Worcester Revolt
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On September 6, 1774 in the First Continental Congress at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, Patrick Henry delivered a famous speech declaring “Fleets and armies and the present state of things shew that Government is dissolved. Where are your landmarks? your boundaries of colonies? The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.”
The most important events in the Revolution 250 years ago on September 6 were happening in Massachusetts, rather than in Philadelphia. In Worcester, 4,622 men, half the adult male population of Worcester County, assembled to block the quarterly session of the Court of General Sessions and the Court of Common Pleas. Separate militia companies from 37 towns in sprawling Worcester County had marched, without arms, to Worcester. The militia companies formed along both sides of Main Street in a quarter-mile long line stretching the courthouse to Heywood’s tavern. Two dozen court officials—judges, justices of the peace, court attorneys, and others who had been appointed by the Crown or Royal Governor — had been confined in the tavern while representatives from each militia company negotiated with them to resign from their appointments. That afternoon each official walked down the street and recited his formal recantation to the each of the 37 militia companies. They all pledged “that all judicial proceeding be stayed . . . on account of the unconstitutional act of Parliament . . . which, if effected, will reduce the inhabitants to mere arbitrary power.” As a result of the bloodless Worcester Revolt, British rule ended in Worcester County and within weeks it would disappear from the rest of Massachusetts outside of Boston.
Also on that day in Richard Woodward’s tavern in Dedham, Massachusetts, the Suffolk County Convention met. All sixty towns in the County including Boston were represented in the meeting. The Suffolk Convention named a committee led by Dr. Joseph Warren to draft resolutions that would emerge three days later as the Suffolk Resolves.
Sources:https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/03/country-crowds-revolutionary-massachusetts-mobs-militia/#_edn19; https://www.historynet.com/the-spirit-of-74/; https://massar.org/setting-the-record-straight-the-worcester-revolt-of-september-6-1774/; https://hamilton.gilderlehrman.org/supporting-document/suffolk-resolves-1774; https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/suffolk-resolves/
On This Day In The Revolution 