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Continental Congresses

William Smith (1728–1814)

William Smith spend his life serving in colonial and state offices in Maryland, where he was a delegate to the Committee of Correspondence (1774), the Committee of Observation (1775), and the Continental Congress (1777).

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The son of James Smith and Mary Smith, William Smith was born in Donegal Township, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on 12 April 1728. [1]

William Smith moved with his older brother John Smith in 1761 from Pennsylvania to Baltimore, Maryland, to become a merchant. In 1774, he was named as a member of the Maryland Committee of Correspondence, and, the following year, to that colony’s Committee of Observation. (These groups, also known as Committees of Inspection and Observation, oversaw the enforcement of the economic boycott of British goods as instituted by the Continental Association.) [2]

On 15 February 1777, the Maryland legislature elected Smith to a seat in the Continental Congress. He attended sessions of the body from about 18 February to about 27 February 1777, about 2 April to about 5 May 1777, from about 5 July to 18 September 1777, and from about 4 October to about 19 December 1777. Historian Edmund Cody Burnett, perhaps demonstrating the near-impossibility of discerning sources on Smith, wrote, “The appointment of ‘Mr. Smith’ on a committee Jan. 16, 1777, is assigned by the editor of the Journals to William Smith, whereas it was James Smith of Pennsylvania.” [3] A Pennsylvania newspaper reported that on 18 February “The General Assembly of this state have elected the Hon. Thomas Johnson, jun. Esq; Governor—Charles Carroll, sen. Josiah Polk, John Rogers, Edward Lloyd, and John Contee, Esqrs. are chosen Members of the Council—Samuel Chase, Benjamin Rumsey, William Smith, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, Thomas Stone, and William Paca, Esqrs. are appointed [as] Delegates to represent this state in the Honorable Congress.” [4]

In a collection of the papers of Robert Morris, the financier of the American Revolution, a description of Smith is given: “William Smith, [a] prominent merchant of Baltimore, attended Congress in 1777, where on 5 July he was elected, along with Robert Morris, to the Committee of Commerce that replaced the earlier Secret Committee of Trade. On 9 May 1778, Congress elected him to the Navy Board of the Middle Department, from which he resigned on 22 July to devote his full attention to private business. He engaged with John Holker and Morris in supplying flour for the French and Spanish forces.” [5]

Following his limited Continental Congress service, Smith “engaged in mercantile pursuits,” probably in Baltimore. [6] Under the mandate of the new US Constitution, signed in Philadelphia in 1787, elections for a new US House of Representatives were held across the thirteen states in November 1788. Smith was elected from one of the seats allotted to Maryland, and he served as an anti-Administration (in opposition to the administration of President George Washington) representative in the First Congress (1789-91). Despite this opposition to Washington’s government, in early 1791, after he left the Congress, Smith was named as the first auditor of the US Treasury, but he only served from 16 July to 27 November 1791. In his final service, Smith was a member of the Maryland state Senate in 1801 and 1802.

William Smith died in Baltimore on 27 March 1814, two weeks short of his 76th birthday. He was buried in the Westminster Burial Ground in Baltimore. His nephew, Robert Smith (1757-1842), served as the secretary of the Navy (1801-09) and acting attorney general (1805) in the administration of President Thomas Jefferson, and as the secretary of state (1809-11) in the administration of President James Madison.

[1] [1] William Smith family tree, online at http://www.geni.com/people/Hon-William-Smith/6000000019485540602.

[2] [2] William Smith official congressional biography, online at http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000624.

[3] [3] Edmund Cody Burnett, ed., “Letters of Members of the Continental Congress” (Washington, DC: Published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington; eight volumes, 1921-36), II:lxix.

[4] [4] “Baltimore, February 18,” The Pennsylvania Evening Post, 22 February 1777, 95.

[5] [5] Ferguson, E. James, ed., “The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781-1784” (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press; nine volumes, 1973- ), I:167.

[6] [6] Onofrio, Jan, “Maryland Biographical Dictionary” (St. Clair Shores, MI: Somerset Publishers, Inc., 1999), 483.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
"William Smith (1728–1814)." Continental Congresses, edited by Mark Grossman, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0397.
APA 7th
William Smith (1728–1814). Continental Congresses, In M. Grossman (Ed.), Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0397.
CMOS 17th
"William Smith (1728–1814)." Continental Congresses, Edited by Mark Grossman. Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0397.