Helen Burr Smith The following spring, little Miss Ann Rudolph witnessed the celebrated "Meschianza," a farewell entertainment of the British officers to Philadelphia. Ann Rudolph married William Moore Smith, the son of the Rev. William Smith, the first provost of the University of Pennsylvania. Her son, William Rudolph Smith, married Eliza Anthony, the daughter of Joseph Anthony Jr., the silversmith. These greatly cherished buckles are still in the possession of the descendants, the great-great-great-grandaughters of Ann (Rudolph) Smith and William Moore Smith. - Ann Rudolph lived to be nearly eighty years old and told the story of Cornwallis's buckles with others of the Revolution to four generations "who loved to gather 'round her chair and listen to her stories." During the preparation of this article I learned of an earlier one on "Cornwallis's Buckles" in the February 1882 issue of St. Nicholas and after a good deal of searching managed to obtain a copy. Since the buckles had never been exhibited3 and had never been out of the family and the story had circulated only among family and friends, I set out to learn how the story had gotten into print and by whom it was written. The author, however, had signed by only three initials, "A. J. C." Investigation revealed that the early records of the magazine had been destroyed; thereupon my hope of determining the name of the author vanished. Seven years after the story appeared in The New York Sun a request came from the late Major Edgar S. Gardner, then a member of the advisory committee on publications of the Valley Forge Historical Society,* to the late William Ives Rutter, Jr.,5 a great-great-grandson of Ann Rudolph, for his version of the story which had come to him direct from Ann Rudolph through his mother. This was for publication in The Picket Post, the official organ of the Valley Forge Historical Society. Mr. Rutter 8 Since the publication of the story in The New York Sun, October 8, 1938, the buckles have been exhibited twice: at the Fair of Old Philadelphia at Christ Church, Philadelphia, in 1939, and at the Ridgeway Library, Philadelphia, in 1940. 1 Also Vice-president and Director or the Valley Forge Historical Society and a member of the Executive Committee of The Picket Post. E Doctor of Canon Law, Founder and Secretary of The Church Historical Society, Historian of the St. Andrews Society of Philadelphia and of the Pennsylvania Society of the War of 1812. 185