On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Samuel Swift wrote to Thomas Cushing and the other members of the Massachusetts delegation at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Among other things, he reported that:

Jealousies seem to rise higher between the People and the Army. It has been Rumour’d they were about to Fortifie Dorchester neck, which if they Attempt I am well satisfyd the people will Rise, but at Present that Report Seems to Subside. 

Swift was a member of the Sons of Liberty and Committee of Correspondence in Boston and had long worked with Cushing, John Adams and the other Patriot leadership in Boston. However, Swift’s name is barely remembered today, perhaps because in hindsight Adams and others viewed him as a lukewarm Patriot, but more likely because Swift became ill in 1775 before the War began, and died in Boston on August 30, 1775.

Sources: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%222%20October%201774%22&s=1511311112&r=1; https://boston1775.blogspot.com/2023/06/samuel-swift-established-lawyer.html

Also on this day 250 years ago four small brass cannon were hidden away by Patriots in Boston waiting to be smuggled out of the city. The cannon were owned by the Boston militia company of artillery called the “Boston Train” which had disbanded early in September 1774 when their commander pledged loyalty to the British government. General Gage had then placed guards at the Old Gun House where two of the cannon were stored and at the New Gun House where the other two were stored. Nevertheless, on September 14, Patriots broke into the Old Gun House and removed the two cannon there, and then in the early hours of September 16, Samuel Gore and other former members of the Train broke into the New Gun House. Although the British had placed extra guards at the New Gun House and it was adjacent to an encampment of a British regiment on Boston Common, Gore and his fellow Patriots removed the two guns and hid them in a chest in the school next to the New Gun House. Two weeks later Gore and other members of the Train moved the two cannon from the school to a blacksmith shop in South Boston. By early October two brass cannon were hidden at Obadiah Whiston’s blacksmith shop and the other two brass cannon were hidden in stables in Central Boston.

Source: https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/video/road-to-concord-bell/