As James Smith’s legal business grew, his surveying activities decreased, but it was an excellent background for understanding land record descriptions, and the transfer of real property from one owner to another. About the early 1760’s Smith began an iron foundry, but the business did not prosper, not because there was no market for iron—there certainly was; but he had placed the enterprise in the hands of two partners, who were, as Smith reported, “… one of who was a knave, and the other a fool.” So, James Smith lost a good bit of money on this venture.
Becoming more widely known in the area, James Smith, by the early 1770’s was quite concerned about the widening rift between the colonists and the Mother Country. He attended a provincial assembly in 1774, where he offered a paper he had written, entitled, Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great Britain over the Colonies in America. In that paper, Smith recommends that the colonies boycott all British goods, feeling that this method of hurting the British merchants in their pockets will force the Parliament to back away from some of their oppressive laws, that were stifling American trade. Such a move is exactly what transpires as the First Continental Congress adjorned in Philadelphia in the Fall of 1774.