Joshua Hett Smith House (demolished), also known as Treason House, was a historic house in West Haverstraw, New York. It stood on a hill overlooking the King's Ferry at Stony Point, an important crossing of the Hudson River. During the American Revolutionary War, General Benedict Arnold met at the house with British Major John André, while plotting to surrender the fort at West Point. Later, the house had a brief tenure as headquarters for General George Washington.
The house was built about 1770 on the property of Thomas Smith, a lawyer in New York City, who inherited the land following the 1769 death of his father, Judge William Smith. Judge Smith had been a major property owner in the area, and his holdings were divided among his six sons and several daughters. Another son was Joshua Hett Smith, who was living in this house he called "Belmont" in 1780. [1] [2]
Arnold became a celebrated hero early in the Revolutionary War. Severely wounded in the 1777 Battles of Saratoga, his shattered left leg left him unable to ride a horse or walk without pain. In June 1778, he was made military governor of southeast Pennsylvania, stationed in Philadelphia. His taste for high living and use of soldiers for personal tasks made him unpopular. In April 1779, he married Peggy Shippen, the daughter of a prominent Tory. That same month, he began a treasonous correspondence with British General Henry Clinton. By the summer, he was informing Clinton of American troop locations and strengths, and negotiating a fee to switch sides.
Arnold angrily resigned his military command of Philadelphia in March 1780, in response to a Congressional inquiry into expenses he incurred during the failed 1775–76 invasion of Quebec and an upcoming court-martial (in April, at which he was cleared of all but minor charges). In mid-July 1780, he wrote to Clinton offering to surrender the fort at West Point for £20,000. [3] It was not until July 31 that he met with Washington to request command of the fort, and August 3 when he was installed as its commander.
The fort at West Point, located on a hill above a narrow bend in the Hudson River, was the key military site for defending the river. The British believed that control of the river would isolate New England from the rest of the Colonies, and cause the rebellion to fail. [4]
While en route to West Point, Arnold renewed his acquaintance with Joshua Hett Smith, who had spied for both sides. [5] They were co-conspirators by September 10, when the general stayed overnight at Smith's house, located about 15 miles south of the fort. A meeting with Major André was to take place in the early morning hours of September 11, but the rendezvous had to be abandoned when Smith's rowboat was fired upon. [6] Arnold and André finally met before dawn on September 22: André sailed up the Hudson River aboard HMS Vulture; a rowboat containing Arnold and Smith (and two of Smith's allies rowing) met the British warship mid-river and carried André to the western shore. Arnold and André talked through the night at Smith's house, but the Vulture was fired upon and moved downriver, stranding the British major behind American lines.
André, despite being given a pass signed by Arnold, was captured, tried as a spy, and hanged. Arnold made it safely to New York City, where he was given a commission in the British Army.
Joshua Hett Smith (May 27, 1749 – 1818) was the son of Judge William Smith and brother of Chief Justice of the Province of New York William Smith. [7]
Joshua Hett Smith, at whose house, near Stony Point, Arnold and André held their interview (September 22), was tried by a military court and acquitted. He was soon afterwards arrested by the civil authorities and committed to jail at Goshen, Orange County, whence he escaped and made his way through the country, in the disguise of a woman, to New York. Smith went to England with the British army at the close of the war, and in 1808 published a book in London entitled An Authentic Narrative of the Causes which led to the Death of Major André , a work of very little reliable authority. He died at New York in 1818. [8]
The house served as Washington's headquarters from August 20 to 25, 1781. The American and French armies were then on the march to Yorktown, Virginia, and it took four days to ferry the troops, horses, wagons and cannons across the Hudson River.
The house came to be known as "Treason House," and the hill overlooking the Hudson River was named "Treason Hill."
The house was in a state of disrepair in the mid-1910s, when a campaign was launched to buy and restore it. [9] The New York State Hospital for Crippled Children stood on an adjacent property, and wished to expand. The house was demolished in 1929 for that expansion. [10] The hospital was renamed in 1974 to honor actress Helen Hayes. [11]
Tappan is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Orangetown, Rockland County, New York. It is located northwest of Alpine, New Jersey, north of Northvale, New Jersey and Rockleigh, New Jersey, northeast of Old Tappan, New Jersey, east/southeast of Nauraushaun and Pearl River, south of Orangeburg, southwest of Sparkill, and west of Palisades; Tappan shares a border with each. The population was 6,613 at the time of the 2010 census.
West Haverstraw is a village incorporated in 1883 in the town of Haverstraw, Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located northwest of Haverstraw village, east of Thiells, south of the hamlet of Stony Point, and west of the Hudson River. The population was 10,165 at the 2010 census. The majority of the hamlet of Garnerville is contained in the village of West Haverstraw.
Stony Point is a town in Rockland County, New York, United States. It is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. The town is located north of the town of Haverstraw, east and south of Orange County, and west of the Hudson River and Westchester County. The population was 15,059 at the 2010 census. The name of the town is derived from a prominent projection into the Hudson River.
John André was a major in the British Army and head of its Secret Service in America during the American Revolutionary War. He was hanged as a spy by the Continental Army for assisting Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York, to the British. André is typically remembered favorably by historians as a man of honor, and several prominent American leaders of the time including Alexander Hamilton and Marquis de Lafayette did not agree with his fate.
Benedict Arnold was an American military officer who served during the Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British side of the conflict in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point in New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort there to British forces, but the plot was discovered in September 1780, whereupon he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the conflict, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army, and placed in command of the American Legion. He led the British army in battle against the soldiers whom he had once commanded, after which his name became synonymous with treason and betrayal.
Robert Howe was a Continental Army general from the Province of North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War. The descendant of a prominent family in North Carolina, Howe was one of five generals, and the only major general, in the Continental Army from that state. He also played a role in the colonial and state governments of North Carolina, serving in the legislative bodies of both.
Margaret "Peggy" Shippen was the highest-paid spy in the American Revolution, and was the second wife of General Benedict Arnold.
David Williams was a militiaman from the state of New York during the American Revolution. In 1780, he was one of three men to capture British Major John André, who was convicted and executed as a spy for conspiring with treasonous Continental general and commandant of West Point Benedict Arnold.
"To the Inhabitants of America" is an open letter written by former Continental Army Major General Benedict Arnold not long after his defection to the British side in the American Revolutionary War. The letter, dated October 7, 1780, was published in New York on October 11th. In it, he explains his justification for his actions.
Pierre Van Cortlandt was an American politician who served as the first Lieutenant Governor of New York.
William Smith was a lawyer, historian, speaker, loyalist, and eventually the loyalist Chief Justice of the Province of New York from 1780 to 1782 and Chief Justice of the Province of Quebec from 1786, later Lower Canada, from 1791 until his death.
The Reformed Church of Tappan in Tappan, Rockland County, New York is a historic church. It is a contributing property to the Tappan Historic District.
Beverley Robinson, was a Virginia-born soldier who became a wealthy colonist of the Province of New York and is best known as a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War. Robinson married Susanna Philipse, heiress to a significant share of the roughly 250 square miles (650 km2) Highland Patent on the lower Hudson River in the Province of New York.
George Washington commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). After serving as President of the United States, he briefly was in charge of a new army in 1798.
Sugarloaf Hill is a 785 ft (239 m) peak along the Hudson River in Putnam County, New York, part of the Hudson Highlands. It was named by the Dutch for its resemblance in outline to a sugarloaf when sailing up the river towards it.
The military career of Benedict Arnold in 1775 and 1776 covers many of the military actions that occurred in the northernmost Thirteen Colonies early in the American Revolutionary War. Arnold began the war as a captain in Connecticut's militia, a position to which he was elected in March 1775. Following the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord the following month, his company marched northeast to assist in the siege of Boston that followed. Arnold proposed to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety an action to seize Fort Ticonderoga in New York, which he knew was poorly defended. They issued a colonel's commission to him on May 3, 1775, and he immediately rode off to the west, where he arrived at Castleton in the disputed New Hampshire Grants in time to participate with Ethan Allen and his men in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. He followed up that action with a bold raid on Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River north of Lake Champlain. He then resigned his Massachusetts commission after a command dispute with the head of a detachment of Connecticut militia troops that arrived in June to reinforce Ticonderoga.
The military career of Benedict Arnold from 1777 to 1779 was marked by two important events in his career. In July 1777, Arnold was assigned to the Continental Army's Northern Department, where he played pivotal roles in bringing about the failure of British Brigadier Barry St. Leger's siege of Fort Stanwix and the American success in the battles of Saratoga, which fundamentally altered the course of the war.
The military career of Benedict Arnold in 1781 consisted of service in the British Army. Arnold had changed sides in September 1780, after his plot was exposed to surrender the key Continental Army outpost at West Point. He spent the rest of 1780 recruiting Loyalists for a new regiment called the American Legion. Arnold was then sent to Virginia with 1,600 men in late December by General Sir Henry Clinton, with instructions to raid Richmond and then establish a strong fortification at Portsmouth.
Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor is a 2003 American television film directed by Mikael Salomon and starring Aidan Quinn, Kelsey Grammer, Flora Montgomery and John Light. It portrays the career of Benedict Arnold in the American Revolutionary War and his dramatic switch in 1780 from fighting for American Independence to being a Loyalist trying to preserve British rule in America. Arnold's relationships with his wife Peggy Shippen and the British officer John André are focused on. The friction between Arnold and General Horatio Gates, portrayed near the beginning of the film, was historically accurate. The movie points out that, before his treason, Arnold was considered a patriot and a hero. A letter from General Washington is read at the beginning where he enthusiastically recommends Arnold for promotion saying that there is no general in the army more deserving and even comparing him to Hannibal. The movie briefly documents Arnold's final years of exile in England in which he laments his treasonous acts, realizing that he is despised and that people compare him with Judas and Lucifer.
The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York, from the cities of Albany and Troy southward to Yonkers in Westchester County. Depending upon the definition delineating its boundaries, the Hudson Valley encompasses a growing metropolis which is home to between 3 and 3.5 million residents centered along the north-south axis of the Hudson River.
Coordinates: 41°12′48″N73°59′18.51″W / 41.21333°N 73.9884750°W