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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Frenchman Emmanuel de Pliarne wrote to General Washington about the secret contract that he and Pierre Penet were negotiating with the Continental Congress: We . . . find the Sentiments of their Committee of Secrecy very favourable, to us, and we asure your Excellency, that nothing shall…
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On this day 250 years ago on board the HMS Scorpion off the mouth of the Cape Fear River just below Wilmington, North Carolina, Royal Governor Josiah Martin issued a proclamation asking all Loyalists to rally to “His Majesty’s Royal Standard” and assemble at Brunswick, North Carolina. From there they would march on Wilmington and…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, a pamphlet entitled Common Sense by Thomas Paine was published. Paine’s pamphlet was a searing indictment of monarchy in general and a clarion call for an independent and democratic America. Common Sense would almost immediately become the most widely read publication in America, surpassed in sales only…
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On this day 250 years ago at 2:00 am in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Lt. Col. William Winds commanding a detachment of New Jersey militia woke Royal Governor William Franklin from his bed to announce that the militia would be guarding the Governor’s mansion but that the Governor could not leave New Jersey without the…
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On this day 250 years ago in Elizabethtown (now the City of Elizabeth), New Jersey, Col. William Alexander (usually referred to as “Lord Stirling”), commander of the New Jersey Militia, ordered Lt. Col. William Winds to lead a detachment to guard Royal Governor William Franklin’s home in Perth Amboy. Winds was not ordered to guard…
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On this day 250 years ago in Albany, New York, Col. Henry Knox wrote to Gen. Washington about the progress of the train of artillery from Lake George: Snow detain’d us some days & now a cruel thaw hinders from crossing Hudson River which we are oblig’d to do four times from lake George to…
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On this day 250 years ago in Exeter, the Fifth Provincial Congress of New Hampshire adopted a temporary Constitution to continue during the ongoing War with Great Britain that read WE, the members of the Congress of New Hampshire, chosen and appointed by the free suffrages of the people of said colony, and authorized and…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gen. George Washington wrote to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia: It is not in the pages of History perhaps, to furnish a case like ours; to maintain a post within Musket Shot of the Enemy for Six months together, without—and at the…
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On this day 250 years ago in Albany, New York, Col. Henry Knox was waiting for the arrival of the artillery being hauled from Lake George on sleighs pulled by horses on snow covered roads southward toward Albany. The ice on the Mohawk River at Lansing’s Ferry was not thick enough to allow the sleds…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Irish immigrant Stephen Moylan wrote a letter to his friend Joseph Reed with the first documented use of the name “United States of America.” Both Moylan and Reed were from Philadelphia and had served together on General Washington’s staff. Moylan wrote: I should like vastly to…
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On This Day In The Revolution 