Execution of Claudius Smith

Background. Claudius Smith (1736 – January 22, 1779) was a Loyalist guerrilla leader during the American Revolution. During the war he and several family members, including three of his four sons—William, Richard, and James—allegedly terrorized the New York countryside around Smith's Clove (presently Monroe) in Orange County, where his father David Smith had moved about 1741 from Brookhaven.

Legal Proceedings. After one of Smith's men apparently robbed and killed Patriot leader Major Nathaniel Strong on October 6, 1778, New York Governor George Clinton posted a $1,200 reward for Smith's arrest. Smith was subsequently captured and hanged. A 1778 wanted poster for his arrest—identified by the source as a possible contrivance—claimed he stood nearly seven feet tall, a description the poster's reliability does not establish.

Aftermath. Two of Smith's sons, William and James—the latter captured in February 1779 by an Abner Thorpe—would suffer the same fate as their father. Richard Smith remained at large at least through 1781, when George Washington warned Governor Clinton of a planned kidnapping by remaining Smith Gang members.