I sometimes think that the news of wartime events happening in Colonial Orange County, New York was shared informally and close to home. That information important to the common folk spread by word of mouth or by the occasional screed posted to a tree. A group of yokels trying to read news that happened months ago. Here’s an example of well written reportage, only a couple weeks old, of events in Smith’s Clove shared in a widely read newspaper hundreds of miles away.
Williamsburg, Virginia · Saturday, July 03, 1779
POUGHKEEPSIE, June 14.
Last week six daring villains in Smith’s Clove, had the audacity to
fire on two of our light horse as they were passing in the rear of the arm
one of which they wounded in the body, and broke the thigh bone of
the other. They were immediately pursued by a party from the army,
and were taken, one of them were hung, the other five were conducted
to headquarters, and a court being held on them, they were found
guilty and received sentence of death, pursuant to which four were hang-
ed, and it being insinuated to the fifth, that if he would discover his
accomplices, he would be pardoned, which offer of clemency he eagerly
embraced, and conducted a party of our people to a cave in the mountain
the depository of all their plunder, where lay concealed five more, whom
they secured. Various articles of plunder were found in their den.
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