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Strange Case
of Joseph Smith
CINCINNATI—Pseudonyms are
often used in theatrical and lite-,
rary circles; immigrants change
names to meet new ways in new
lands; criminals use aliases for
obvious reasons.
But the American Jewish Ar
chives, the historical research cen
ter at Hebrew Union College-Jew-
ish Institute of Religion, here has
come up with a mysterious name
change: a Jewish Revolutionary
War hero who slid in and out of a
pseudonym for no discoverable
reason under the sun.
Passing himself off as “Joseph
Smith,” the Jew Elias Pollock
rendered distinguished military
service in the Revolutionary War.
Returning to civilian life, he quiet
ly resumed his original identity.
Dr. Jacob R. Marcus, director of
the American Jewish Archives, in
forms us that documents acquir
ed from the National Archives and
Records Service in Washington,
D.C., tell the story of this mysteri
ous pseudonym, and prove beyond
doubt that Smith and Pollock
were actually one man.
Pollock’s part in the American
Revolution had been anything but
ignoble. In the spring of 1778, giv
ing his name as “Joseph Smith,”
Pollock enlisted as a private in
the 3rd Maryland Regiment, at
Baltimore. After seeing service
with the army in Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, and New York, Pvt.
“Smith” set out for Charleston,
S. C., with his regiment in the
spring of 1780. In August of that
year, according to his pension file
he was “engaged ... in the battle
of Camden (S.C.) when (the
American commander) Gates was
defeated, deponant (Pollock)
wounded in the side and taken
prisoner, carried to (British-oc
cupied) Charleston and from
thence sent as a prisoner of war
to St. Augustine, East Florida,”
where he was detained “until
news of peace, then sent to Halli-
fax and liberated, returned to Bal
timore.”
A fellow Baltimorean, one John
Williams, who had served in the
army with “Joseph Smith,” declar
ed years later, in 1818, that he and
“Smith” had been together until
1780. They had met again six
years later in Baltimore. The sol
dier he had known as “Joseph
Smith,” said Williams, “has ever
since been known by the name
of ‘Elias Pollock.’ ”
Not much else is known about
Elias Pollock alias Joseph Smith.
There is no doubt of his religion;
in 1818, according to Pollock’s
pension file in the National Ar
chives, when he applied for the
governmient pension due needy
veterans of the Revoluntionary
War, the customary oath was “ad-
mnistered to him on the five
books of Moses, he being a Jew.”
On that occasion, the former sol
dier signed himself as “Elias Pol
lock” — in Hebrew Characters!
Pollock had been born, his file
indicates, about the year 1755. Mis
fortune apparently haunted him.
Married and with two daughters,
one of them abandoned by her
husband, he described his wife in
1821 as “now nearly helpless” at
the age of about fifty-three. He
had been, by his own testimony, a
manufacturer of “black balls (shoe
blacking) on an extensive scale,
by which and other small trade
had supported myself and family
with a comfortable home” until,
“in consequence of becoming
bondsman for another,” he had
had his “house, furniture, and
property of every kind seized and
sold . . . leaving me in such a
state of penury as to be absolute
ly unable to support myself cr
family without the benefit of my
Revolutionary pension, or from
private or public charity.” The
unfortunate Pollock testified in
1821 that all his property came
in value to no more than $20,
while he suffered “from a rupture
occasioned by hardships and colds
experienced while in the army of
the U.S. and from a bayonet
wound received at the battle” cf
Camden.
Why Pollock — who was able
apparently to sign his name only
in Hebrew letters — had seen fit
to enlist in the army as “Joseph
Smith” is nowhere explained in
the available documents, nor does
the Government seem to have
found his action questionable. His
assumption of an alias and his
subsequent abandonment of it in
favor of his true name are report
ed quite casually in the govern
mental records. But why did he
do it?
Had he feared anti-Jewish pre
judice in the army and thus sought
to conceal his Jewish identity?
Certainly this is possible, although
Dr. Marcus has written that such
anti-Jewish prejudices as obtained
in Revolutionary America “were
not crushing or keenly felt.” Ac
cording to Dr. Marcus, “on the
whole, the early American Jew
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