On this day 250 years ago, “a Meeting of the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the County of New Kent, at the Courthouse of the said County” in Virginia adopted the New Kent Resolves. These resolutions were similar to the resolutions adopted by other counties in Virginia and the other American colonies in protest against the Intolerable Acts. The meeting elected Thomas Adams as Moderator, William Clayton as Clerk, and Burwell Bassett and Bartholomew Dandridge as Delegates to the upcoming Virginia Convention to be held on August 1. The Resolves “earnestly recommended to the Deputies at the said general Convention to nominate and appoint fit and proper Persons, on Behalf of this Colony, to meet such Deputies as shall be appointed by the other Colonies in General Congress, to consult and agree upon a firm and indissoluble Union and Association, for preserving, by the best and most proper Means, their common Rights and Liberties.”

Dandridge and Bassett were both brothers-in-law to George Washington; Dandridge was Martha Washington’s brother and Bassett was married to her sister. Dandridge, Bassett, Clayton and Adams would all serve in the Virginia Conventions and other political office throughout the Revolution with Adams elected to the Continental Congress and signing the Articles of Confederation.

https://newkentvahist.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-reposting-new-kent-resolves-of-1774.html

https://newkentvahist.blogspot.com/2015/01/

Also on this day 250 years ago, The Connecticut Courant and Hartford Weekly Intelligencer reported that a seventy-eight foot liberty pole flying a huge scarlet flag emblazoned with the phrase “Liberty and Property” has been erected in Litchfield County, Connecticut

Source: https://allthingsliberty.com/2024/02/liberty-and-property-cash-africas-american-revolution/

And also on this day 250 years ago at the Presbyterian Church (now First Presbyterian) in Carlisle, “a respectable gathering of the freeholders and freemen from several townships of Cumberland County in the province of Pennsylvania” adopted resolutions in support of the people of Boston and in opposition to the Boston Port Act. One of the signers was James Wilson, who would go on to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. A lesser knowns signer was William Hays, a barber from Carlisle who would enlist in the Continenta Army as an artilleryman and whose wife Mary Ludwig Hay would join him in camp and supposedly on the battlefield at Monmouth Courthouse where she was one of women immortalized by history as “Molly Pitcher”.

http://files.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/history/local/beers1886/beers-05.txt

On this day July 12, 2024, the First Presbyterian Church of Carlisle hosted a special program to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the adoption of Cumberland declaration and the church will hold special services on Sunday, July 14, 2024 to continue the commemoration.

Click to access Prelude-to-Liberty-Lecture-July-12-2024-Jeff-Wood.pdf

On this day 250 years ago, from Mount Vernon George Washington wrote to his brother John Augustine Washington about meetings in Alexandria to draft and approve the Fairfax Resolves:

We have not, as yet had a meeting of the Inhabitants of this County; owing in the first place, to my not getting up from Wmsburg till towards the last of June & their paying me the Compliment of waiting my arrival; & in the second place, to an unfavourable appointment of last Tuesday for the meeting, which being in Harvest and the day preceeded by heavy & powerful Rains, the Wheat as well as Plants requird all the care and attention that could be bestowd on them. Upon the occasion however we appointed a Committee to frame such Resolves as we thought the Circumstances of the Country would permit us to go into, & have appointed the 18 for a day of Meeting to deliberate on them. The Committee have accordingly done this; they have attempted to define our Constitutional Rights, but have not gone so far in respect to our Exports & Imports as you have done. They have resolved to stop the latter except as to German Oznabrigs, Woolens of two shillg Sterg pr Yard & Nails wch are also to be prohibited after two years & the former, if our Grievances are not fully redressed before Sept. 1775, to great Britain; but to the West Indies (so far as relates to Lumber) immediately after the genl Congress if such a Measure shall be adopted by them. We have also resolvd that no judgments should be rendered for Debts, if the Congress should enter into a Measure of Non-exportation nor any Tobaco made after this year. that all Teas now in the Country should be deliverd up upon Oath, Stor’d & Burn’t, so soon as money sufficient shall be subscribd to pay for it. That all Goods ship’d from Great Britain after the first of Septr (except as above) shall be returned or delivered to the sevl Committees to be stored—That if the People of Boston, by being immediately under the Lash, should give way we shall not consider it as having any influence upon our Conduct. that the Association shall be taken upon Oath, & in short a number of Resolves too tedious to recite, & Improper to Copy as they cannot, as yet, be calld the Resolves of the County were come to;2 Deputies will assuredly go from this County (I hope from all) to the intended Meeting in Wmsbg, the first of August, Assembly or no Assembly, for I have not the most ⟨illegible⟩ doubt myself but that the return day of the Writs was hit upon with no more design than to perplex if not to defeat this meeting. ⟨I be⟩lieve it is not intended that the Assembly should Meet at that time their being positive Instruction against it. A Subscription was opend at our intended Meeting on Tuesday last, for the Receipt of the poor of Boston when there was Cash (& Grain ⟨illegible⟩ few hours to the ⟨illegible⟩ I expect will be a good deal ⟨increased⟩ by the Inhabitants of this County, & sent off by the last of the Month.

This long paragraph in Washington’s letter to his brother is the best source on the drafting and adoption of one of the seminal documents that lay the groundwork for American Independence. I discussed this letter on this night in 2024 at a lecture on the significance of the Fairfax Resolves sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society and Arlington’s Virginia250 Committee at Marymount University in Arlington.

https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2211%20July%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=3&sr=

July 11, 2024 — Fairfax Resolves 250th lecture

https://arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/events/revolutionary-arlington/ In the next few days I will post on this blog the PowerPoint that I prepared for this lecture but could not present due to technical difficulties.

On this day 250 years ago Governor Dunmore of Virginia left Williamsburg to ride to Winchester where he planned to raise two regiments of militia to invade the Shawnee and Mingo nations along the Ohio River.

Source: https://raogk.org/military-records/lord-dunmores-war/

On July 9, 1774, the Patriots of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Essex, Fauquier and Norfolk Counties, Virginia all adopted resolutions supporting Boston, opposing the Intolerable Acts and calling for a “General Congress” of all the colonies.

Sourcees: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/672b0c83-5d0c-4bed-85f0-57599c7a60b1/content

https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wynkoop/genealogy/webdocs/mercer.htm

Click to access bulletin-vol-65.pdf

On this day 250 years ago, Shawnee Indians attacked a party of settlers three miles away from the newly formed settlement of Harrod’s Town, Virginia, and killed two men. Harrod’s Town (now Harrodsburg) was the first white settlement in what is now the state of Kentucky. It had been founded less than a month earlier by James Harrod but would be temporarily evacuated in the coming weeks with the onset of Dunmore’s War against the Shawnee.

Source: https://kentuckypioneers.com/kentucky-history-monitor/

On this day 250 years ago the Patriots of Culpeper County gathered at the county courthouse to adopt the Culpeper Resolves in opposition to the Intolerable Acts and the closure of the Port of Boston.
Culpeper County will erect an historical marker in the City of Culpeper to commemorate this event today and on July 9, 2024 will host a lecture on the significance of the Culpeper Resolves.

https://www.virginiasar.org/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=1466&Itemid=126&year=2024&month=07&day=07&title=1774-culpeper-resolves&uid=ed336edd3bfd220f5874b41a8cd74355

Event Detail

Sources: https://culpepermuseum.com/culpepers-first-courthouse/

https://va250.org/culpeper-county/

Culpeper’s First Courthouse

Culpeper’s Revolution of Ideas: The Culpeper Resolves, 1774

On this day 250 years ago at the Exchange building in Charleston, South Carolina, there was a “General Meeting” of planters, merchants and tradesmen to determine South Carolina’s response to the Intolerable Acts. This meeting named a “General Committee” of 99 members that would end up effectively serving as South Carolina’s government as British authority dissipated.

https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/prelude-revolution

Also on this day in New York, Alexander McDougall presided over the “meeting in the Fields” that proclaimed the people’s willingness to resist the Intolerable Acts.

Source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/mcdougall-alexander

And on this day in Alexandria, Virginia, the Fairfax County Committee chaired by George Washington began meetings to draft the Fairfax Resolves.

https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%226%20July%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=4&sr=

https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2211%20July%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=3&sr=

Yesterday 250 years ago, some inhabitants of Fairfax County, Virginia attended a meeting at the county courthouse in Alexandria (no longer standing but located at Market Square in Old Town Alexandria) to select delegates to attend the upcoming Virginia Convention scheduled for August 1. Due to inclement weather, attendance at the meeting was sparse and the election was postponed. However, the meeting named George Washington as Chairman of a committee to draft resolutions in opposition to the closure of the Port of Boston and the Intolerable Acts. George Mason was also named to the committee.

Sources: Broadwater, Jeff, George Mason: Forgotten Founder, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006 at p. 65

https://www.alexandriahistorytours.com/post/thefairfaxresolves

https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2211%20July%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=3&sr=

https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%226%20July%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=4&sr=

https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%225%20July%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=3&sr=

On this day 250 years ago, in Orangetown, New York, the Freeholders and inhabitants of Orangetown” met at the home of Yost Mabie to adopt the Orangetown Resolutions. The Resolutions were probably drafted by John Haring who would later serve in the First Continental Congress and other political posts in the State of New York during the War.

“However well disposed we are towards his majesty, we cannot see the late acts of Parliament imposing duties upon us, and the act for shutting up the port of Boston, without declaring our abhorrence of measures so unconstitutional and big with destruction.”

“We are in duty bound to use every just and lawful measure to obtain a repeal of acts, not only destructive to us, but which, of course, must distress thousands in the mother country.”

“Stopping of all exportation and importation to and from Great Britain and the West Indies would be the most effectual method to obtain a speedy repeal.”

sources: https://wikimili.com/en/Orangetown_Resolutions

Today in History: Orangetown Resolutions Passed in Response to the Coercive Acts

On this day 250 years ago in Alexandria Bryan Fairfax wrote to his close friend George Washington that

Several Gentlemen of this County have been kind enough to propose me as a Candidate at the next Election. As it would give me a particular pleasure to serve with You, I have thought it very unlucky that it should happen at this time. I have been forced to decline it chiefly because I thought I could not give Satisfaction in general upon this occasion. For I should think Myself bound to oppose violent Measures now.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Correspondent%3A%22Fairfax%2C%20Bryan%22%20Correspondent%3A%22Washington%2C%20George%22&s=1111311111&r=9