CENTER MORICHES, NY – The Long Island Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Eastport American Legion recently gathered to honor Colonel Josiah Smith, an American Revolution veteran.
A street marker was dedicated in his honor in East Moriches in upstate New York at 11 a.m. on Saturday, December 3. The marker states that he was an American patriot who fought in the Battle of Long Island and was Treasurer of Suffolk County.
Courtesy of SAR
Daughters of the American Revolution, Josiah Smith Chapter also attended. The event was held at Col. Josiah Smith Cemetery on Paquatuck Avenue in East Moriches and included a wreath-laying ceremony at his grave.
According to LongIslandGenealogy.com, Colonel Josiah Smith was born in East Moriches on November 28, 1723; he was the son of Nathaniel Smith and grandson of Richard (Bull) Smith, founder of Smithtown.
In 1742 he married Susannah, daughter of Judge Hugh Gelston of Southampton. He was a man of considerable wealth, “having inherited a large estate from his father and holding a high position in the county,” the website added.
Before the Revolution, Josiah Smith was a colonel in the militia, and at a meeting of the residents of the South Haven community on June 13, 1774, it was elected that Captain Josiah Smith, William Smith, Colonel Nathaniel Woodhull, Colonel William Floyd , Thomas Fanning, Captain David Mulford and Capt. Jonathan Baker, “to be a standing committee for this location to correspond with the Correspondence Committee in the City of New York,” the website said.
When the revolution broke out, he was appointed colonel of the Minutemen regiment; He also organized the Suffolk County Regiment.
“On August 12, 1776, Colonel Smith returned to his home in East Moriches and, according to ‘Mather’s Refugees to Connecticut,’ went to Connecticut in November 1776 to escape from the British, who at that time held Long Island must have been for some time later returned to his home, as an item copied by town historian Osborn Shaw from an old notebook owned by Colonel Smith (formerly owned by the late Riley P. Howell) states that he was seized at his home by two British soldiers on July 1 1779 and taken to the Provost in New York, where he was held until September 24 of that year, when he was freed and returned to his homeland.
He died in 1786, the website said, and was buried in a corner of a field near his homestead. His gravestone is currently maintained by Brookhaven Town as a historic landmark, according to the website.
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