On this day 250 years ago, in Alexandria, Virginia, the Fairfax Independent Company of Volunteers was organized at a meeting led by George Mason of the Gentlemen and Freeholders of Fairfax County, Virginia. The meeting adopted a resolution stating

In this Time of extreme Danger, with the Indian Enemy in our Country, and threat’ned with the Destruction of our Civil-rights, & Liberty, and all that is dear to British Subjects & Freemen; we the Subscribers, taking into our serious consideration the present alarming Situation of all the British Colonies upon this Continent as well as our own, being sensible of the Expediency of putting the Militia of this Colony upon a more respectable Footing, & hoping to excite others by our Example, have voluntarily freely & cordially entered into the following Association; which we . . . solemnly promise & pledge our Honours to each other, and to our Country to perform. . . . That we will form ourselves into a Company, not exceeding one hundred Men, by the Name of The Fairfax independent Company of Voluntiers

Each volunteer was required to provide at his own expense “a regular
uniform of blue, turned up with buff, with plain yellow metal buttons,
buff waist coat and breetches and white stockings and furnished with a
good flintlock and bayonet sling, cartridge box and tomahawk” and “six pounds of Gunpowder, twenty pounds of Lead, and fifty Gun-flints, at the least.” The amount of gunpowder, lead and gun flints exceeds the amount any one soldier would carry, so it is clear that there were plans to recruit more volunteers to supplement the 100-man Fairfax Independent Company. A few months later a Mechanics Independent Company dressed in a blue faced red uniform was drilling with the first Fairfax Independent Company in Alexandria.

George Washington was named as the Commander of the Fairfax Independent Company of Volunteers.

Source: Michael Cecere, In This Time of Extreme Danger: Northern Virginia in the American Revolution, at 29-31 & 37; https://arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/1971-7-Militia.pdf; https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/09/the-rise-of-virginia-independent-militia/

Also on this day 250 years ago, Worcester County, Massachusetts organized one-third of its militia as “Minutemen” prepared to report to duty on a minute’s notice. These were America’s first Minutemen.

Sources: https://thehistoryjunkie.com/powder-alarm-facts/; https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/us-history/minutemen