him the like encouragement in the commission of his first offences. This we do not believe, after the declaration made by her above quoted; indeed we want something more than vague tradition to persuade us, that a mother could thus vitiate the moral conduct of her child, and uphold him afterwards in his villainy.