By Conrad Krapf

In 1956, Louise Smith Borden Waring donated an item to the Fall River Historical Society, so that it might be preserved and shown to future generations. She was a descendant of Josiah Smith, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and donated a piece of clothing that had belonged to him. The item itself is on the face of it rather unremarkable, a blue greatcloak with some shreds of green wool inside and a brown velvet collar. For several decades, it was on display, in direct sunlight and uncovered, simply resting on a dress stand. Little was known about the cloak, or indeed the man by whom it was owned. Over the past few months, I’ve been working to turn this garment without a history into a greatcloak that can tell its own story.

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Josiah Smith’s life started in South Hadley, Massachusetts, on March 1, 1757. He was born to Josiah Smith Sr. (1707-1782), and his recruitment records show that he lived in or near the town until the Revolutionary War began. He enlisted as a private in August 1775 and found himself rising through the ranks after a few years as a private, all the way to lieutenant by the end of the war. He served in the Massachusetts Line. His service record in the war was that of a valuable soldier, volunteering for dangerous positions in the Battle of Stony Point and taking part in multiple battles.

He appears to have retired from the Army by January 1781, just under a year before the effective end of the war in December of the same year, and two years before the legal end of the war due to the Treaty of Paris. Through my research, one point of contention was raised by his own gravestone, which claims that he was a member of Washington’s Life Guard, the predecessor to the Secret Service, a bodyguard unit that kept Washington safe in the field. This claim, however, must be placed under some scrutiny. Smith’s service record in the Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War has no mention of assignment to the Life Guard, with a similar lack of reference in his service record according to the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was a member. Unfortunately, the records of the men who were members of the Life Guard were destroyed in the Naval Yard Fire of 1815. A reconstruction by scholar Carlos E. Godfrey in 1904, which, according to him, only excludes those who were “killed, wounded, or missing in the Battle of King’s Bridge, July 3, 1781,” does not include Josiah Smith. It remains possible that he was attached to the unit and these sources have failed to list his name, but it is unlikely. The most likely answer is that, given his 92-year lifespan, a story of his guarding the tent of Washington on one of the several battles in which they both took part, or perhaps fighting together, evolved into his being a member of the Life Guard.

One story, which I was unable to verify in any way, but simply could not ignore, comes from the Memorials of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, printed in 1890. It describes Smith and several other soldiers pursuing Native Americans, before being trapped in a counterattack by the Natives. During their retreat, every one of his comrades was killed, but Smith was saved by “the traitor Arnold,” no doubt General Benedict Arnold, who “clinching him by the shoulder, rode off with him, making a successful escape, although his hat and clothing were pierced with balls fired by the Indians in pursuit.”

Smith married Mercy Shaw (1770-1844) in 1788 in Middleborough, Massachusetts, and would have six children with her. Of their three sons, George Shaw Smith (1791-1810) and Jedidiah Smith (1795-1819) would die at sea, while Martin Smith would live the longest of any of the children, born in 1799 and dying in 1884, the only child of the two to have a family of his own. Of Josiah’s daughters, it seems that none had a family, with Polly Smith dying days after her birth in 1790, Mercy Smith (1793-1838) never marrying according to available records, and Mahala Smith, whose birth date is unknown, but likely in 1813, as according to her gravestone; she died at the age of 11 in early January 1825. After his wife Mercy’s death in 1844, Josiah willed half of his house and estate to his son Martin and his family, with the understanding that Martin would take full control of the property when Josiah died. Given that Josiah would have been about 88 at the time, it is likely that Martin and his family supported Josiah in his old age. Four years after his wife, and with only one surviving child, Josiah Smith passed away on July 7th, 1848, presumably leaving a beautiful blue greatcloak to his son.

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The exterior of the cloak is made up of a fine handwoven fabric dyed blue, while the interior panel was a green wool, now mostly removed leaving only remnants. The collar of the greatcloak is a fine brown velvet, likely also handmade and imported from Europe. Given the style of manufacturing, it was likely made somewhere in between 1790 and 1810, as machine woven apparel began to filter into the market after this period in the United States. While wool products were common, the Colonies had relied on exporting wool to Britain, where craftsmen would produce the high-quality finished products, and after the Revolution, this trade network was cut off. Post-Revolution, linsey-woolsey, a fabric made by weaving linen and wool together, continued to be used to stretch out the wool available on the United States market, which explains why the largest portion of the cloak, the exterior, would be made of very high-quality linsey-woolsey. The interior green wool and brown velvet collar further imply a high price, and it is clearly the cloak of a gentleman. The brown velvet especially implies wealth, as even this small amount of fabric would have been prohibitively expensive to import and tailor onto the cloak. Through this greatcloak we can confirm that Josiah Smith was such a gentleman, as he was referred to in several locations with the title “Esquire,” often used to denote wealthy men or lawyers, both of which Smith may have been, given his profession of Justice of the Peace and his holding of land.

Altogether, a picture is painted by what we can observe of the surviving cloak. It was expensive, handmade, and stylish for the late 1700s or early 1800s. Most likely this cloak was worn by Smith after his service in the Revolution and shows his higher social and economic status in Plymouth County. The cloak is in fantastic condition for what is likely a 200-year-old piece of clothing, although it needs restoration to stabilize it. Moth hole damage, small tears, and dye degradation due to acidity (the dye on the scraps of green wool has faded due to being in contact with the highly acidic blue linsey-woolsey) have left discoloration and damage along several sections of the cloak. But despite that damage, it is an exemplar of an incredibly rare surviving article, as men’s outerwear from the 18th Century very rarely survived to the modern era. It is part of a classic story of American success in the early years of the country, of a man rising from a young private in the Massachusetts line to wealthy local politician, acquiring a fashionable greatcloak along the way.

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I’d like to extend my thanks to Jonathan Lane and J. Archer O’Reilly of the Massachusetts chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati for their help in providing a biography of Josiah Smith from their own records, which greatly aided in my research.