William Stephens Smith
William Stephens Smith was a United States Representative from New York. He married Abigail "Nabby" Adams, the daughter of President John Adams, so was a brother-in-law of President John Quincy Adams, an uncle of Charles Francis Adams Sr.. Born in Suffolk County on Long Island, he graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1774, studied law for a short time, he served in the Revolutionary Army as aide-de-camp to general John Sullivan in 1776. Smith fought in the Battle of Long Island, was wounded at Harlem Heights, fought at the Battle of White Plains, was promoted to lieutenant colonel at the Battle of Trenton and fought at the Battle of Monmouth and Newport, he was on the staff of General Lafayette in 1780 and 1781, became an adjutant in the Corps of Light Infantry transferred to the staff of George Washington. He was secretary of the Legation at London in 1784. While there, he met and courted John Adams's daughter Abigail, whom he married in 1786, he returned to America in 1788. Smith was appointed by President Washington to be the first United States Marshal for the District of New York in 1789, supervisor of revenue.
He was one of the originators of the Society of the Cincinnati, served as its president from 1795 to 1797. He was appointed Surveyor of the Port of New York by President John Adams in 1800. During this period, the Smiths bought land in what was the countryside outside of New York City, planned to build an estate, which they called Mount Vernon, in honor of George Washington, they never lived there, but a carriage house on the property was converted to a hotel and is now operated as the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum. Along with the General Francisco de Miranda, the Colonel Smith raised private funds, procured weapons, recruited soldiers of fortune to liberate Venezuela of Spanish colonial rule; this action was inspired by Smith's renewal of acquaintance with Miranda, whom Smith had first met when he was John Adams's secretary in London. On 2 February 1806, a force of 200 filibusters, including Smith's son William Steuben, set sail to Venezuela on a chartered merchant vessel, the Leander armored by Samuel G. Ogden.
In Jacmel, Miranda acquired two other ships, the Bacchus and the Bee. On April 28 after a botched landing attempt in Ocumare de la Costa resulted in two Spanish garda costas capturing the Bacchus and Bee. Sixty men were prisoners, including Smith's son, put on trial in Puerto Cabello for piracy, ten were sentenced to death by hanging, their bodies were quartered, with pieces sent to nearby towns as a warning. William Steuben Smith had survived. Miranda aboard the Leander escaped escorted by the packet ship HMS Lilly to the British islands of Grenada and Trinidad where the governor Sir Thomas Hislop, 1st Baronet agreed to provide some support for a second attempt to invade Venezuela; the Leander left Port of Spain on 24 July, together with HMS Express, HMS Attentive, HMS Prevost, HMS Lilly, carrying some 220 officers and men. General Miranda decided to land in La Vela de Coro and the squadron anchored there on 1 August carrying a flag that Miranda had designed, which became the flag of modern Venezuela.
The local support that he had hoped for failed to materialize when the fighting started. Much of the local population joined the Spanish against the mercenaries and August 13, Miranda hastily retreated to Aruba and Trinidad, where he left the Leander in order to avoid the prosecution of Spanish fleet. In the aftermath of the failed expedition, Colonel Smith and Ogden were indicted by a federal grand jury in New York for violating the Neutrality Act of 1794 and put on trial. Colonel Smith claimed his orders came from President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison, who refused to appear in court. Judge William Paterson of Supreme Court, ruled that the President "cannot authorize a person to do what the law forbids". Both Colonel Smith and Ogden were found not guilty, his son William Steuben escaped from the jail in Puerto Cabello. In 1807 Smith moved to New York, he was elected as a Federalist to the 13th United States Congress, holding office from March 4, 1813, to March 3, 1815.
He ran for a second term in 1814, appeared to defeat Westel Willoughby Jr. The Secretary of State of New York issued his credentials of election to the 14th United States Congress, but Smith did not claim the seat; some of the ballots had been returned for "Westel Willoughby", why Smith appeared to have a majority. Smith declined to challenge the results, on December 15, 1815, at the start of the first session of the 14th Congress, the House voted that Willoughby was entitled to the seat. Smith died in Smith Valley in the town of Lebanon in 1816, he is interred in the West Hill Cemetery in the Town of Sherburne, on New York State Route 80. William Stephens Smith was the son of John Smith, a wealthy New York City merchant, Margaret Stephens, he had many brothers and sisters, his sister Sally was married to Charles Adams, the son of John Adams and brother of John Quincy Adams. Sally's daughter Abigail Louisa Smith Adams married the banker and philosopher Alexander Bryan Johnson, he and his wife, Abigail Adams, had four children: William Steuben Smith John Adams Smith Thomas Hollis Smith Caroline Amelia Smith – married John Peter DeWint of Fishkill-on-Hudson Smith was portrayed by Andrew Scott in the 2008 miniseries, John Adams.
Incidents in the Life of John Edsall is an autobiographical memoir published in Catskill, New York, in 1831. John Edsall
Utica, New York
Utica is a city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most-populous city in New York, its population was 62,235 in the 2010 U. S. census. Located on the Mohawk River at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains, Utica is 95 miles northwest of Albany, 55 mi east of Syracuse and 240 miles northwest of New York City. Utica and the nearby city of Rome anchor the Utica–Rome Metropolitan Statistical Area, which comprises all of Oneida and Herkimer counties. A river settlement inhabited by the Mohawk tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy, Utica attracted European-American settlers from New England during and after the American Revolution. In the 19th century, immigrants strengthened its position as a layover city between Albany and Syracuse on the Erie and Chenango Canals and the New York Central Railroad. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city's infrastructure contributed to its success as a manufacturing center and defined its role as a worldwide hub for the textile industry.
Utica's 20th-century political corruption and organized crime gave it the nickname "Sin City."Like other Rust Belt cities, Utica underwent an economic downturn beginning in the mid-20th century. The downturn consisted of industrial decline due to globalization and the closure of textile mills, population loss caused by the relocation of jobs and businesses to suburbs and to Syracuse, poverty associated with socioeconomic stress and a decreased tax base. With its low cost of living, the city has become a melting pot for refugees from war-torn countries around the world, encouraging growth for its colleges and universities, cultural institutions and economy. Several theories exist regarding the history of the name "Utica". Although surveyor Robert Harpur stated that he named the village, the most accepted theory involves a 1798 meeting at Bagg's Tavern where the name was picked from a hat holding 13 suggestions. Utica was included because Utica is a city of antiquity: several other upstate New York cities had adopted classical Mediterranean city names earlier, such as Troy and Rome, or would as with Syracuse.
Utica was established on the site of Old Fort Schuyler, built by English colonists for defense in 1758 during the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War against France. Prior to construction of the fort, the Mohawk and Oneida tribes had occupied this area south of the Great Lakes region as early as 4000 BC; the Mohawk were the largest and most powerful tribe in the eastern part of the Mohawk Valley. Colonists had a longstanding fur trade with them, in exchange for firearms and rum; the tribe's dominating presence in the region prevented the Province of New York from expanding past the middle of the Mohawk Valley until after the American Revolutionary War, when the Iroquois were forced to cede their lands as allies of the defeated British. The land housing Old Fort Schuyler was part of a 20,000 acres portion of marshland granted by King George II to New York governor William Cosby on January 2, 1734. Since the fort was located near several trails, its position—on a bend at a shallow portion of the Mohawk River—made it an important fording point.
The Mohawk called the bend Unundadages, the Mohawk word appears on the city's seal. During the American Revolution, border raids from British-allied Iroquois tribes harried the settlers on the frontier. George Washington ordered Sullivan's Expedition, Rangers, to enter Central New York and suppress the Iroquois threat. More than 40 Iroquois villages were destroyed and their winter stores, causing starvation. In the aftermath of the war, numerous European-American settlers migrated into the state and this western region from New England Connecticut. In 1794 a state road, Genesee Road, was built from Utica west to the Genesee River; that year a contract was awarded to the Mohawk Turnpike and Bridge Company to extend the road northeast to Albany, in 1798 it was extended. The Seneca Turnpike was key to Utica's development; the village became a rest and supply area along the Mohawk River for goods and the many people moving through Western New York to and from the Great Lakes. The boundaries of the village of Utica were defined in an act passed by the New York State Legislature on April 3, 1798.
Utica expanded its borders in subsequent 1817 charters. On April 5, 1805, the village's eastern and western boundaries were expanded, on April 7, 1817, Utica separated from Whitestown on its west. After completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, the city's growth was stimulated again; the municipal charter was passed by the state legislature on February 13, 1832. The city's growth during the 19th century is indicated by the increase in its population. Utica's location on the Erie and Chenango canals encouraged industrial development, allowing the transport of anthracite from northeastern Pennsylvania for local manufacturing and distribution. Utica's economy centered around the manufacture of furniture, heavy machinery and lumber; the combined effects of the Embargo Act of 1807 and local investment enabled further expansion of the textile industry. Like other upstate New York cities, mills in Utica processed cotton from the Deep South, a slave society. Much of the New York economy was involved with slavery.
Gosport
Gosport is a town in Hampshire on the south coast of England. At the 2011 Census, its population was 82,622, it is situated on a peninsula on the eastern side of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite the city of Portsmouth, to which it is linked by the Gosport Ferry. Gosport lies south-east of Fareham, to which it is linked by a road; the Rowner area of the peninsula was settled by the Anglo-Saxons, is mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle as Rughenor. Both Rowner and Alverstoke, the name coming from the point where the River Alver entered the Solent at Stokes Bay, were included in the Domesday Book. Rowner was the earliest known settlement of the peninsula, with many Mesolithic finds and a hunting camp being found, tumuli on the peninsula investigated. Bronze Age items found in a 1960s construction in HMS Sultan included a hoard of axe heads and torcs. A three-celled dwelling unearthed during construction of the Rowner naval Estate in the 1970s points to a settled landscape. Next to the River Alver which passes the southern and western edge of Rowner is a Norman motte and bailey, the first fortification of the peninsula, giving a vantage point over the Solent, Stokes Bay, Lee-on-the-Solent and the Isle of Wight.
The former Rowner naval married quarters estate, now demolished, HMS Sultan were built on a former military airfield, known first as RAF Gosport and as HMS Siskin, which gives its name to the local infant and junior schools. The barracks at Browndown were used in the ITV series Bad Lads' Army. Gosport is believed to derive its name from "goose". An alternative etymology of "gorse" is not supported by the regional name for the plant, "furze". A third theory, claiming a derivation from "God's Port" is believed to be a 19th-century invention; until the last quarter of the 20th century, Gosport was a major naval town associated with the defence and supply infrastructure of Her Majesty's Naval Base Portsmouth. As such over the years extensive fortifications were created; the first fortifications were in 1678 during the reign on Charles II. These consisted of two forts, Fort James and Fort Charles, a series of bastions and double ditches to encircle the town, known as the Gosport Lines. During the Georgian period in 1751 and 1752 they were rebuilt and extended.
Further additions were made in response to the French invasion threat of 1779. By 1860, the Gosport Lines had 58 guns. No.1 Bastion, for example, had mounted 14 guns in brick lined emplacements firing over the parapet. The 1859 Royal Commission on the Defences of the United Kingdom proposed the completion of a line of forts to protect the outer approach to Gosport town, making the earlier defences redundant. However, they were retained to constrain any expansion of the town towards the new line of forts. From the 1890s road widening meant some parts of the ramparts and gates were demolished. Further sections were demolished in the 1960s. Today, the little are protected ancient monuments; the town is still home to HMS Sultan and a Naval Armament Supply Facility as well as a Helicopter Repair base. Most of the former naval and military installations have closed since the Second World War, leaving empty sites and buildings. In response to this, museums have opened, many of the fortifications and installations have been opened to the public as tourism and heritage sites.
One of the more recent additions is the Diving Museum at No 2 Battery at Stokes Bay, bidding to become the National Diving Museum for the British Isles. Several sites have been redeveloped to provide housing, including the New Barracks, the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard and Royal Hospital Haslar. Forton Barracks is now St Vincent College. There has been extensive redevelopment of the harbour area as a marina. In November 1850, two ships of the Ottoman Navy, Mirat-ı Zafer and Sirag-i Bahri Birik, anchored off the Hardway near Gosport; the visit lasted several months and during this time some of the members of the crew contracted cholera and were admitted to Haslar Hospital for treatment, where most of them died. In addition, some other sailors died because of training accidents. In total 26 were laid to rest in the grounds of Haslar. At the turn of the 20th century the bodies were exhumed and transferred to the R. N. Military Cemetery, Clayhall Road, in Alverstoke. In the first week of June 1944, scout cars and wheeled vehicles of the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment, Canadian Army loaded Landing craft tanks in Gosport.
Convoys of vehicles had been concealed from German discovery in the areas further inland, in daylight on 3 June moved through Titchfield and Stubbington to G3 Hard on the Gosport waterfront. There, the M4 Sherman tanks were backed into position in preparation for the Channel crossing; the initial plan was for the invasion to begin on 5 June, but bad weathe
Bar (law)
In law, the bar is the legal profession as an institution. The term is a metonym for the line that separates the parts of a courtroom reserved for spectators and those reserved for participants in a trial such as lawyers; the origin of the term bar is from the barring furniture dividing a medieval European courtroom, similar to the origin of the term bank for the bench-like location of financial transactions in medieval Europe. In the USA, Europe and many other countries referring to the law traditions of Europe, the area in front of the barrage is restricted to participants in the trial: the judge or judges, other court officials, the jury, the lawyers for each party, the parties to the case, witnesses giving testimony; the area behind the bar is open to the public. This restriction is enforced in nearly all courts. In most courts, the bar is represented by a physical partition: a railing or barrier that serves as a bar; the bar may refer to the qualifying procedure by which a lawyer is licensed to practice law in a given jurisdiction.
In the United States, this procedure is administered by the individual U. S. states. In general, a candidate must graduate from a qualified law school and pass a written test: the bar examination; some states use the Multistate Bar Examination with additions for that state's laws. The candidate is admitted to the bar. A lawyer whose license to practice law is revoked is said to be disbarred. In the United Kingdom, the practice of law is divided between solicitors, it is the former who appear in an advocacy role before the court. When a lawyer becomes an advocate or barrister, he/she is called to the bar. In Britain the bar is differentiated between the outer bar; the bar refers to the legal profession as a whole. With a modifier, it may refer to a branch or division of the profession: as, for instance, the tort bar—lawyers who specialize in filing civil suits for damages. In conjunction with bench, bar may differentiate lawyers who represent clients from judges or members of a judiciary. In this sense, the bar advocates and the bench adjudicates.
Yet, judges remain members of the bar and lawyers are referenced as Officers of the Court. The phrase bench and bar denotes all lawyers collectively. Admission to practise law Admission to the bar in the United States Bar Association Bench Call to the bar Courtroom Importance of Bar & Bench relationship, Available at learningthelaw.in
Système universitaire de documentation
The système universitaire de documentation or SUDOC is a system used by the libraries of French universities and higher education establishments to identify and manage the documents in their possession. The catalog, which contains more than 10 million references, allows students and researcher to search for bibliographical and location information in over 3,400 documentation centers, it is maintained by the Bibliographic Agency for Higher Education. Official website
Nassau, Bahamas
Nassau is the capital and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has an estimated population of 274,400 as of 2016, just over 70% of the population of the country. Lynden Pindling International Airport, the major airport for the Bahamas, is located about 16 kilometres west of Nassau city centre, has daily flights to major cities in Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and the United States; the city is located on the island of New Providence. Nassau is the site of the House of Assembly and various judicial departments and was considered to be a stronghold of pirates; the city was named in honour of William III of England, Prince of Orange-Nassau, deriving its name from Nassau, Germany. Nassau's modern growth began in the late eighteenth century, with the influx of thousands of American Loyalists and their slaves to the Bahamas following the American War of Independence. Many of them settled in Nassau and came to outnumber the original inhabitants; as the population of Nassau grew, so did its populated areas.
Today the city dominates its satellite, Paradise Island. However, until the post-Second World War era, the outer suburbs scarcely existed. Most of New Providence was uncultivated bush until Loyalists were resettled there following the American Revolutionary War. Slaves were imported as labour. After the British abolished the international slave trade in 1807, they resettled thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy on New Providence, along with other islands such as Grand Bahama, Exuma and Inagua. In addition, slaves freed from American ships, such as the Creole case in 1841, were allowed to settle there; the largest concentration of Africans lived in the "Over-the-Hill" suburbs of Grants Town and Bain Town to the south of the city of Nassau, while most of the inhabitants of European descent lived on the island's northern coastal ridges. Nassau was known as Charles Town. During the Raid on Charles Town the town was burned to the ground by the Spanish in 1684 during one of their frequent wars with the English.
It was rebuilt and renamed to Nassau in 1695 under Governor Nicholas Trott in honour of the Dutch Stadtholder and also King of England and Ireland, William III who belonged to a branch of the House of Nassau, from which the city takes its name. The name Nassau derives from the town of Nassau in Germany. Due to a lack of effective governors, Nassau fell on hard times. In 1703 Spanish and French allied forces occupied Nassau. From 1703 to 1718 there was no governor in the colony and by 1713, the sparsely settled Bahamas had become a pirate haven; the Governor of Bermuda stated that there were over 1,000 pirates in Nassau and that they outnumbered the mere hundred inhabitants of the town. They proclaimed Nassau a pirate republic, establishing themselves as "governors". Examples of pirates that used Nassau as their base are Charles Vane, Thomas Barrow, Benjamin Hornigold, Calico Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, the infamous Edward Teach, better known as "Blackbeard". In 1718, the British sought to regain control of the islands and appointed Captain Woodes Rogers as Royal governor.
He clamped down on the pirates, reformed the civil administration, restored commerce. Rogers rebuilt the fort, using his own wealth to try to overcome problems. In 1720 the Spanish made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Nassau. During the wars in the Thirteen Colonies, Nassau experienced an economic boom. With funds from privateering, a new fort, street lights and over 2300 sumptuous houses were built and Nassau was extended. In addition to this, mosquito breeding swamps were filled. In 1776, the Battle of Nassau resulted in a brief occupation by American Continental Marines during the American War of Independence, where the Marines staged their first amphibious raid on Fort Montague after attempting to sneak up on Fort Nassau. In 1778 after an overnight invasion, American raiders led by Captain Rathburn, left with ships and military stores after stopping in Nassau for only two weeks. In 1782 Spain captured Nassau for the last time when Don Juan de Cagigal, governor-general of Cuba, attacked New Providence with 5000 men.
Andrew Deveaux, an American Loyalist who resettled on the island, set forth to recapture Nassau for the British Crown and with 220 men and 150 muskets to face a force of 600 trained soldiers. Lord Dunmore governed the colony from 1787 to 1796, he oversaw the construction of Fort Fincastle in Nassau. During the American Civil War, Nassau served as a port for blockade runners making their way to and from ports along the southern Atlantic Coast for continued trade with the Confederacy. In the 1920s and 1930s, Nassau profited from Prohibition in the United States. Located on New Providence Island, Nassau has an attractive harbour, a blend of old world and colonial architecture, a busy port; the tropical climate and natural environment of the Bahamas have made Nassau a tourist destination. Nassau developed directly behind the port area. New Providence provides 200 km² of flat and low-lying land intersected by low ridges. In the centre of the island there are several shallow lakes that are tidally connec
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Ripley, George; Dana, Charles A., eds. (1879). . The American Cyclopædia.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
