They determined the judicial outcome of civil cases, organized the local militia, arrested and tried those suspected of criminal or subversive activities.
The committee ordered that no person should come into or go out of the county without a pass from some acknowledged public body; and was authorized to arrest "suspicious" people, some of whom they fined, while they imprisoned others.
[citation needed] In January, 1776, Isaac Paris, Chairman of the Committee of Safety, sent a letter to General Schuyler that six or seven hundred Loyalists had gathered and were under arms at Johnstown.
[citation needed] At the Battle of Oriskany, Samuel Billington, John Dygert, and Jacob Snell (members of the committee) were killed.
Following the Battle of Lexington in Massachusetts, 49 county residents gathered at the courthouse and issued the Tryon Resolves, a declaration of resistance to coercive actions by the British Empire against its North American colonies.