Claudius Smith; or the Orange County Tories
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     Col. McClaughry was taken prisoner at the fall of Fort Montgomery in 1777, and confined in British dungeons and prison ships for a long time.  During much of his confinement he was absolutely suffering for the necessaries of life.  To ameliorate his condition his wife proposed to send him some home comforts, and applied to  Abimal Young for a small loan for that purpose, who she knew had plenty of specie by him.  The old miserly fellow sully and peremptorily refused the loan, and the poor woman went home discomfited.
     The incident came to the ears of Claudius. “The old miser,” exclaimed the Tory chief; “I'll teach him to be a little more liberal.  If he won't lend Mrs. McClaughry of his own will, I'll take the money from him and send it to the Colonel myself.”
     Tradition says that shortly after this, one dark night, Claudius with a few trusty followers actually invested the house of Young to force that gentleman to produce the desired money. The old man refused to yield to their demands. Claudius knew there was money secreted somewhere about the house, but a diligent search failed to reveal it.  They threatened to no purpose.  They next took Young out into the yard and told him they would swing him up to the well-pole if he did not divulge the place of its concealment; he persisted in his refusal to tell, whereupon the bandits put a rope around his neck and suspended him From the well-pole.
     Letting him down after he had hung a sufficient time, as they judged, he soon revived, and they again demanded his money.  The old man was still stubborn; he refused to reveal the place where it was kept, and again he was dangling in the air.  This as done three times.  The robbers were getting impatient; and the third time they let the old man hang so long that he was near-dead when let down.  When he finally revived they renewed their demand, but he had not changed his determination in the last.   It was evident to them that he would sooner part with his life than his money.  They returned to the house, made another arch, and were rewarded by finding some money, together with number of mortgages, deeds and other papers, which they carried off.  To the credit of Claudius be it said, a part of the booty went to minister to the comfort of Mrs. McClaughry's imprisoned husband.
     When Claudius Smith was about to suffer the penalty of  death for his crimes, while he stood at the scaffold at Goshen with the noose about his neck, Abimal Young made his to the platform and inquired of Smith where those papers were that he and his followers stole from him the night they hung him up to the well-pole, averring that they could be of no use to him now.  To which request the hardened man retorted, “Mr. Young, this is no place to talk about papers; meet me in the next world and I will tell you all about them.”



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
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