United States House of Representatives: History, Art, & Archives
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SMITH, Richard

SMITH, Richard
Image courtesy of the New York Public Library
SMITH, Richard
1735–1803

Office

Continental Congress

State/Territory

New Jersey

Party

none

Congress(es)

Continental

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Concise Biography

SMITH, Richard, a Delegate from New Jersey; born in Burlington, N.J., March 22, 1735; educated under private teachers and in Friends' schools; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1762, and practiced in Philadelphia, Pa., and later in Burlington, N.J.; commissioned county clerk of Burlington, N.J., on December 7, 1762; Delegate to the First Continental Congress, 1774; Delegate to the Second Continental Congress, 1775-1776; resigned from the Second Continental Congress on June 12, 1776; member of the New Jersey state council in 1776; elected treasurer of New Jersey and served from 1776 to February 15, 1777, when he resigned; moved to Laurens, N.Y., in 1790, and thence to Philadelphia in 1799; died near Natchez, Miss., September 17, 1803; interment in Natchez Cemetery.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

Haverford College
Special Collections, Magill Library

Haverford, PA
Papers: 1747-1749, 67 pages. Richard Smith transcribes his uncle Caleb Raper's manuscript of poetry, some dealing with persecution of the Quakers, and treatment of the poor, mainly biblical themes. Caleb Raper probably transcribed this same material from an earlier writer. Richard Smith begins this notebook with a short genealogical record of his family.

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division

Washington, DC
Microfilm: 1775-1776, 1 volume. A diary of Richard Smith written during 1775 and 1776.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Smith, Richard. A Tour of the Hudson, the Mohawk, the Susquehanna, and the Delaware in 1769; Being the Journal of Richard Smith of Burlington, New Jersey. Edited, with a short history of pioneer settlements. 1964. Reprint, Fleischmanns, N.Y.: Purple Mountain Press, 1989.

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