From the Public Opinion August 6, 2010

James Smith, the First Rebel, and the Rebellion at Fort Loudoun is the theme for a program on Saturday, Aug. 21. The event will be held from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the State Historic Site of Fort Loudoun.

Calvin Bricker, local historian, will present a talk on James Smith at 10 a.m. and on the William Smith House in Mercersburg and its Fort Loudoun connection at noon.

The video, Historic Fort Loudoun, will be shown at 11 a.m. and the film, Allegheny Uprising, starring John Wayne, at 1 p.m. (more…)

Here’s an essay by historian K.R.M. Short that recounts the reaction by the British Ministry of Information to the 1940 trade show debut of “Allegheny Uprising” (billed as “The First Rebel”) in London.

It is interesting to note that even into the 20th century, the British remained quite chagrined by the revolt of the colonies. Short writes “The Ministry of Information demanded the immediate withdrawal of The First Rebel for it was not prepared to have (George) Sanders’s villainous and incompetent Captain Swanson striding across British screens depriving Americans of their rights at a moment when British soldiers were giving their lives in defense of the nation. This was not the view of the British empire that was to be promoted and, even more important, Americans were not to be found fighting, and defeating, the British Army even if the date was 1760. Americans should be defending the mother country, not defeating it. Colonel Jim Smith and his Black Boys may have been history but it was clearly the wrong history to be recalling at the moment.”

While there is nothing specific to William Smith in the article, KRM Short gives weight to the enduring national, and international importance of the first rebels. Source: Les Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona

By K.R.M. Short

“…the Revolutionary [War] period, oddly enough, has been one of the least exploited epochs in our national history by the screen.”
(The New York Times, 4 November 1939)

Allegheny Uprising

Frank Nugent’s The New York Times review of Drums Along the Mohawk (Twentieth Century- Fox) did not provide an answer to his implied question. Why had Hollywood largely avoided the period between 1776 and 1783? Excepting The Last of the Mohicans (1936) starring Randolph Scott and a matinee serial of the same name, the pre-1776 colonial period was also largely missing from American screens.

If film producers had been tempted by Revolutionary War stories, the script would have had to treat Great Britain as the enemy. Could Hollywood apply its basic and simplistic formula of a thoroughly despicable and villainous enemy and not have the film banned or boycotted on British and Empire – Commonwealth screens, thus losing valued foreign «coin». Hollywood’s Foreign Departments readily conjured up for their studio heads a vigilant London press headlining the ‘unwarranted’ effrontery of American accusations of the perfidiousness of the Hanoverian monarchy and the brutality of the British military , including German mercenaries. Public opinion and governmental pressure, could well have killed such films at the box office, even if they had escaped the scissors of the British Board of Film Censors, which would have been equally unlikely. (more…)

by Patrick Spero

James Smith lived a remarkable life, or so we are told. In 1799, he published an autobiography titled An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Colonel James Smith. Smith’s autobiography begins in 1755, when as a teenager he enlisted in a militia to help ward off the attacks of French-allied Indians during the Seven Years’ War. Captured while working on a road in the Pennsylvania backcountry, he was adopted by an Indian family and traveled throughout Indian Country. Upon his return, he led an extralegal band of frontier settlers called the Black Boys who harassed Indian traders traveling west and laid siege to Fort Loudon in 1765. During the American Revolution, Smith served as a delegate to Pennsylvania’s Constitutional Convention and a member of the Assembly. Preferring to serve in the military rather than the legislature, he joined the Continental Army, served under Washington, and, later, led militia units in western Pennsylvania. After the war, he traveled to Kentucky where he served once again in the legislature.1 (more…)

By John W. Thompson and Calvin Bricker

The Smith Rebellion of 1765 has been called many things – a riot, an uprising, and an insurrection.  It has also been called the beginning of events that permanently turned American sentiment against Colonial and British rule.  Lately, some have even stretched this to say it had a significant role in shaping thoughts that helped to create the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Whether or not historians and Constitutional legal experts agree on all of these things, one thing stands out pretty clear.  Justice William Smith was a true patriot and American hero who deserves to be recognized alongside the likes of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin.

Indeed, this is unusual acclaim for a man many people in this country have never heard of.  But Justice Smith was the legal force and the brains behind this rebellion.  His views and legal tactics were nothing short of “revolutionary” in the boldness and daring to take on a vastly more powerful Provincial government controlled by the Penns, and the local military arm of British colonial rule – the 42nd Highlander Regiment of the British Army, better known as the Black Watch.

Justice Smith, and his cousin (and brother-in-law) James Smith, worked intricately together, along with most of the other Colonial Justices on the frontier, to thwart illegal war supplies from being traded to the Indians that were under a trade ban issued by Lt. Governor John Penn.  The Smiths and their supporters managed for nearly four months during the spring and summer of 1765 to prevent this illicit trade from happening by destroying any contraband (illegal war supplies such as gunpowder, tomahawks and scalping knives) they found being transported west.  They controlled access along all roads and issued their own “passes” for safe conduct, after they confirmed that travelers carried no contraband.  They also terrorized those merchants (and soldiers) who dared to violate the Governor’s ban, even though the Governor himself did not adhere to it.  Most settlers on the frontier wouldn’t dare attempt to interfere or disrupt the Indian trade sanctioned by the Crown, let alone destroy goods purchased with the King’s money.  But this is what Justice William and James Smith did and they used armed force to do it as well. (more…)

From the Public Opinion July 12, 2010 – By Roscoe Barnes III

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the right to bear arms has possibly elevated the status of the Smith House in Mercersburg, and generated more discussions about preserving the building at its current location off of Main Street.

“It is obvious that Pennsylvania is key to understanding important elements of the political and constitutional foundations of the American past,” wrote Assistant Professor Nathan Kozuskanich of Nipissing University, Canada. “The William Smith house, while not as impressive as Independence Hall, was nonetheless an important focal point on Pennsylvania’s road to the Revolution.” (more…)

From the Public Opinion June 30, 2010 – By Roscoe Barnes III

Leaving the Smith House at its current location may be the best thing for Mercersburg, according to the retired historian who suggested moving the building to Northern Ireland.

If razing the building becomes an option, then moving it to a safe location would be best for preserving its history, Richard MacMaster said in an e-mail Wednesday.

“It is good for the local preservation drive to have a threat from overseas, so that works for all of us,” he wrote. “Ideally every building of historic significance should be preserved on site with an adequate endowment to maintain and staff it. Sadly, that is not always possible.” (more…)

From WHAG25 and your4state.com July 7, 2010

MERCERSBURG, PA – The historic William Smith House is at the center of a controversy in Mercersburg. The nearby fire department says they need to expand, but some community groups want to find a way to preserve the landmark.

The pre-Revolutionary landmark faces three very different futures. It could be bulldozed to the ground, preserved and restored, or it could be shipped to Ireland.

“Apparently there’s someone who wants to buy it, or wants to take the house to move it to Ireland, but that gentleman has not been in contact with us. In fact when it comes to the house very few people contact us about the house, they seem to migrate more toward the historical group than us,” says Fire Chief Dusty Stoner of MMPW Volunteer Fire Department. (more…)

I write to support the campaign to save the Justice William Smith house. The history of the American Revolution has in many respects been a history of ideas, and so it is a treat indeed when we get the opportunity to see, touch, and walk through the places where ideas became action. The reason places like Independence Hall are so popular is because they make the past more tangible and provide the physical setting for the ideas that shaped the American past. It is one thing to read the Declaration of Independence and its assertion of unalienable rights, but it is quite another to walk the halls where independence was debated and actually declared.

Our historical memory of Pennsylvania’s role in the Revolution and early republic has largely been confined to an eastern and urban perspective. So, we know about Thomas Paine and Common Sense, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Jefferson and the signing of the Declaration, and the Grand Convention of 1787, but apart from a few Pennsylvania historians and some locals the names of William and James Smith are largely unknown. And yet, these men were tied to key events that shaped Pennsylvania’s road to the Revolution, and they discussed and acted upon ideas no less important than those in Philadelphia. (more…)

From the Preservation Magazine website

A house in Mercersburg, Pa., has become a place of controversy for the second time in its 200-year history.

Once the meeting place of the “Black Boys,” a citizen army that pre-dated the Revolutionary War, the house is slated to be torn down for a fire station’s parking lot or new facility.

The nearby Mercersburg, Montgomery, Peters & Warren Volunteer Fire Company bought the house in 2009 from a longtime owner.

“We bought the property and the structure just for the land, with no intention of doing anything with that house except removing it,” Chief Dusty Stoner says. “No one [cared] about this house until we bought it.”

When locals found out about the potential demolition of the house, a group, Save the Justice William Smith House, Inc., formed to save it. (more…)

Dear Sir or Madam:

I write in support of the campaign to preserve the William Smith House in Mercersburg. By doing so we have an opportunity to commemorate a relatively unknown episode in Pennsylvania’s history that, in its own distinctive way, provided an important precursor to the American Revolution. I do not mean to intrude on the present-day concerns of the community, especially with regard to the vital matter of safety, but I urge the fire department not only to give further time for excavation but to take measures to preserve the Smith house permanently as a historic site.

In March 1765, at a place called Sideling Hill in what was then Cumberland County, a region newly settled by colonists from the northern Irish province of Ulster, a group of men attacked a wagon train en route from Philadelphia to Fort Pitt loaded with goods for the Indian trade. This region had borne the brunt of Indian attacks during the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Rebellion, and the settlers wished to ensure that the goods being sent west would not be used against them. Their suspicions proved justified when the wagons turned out to include not only blankets, shirts, and beads, but also tomahawks and knives. Known as the “Black Boys” because they painted their faces black for anonymity, the raiders were led by the former Indian captive, Colonel James Smith, whose cousin William, a local Justice of the Peace, cooperated with the Black Boys and made his tavern available as their meeting place. (more…)