Joshua Hett Smith House

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.

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).

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.

[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.

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.