"Terror in the Ramapos" Topic

"While there were many Revolutionary-era outlaws, Claudius Smith and the Cowboys of the Ramapos stand apart. Their story has long been exaggerated and romanticized through local legends, but the true account of their actions is far more violent. Smith and his band—comprised of his children, outlaws, deserters, Native Americans, and local Tories—terrorized the Whigs of Orange County in southeastern New York during the Revolution. The gang used beatings, robberies, and murder against combatants and noncombatants alike throughout the middle years of the Revolution, retreating into the dens of the Ramapo Mountains for safety. In committing these acts, the gang executed one of the era's first and only campaigns of terrorism.

Claudius Smith was born on Long Island in 1736 and relocated with his family to Orange County, New York, near present day Monroe. In 1762 at the age of twenty-six, Smith enlisted in the Ulster County Militia under Captain James Clinton to fight for the British in the French and Indian War.[1] In the following seven years after the war, Smith's criminal reputation grew. In 1769, a newspaper advertisement appeared in the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury offering a fifty-dollar reward for Smith who recently escaped from jail after being confined for "debt, theft, and rioting." The advertisement depicted Smith as having a white beard, pale complexion, short hair, and powder burns under his right eye. The newspaper warned that Smith went by the aliases James Reed and John Wright, and that he was "a great bully and will fight wherever he goes, being very conceited of his strength." At the time of his escape, he wore raggedy clothes but would not for long, as he was a remarkable thief as well as "a noted horse stealer."[2] Four years later, an advertisement in the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury boasted that Newark, New Jersey, lawmen apprehended "the notorious Claudius Smith, who justly deserves to be rank'd among the first in his profession [horse stealing] in this country." According to the advertisement, Smith escaped from prison four separate times because he had, "a dexterity peculiar to himself," and added that he utilized multiple disguises to mask his crimes…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Very interesting. Having been to Ringwood Manor and reading this article really adds some fun historical flavor.

Thanks for sharing!

Last year we hiked to the Claudius Smith's Den. More a rock overhang than a cave but interesting none the less. Difficult terrain all about.

The site the article comes from is a great source of information.

Most interesting, and as Pan Marek pointed out, there's another resource link provided with the article -

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Happy you enjoyed it my friends!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Fascinating. Lots of shades of grey. I love the fact that he and his crew presented themselves as the victims.

I am surprised this notable delinquent and his crew have not entered into the wider folklore.

"Bad man on the right side"