On this day 250 years ago, in Salem, Massachusetts, 288 delegates assembled as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. They initially met at the court house where the members of the Massachusetts General Court had met two days earlier, but the court house was too small so they moved the meeting to the Congregational meeting-house. The Congress organized by choosing John Hancock president, Benjamin Lincoln secretary. Hancock would go on to serve as President of the Continental Congress, and Lincoln would become a Major General and the second-in-command of the Continental Army. On this day, they recorded a list of the delegates elected to the Congress and then adjourned to meet at Concord on October 11.

From this day forward, all of Massachusetts outside of Boston was under the government of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress rather than the British Crown.

Sources: The journals of each Provincial congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of safety, pages 5-15 available at https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassbookdig.journalsofeach177417mass/?sp=74&st=image&r=-0.779,-0.307,1.894,0.967,0; https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/lexington-and-concord-framingham-militia/;