James Smith, York, York County

I'm not often speechless, but I definitely had a few dumbstruck moments upon logging into the blog. Last week's quest, an examination of the work of William G. McGowan, was shared by a number of individuals on Facebook, as well as two large organizations - Anthracite Coal National Park and the Wilkes-Barre Preservation Society. As a result, the hit count catapulted it into the #1 spot on my all-time statistics record! In just six days, it managed to overtake the piece about the Moravian Cemetery in Bethlehem, which is over three years old. I'm truly floored and very grateful for all the shares.

Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary, so husband Kevin and I have plans to go down to Philadelphia for the first time in over a year. Catching some Philly markers isn't the focus of the trip, but you can bet it's going to happen, because I'm having a serious problem with the blog - I'm running out of markers. That's not to say that they aren't there (the commonwealth has more than 2,000, as I've noted on other occasions); I just don't have pictures of them. The only county where I've literally run out of markers is Carbon County, since they only have six and I've done them all, but I definitely need more. So this trip to Philly should help.

Meanwhile, for today we're going to head back to scenic York. I've already told you about one signer of the Declaration of Independence who's buried in the city, but there's another one across town.

The marker stands at the gates of the
First Presbyterian Church property
on East Market Street

James Smith had quite a bit in common with fellow signer George Taylor, starting with the fact that he was born in Ireland. Specifically, he was born in Ulster, but it's not certain when; according to something I read, he was a bit of a notorious prankster and liked to make people guess how old he was without actually confirming any answers. Several sources give him a birthdate of September 17, 1719, but his headstone disagrees, so who knows. When he was around twelve years old, his family moved to William Penn's colony, settling in what is today Chester County. His father (whose name we don't know) was a reasonably successful farmer, and young James was educated by local clergy before attending the Philadelphia Academy. Once he finished his studies there, he joined his brother George in law school - for fun, it's said - and in 1745 he passed the bar.

Initially James practiced law in Cumberland County, but since that was still a pretty wild and untamed frontier in those days, he didn't get a whole lot of clients. So after a few years, he moved to York, where he spent most of the rest of his life. In or about the year 1760, James married Eleanor Armor, a woman from Delaware only a few years younger than himself. They had five children - Margaret, Mary, Elizabeth, George, and Arthur.

Engraving by Ole Erekson, circa 1876,
created for the centennial of the 
Declaration of Independence.
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

In addition to his law practice, he - again, like our buddy George - became an ironmaster; he became the owner, in the 1760s, of the Codorus Furnace in York County. The furnace has its own marker and is in fact still standing, so I'll need to get out to see it one of these days. Unfortunately for James, he wasn't very successful as an ironmaster, and lost a lot of money. He himself blamed this on his own bad judgment in putting two assistants in charge of managing the place, "one of whom was a knave, the other a fool." (My post about George Taylor says that he was the only ironmaster to sign the Declaration - this is true, because by that time, James was a former ironmaster.) Still, his various pursuits meant that he was regarded as something of a leader in the York region. 

Meanwhile, tensions were brewing with Great Britain, and James found the situation troubling. He first started getting involved with the matter in 1774, when he attended a provincial assembly and presented a paper he had written. His Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great Britain over the Colonies in America urged colonists to boycott all British goods. He thought that hitting the Brits in their pocketbooks was the best way to convince Parliament to ease up on the colonies. His suggestion was taken seriously, and when the First Continental Congress convened that fall, they began pushing for exactly such a boycott. In that same year, James organized a volunteer militia company in York, which quickly grew into a battalion, though - being in his mid-fifties - he declined offers of being said battalion's leader and insisted they needed a younger man. He continued to make a name for himself as a proponent of American independence, serving in the Pennsylvania state assembly.

In 1776, the Second Continental Congress decided to replace all five of the delegates from Pennsylvania, who were loyalists. James was one of the replacement delegates, right along with George Taylor, and got the privilege of signing the Declaration of Independence. Accompanied by two men named Captain Francis Wade and Dr. Young, James rode back to Yorktown with a printed copy of the completed Declaration. According to tradition, he personally helped to hoist the York liberty bell up to the cupola of the county courthouse, where it was rung to summon people to the town square so the Declaration could be read to them. He continued to serve in the Congress for the next two years, which was especially convenient for him since it was relocated to Yorktown, and then returned to the state assembly.

In 1781, James was elected a brigadier general of the state militia, and also a judge of the Pennsylvania High Court of Errors and Appeals. He continued to practice law in York until his death on July 11, 1806, at which time he was believed to be the oldest lawyer in the county. According to his tombstone (seen at right), he was 93 years old when he died; if that's true, then the 1719 birthdate frequently ascribed to him can't be correct. We'll never know for sure, because they just didn't keep good records back then. His wife Eleanor followed him in 1808, and they're buried in the beautiful, tranquil churchyard at the First Presbyterian Church of York, as are four of their five children.

An unfortunate postscript to James's story is that he has no living descendants. Of his five children, he outlived three, and only one - his second daughter Mary - had children of her own. She actually married James Kelly, the widower of her younger sister Elizabeth. Only two of their daughters survived to adulthood and got married, and neither of them had any children. But despite the lack of heirs, James Smith is still remembered in his adopted hometown for all the good he did.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Author unknown. "James Smith." Signers of the Declaration of Independence: Short biographies on each of the 56 Declaration signers. USHistory.org

James Smith at the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence

James Smith at Revolutionary-war.net

Goodrich, Charles Augustus, and Thomas W. Lewis. Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. Updated edition from RW Classic Books, October 2018.

Just for fun: James is ranked at an impressive #4 on "The Signers of the Declaration of Independence in Order of Hotness." Make of that what you will.

The Colonel James Smith-Yorktown chapter of the NSDAR

Official website of the First Presbyterian Church of York

James Smith at FindAGrave.com

James Smith at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.