Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith (1747-1834) was the fourth child of Benjamin Smith and Abigail Church of Bristol. He lived in Warren. In 1769, he married Molly Miller. Joseph and Molly had ten children: Barnard, Benjamin, Joseph, William, James, Anthony, Job, Molly, Sally, and Eliza. During The Revolution, Joseph served in the Warren Militia Company. During the British raid on Warren and Bristol in 1778, he was captured and “thrown into a loathsome prison ship, where disease and death reigned without rival.” Starting in 1782, he served as a justice of the peace. In the early 19th century, he owned a wharf in Warren. Joseph (or someone sharing his name) served in the General Assembly as a senator in 1830. He (or someone sharing his name) was a proprietor of the Methodist Episcopal Church meeting house when it requested incorporation from the state in 1834. Joseph’s obituary in the Northern Star records that “It may, perhaps, be worthy of remark, that although the house in which he peacefully expired, has been built 80 years and occupied by him no less than 60, yet (with the exception of a soldier brought from Rhode Island after Sullivan’s expedition,) the death of Mr. S. is the first which has occurred within its walls.” He is buried in the North Burial Ground.