On this day 250 years ago in Taunton, Massachusetts the “Liberty and Union” flag was raised for the first time.

https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/before-old-glory-there-was-the-taunton-flag

Also on this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted its Address to the People of Great Britain. The Address laid out the arguments for repeal of the Intolerable Acts and tax on tea including

That we consider ourselves, and do insist, that we are and ought to be, as free as our fellow-subjects in Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.

That we claim all the benefits secured to the subject by the English constitution, and particularly that inestimable one of trial by jury.

That we hold it essential to English Liberty, that no man be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, without having an opportunity of making his defence.

That we think the Legislature of Great-Britain is not authorized by the constitution1 to establish a religion, fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets, or, to erect an arbitrary form of government, in any quarter of the globe. These rights, we, as well as you, deem sacred. And yet sacred as they are, they have, with many others, been repeatedly and flagrantly violated.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2221%20October%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=3&sr=

On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Continental Association. The Continental Association was a “Non-importation, Non-consumption, and Non-exportation Agreement” to end trade with Great Britain over the coming year in order to pressure Parliament to repeal the Intolerable Acts. It was signed by delegates of the Continental Congress representing twelve of the thirteen colonies (all but Georgia) that would form the United States in 1776.

The Continental Association is overlooked by many people today but it should be considered as one of the Founding documents that formed our nation. I count all but two of the 53 men who signed the Continental Association to be Founding Fathers of the United States of America. Some, such as George Washington and John Adams, are universally recognized as Founding Fathers for their later contributions to American Independence. Most of these men would later serve in the Continental Army, Continental Congress or in some other elected office during the Revolutionary War or the early American Republic, but Peyton Randolph (who signed first as President of the Continental Congress) and New York delegate Simon Boerum would pass away from illness before the Declaration of Independence and other delegates such as Charles Humphreys of Pennsylvania and James Kinsey of New Jersey would withdraw from Congress when the War began because of their Quaker pacifist beliefs. Two of the signers — Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania and Isaac Low would later abandon the Patriot cause and join the Loyalists and never to return to the United States after the Revolutionary War. But the other 51 signers deserve recognition as Founding Fathers from their participation in the First Continental Congress and their willingness to sign the Continental Association.

The most significant sections of the Continental Association were not the pledges to phase out trade with Great Britain, but instead the mechanisms that the Eleventh and Twelfth Resolutions of the Continental Association created to enforce the trade bans:

Eleventh. That a Committee b[e chosen in every County, City, and] Town, by those who are qualifi[ed to vote for representatives in the] Legislature, whose Business it shall [be attentively to observe the conduct] of all Persons touching this Assoc[iation; and when it shall be made to] appear, to the Satisfaction of a Maj[ority of any such Committee that any] Person within the Limits of their Ap[pointment has violated this associa]tion, that such Majority do forthwith [cause the truth of the case to be] published in the Gazette, to the End [that all such foes to the rights of] British America may be publickly known [and universally contemned as] the Enemies of American Liberty; and th[ence forth we respectively will] break off all Dealings with him, or her.

Twelfth. That the Committee of Corre[spondence, in the respective] Colonies do frequently inspect the Entries [of their Custom Houses, and] inform each other, from Time to Time, of t[he true state thereof and of] every other material Circumstance that ma[y occur relative to this asso]ciation.

These provisions authorized formation of the committees that would take over local government all across the 13 Colonies as the Crown-approved colonial officials were removed from office in the next few months. Approximately 7000 people would serve on these committees, and many of these committee members would add their signatures to broadside copies of the Continental Association that circulated in the Colonies. One such broadside copy of the Continental Association that circulated in Albemarle County, Virginia is now in the National Archives and has six added signatures starting with Thomas Jefferson’s. Even if their contributions to American Independence were less than Jefferson’s, every Patriot who signed a broadside copy of the Continental Association or served on a county committee deserves to be counted as a Founding Father.

It is also worth remembering that they pledged to adhere to this provision of the Continental Association when we consider the legacy of these Founding Fathers:

Second. That we will neither import nor purchase any Slave imported after the first Day of December next, after which Time we will wholly discontinue the Slave Trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our Vessels, nor sell our Commodities or Manufactures, to those who are concerned in it.

Sources: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2220%20October%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=5&sr=

https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/continental-association/

On this day 250 years ago a Boston sailor named Samuel Dyer attacked two British officers with a sword and pistols on a crowded street in Boston in broad daylight and then fled to Cambridge to demand protection from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress meeting there. Dyer had been arrested in Boston by the British earlier in the year for trying to get soldiers to desert. He was impressed into the British Navy, transported to London but then released and took another ship back to Boston to demand justice. In both Boston and London Dyer had complained bitterly about his mistreatment by the British and some prominent Patriot leaders had championed his case. However Dyer’s testimony was filled with contradictions and obvious lies, and both the British and Patriot leadership concluded that he was insane. Instead of supporting Dyer, the Provincial Congress turned him over to General Gage back in Boston where he was imprisoned.

Samuel Dyer could have sparked the Revolutionary War on this day 250 years ago when he attacked and wounded a British officer in retaliation for British abuses, but instead he would end up as a collaborator with the British while in prison and became a mere footnote in history. However, his complicated story does make interesting reading.

Sources: https://allthingsliberty.com/2023/04/the-secrets-of-samuel-dyer/

On this day 250 years ago, Rev. Samuel Cooper of the Brattle Street Congregational Church in Boston wrote to his parishioner John Adams in Philadelphia:

Our provincial congress is assembled; they adjourned from Concord to Cambridge. Among them and through the province the spirit is ardent. And I think the inhabitants of this town are distracted to remain in it with such formidable fortifications at its entrance. Besides the regiments expected from the southward and Canada, we have several companies from Newfoundland, of which we had no apprehension until they arrived. The tories depend that the administration will push their point with all the force that they can spare, and this I think we ought to expect and take into our account.

On the same day in Boston, James Warren wrote to Adams about his participation as a delegate at

the Meeting of our Provincial Congress at Concord on last Tuesday and their proceedings. We are A Large and I think A Respectable Body, but in perfect Leading strings, Intirely and professedly dependent on you for Motion if not for Being. I am Sensible of your many difficulties. I pity and pray for you. We are not without ours, our Constituents forming great Expectations from us, while we are Embarrassd by a Multitude of—difficulties from all quarters. We are all Sensible of the necessity of A Military Force to Oppose the Encroachments and Insults of our Enemies and that to Form support and Controul them, A Civil Goverment is necessary. But how the first is to be Established or the last Formed is a question which is left to Ourselves. 

Also on this day from Braintree, Massachusetts, Abigail Adams wrote a letter still celebrated in American literature for its romantic eloquence that begins

I dare not express to you at 300 hundred miles distance how ardently I long for your return. I have some very miserly Wishes; and cannot consent to your spending one hour in Town till at least I have had you 12. The Idea plays about my Heart, unnerves my hand whilst I write, awakens all the tender sentiments that years have encreased and matured, and which when with me were every day dispensing to you. The whole collected stock of ten weeks absence knows not how to brook any longer restraint, but will break forth and flow thro my pen. 

yet also reported on political developments in Massachusetts including that:

The People in the Country begin to be very anxious for the congress to rise. They have no Idea of the Weighty Buisness you have to transact, and their Blood boils with indignation at the Hostile prepairations they are constant Witnesses of.

Sources: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2216%20October%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=;

On this day 250 years ago, Abigail Adams and her sister Mary Smith Cranch were doing their part for the Patriotic cause. On this day, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband’s associate William Tudor in Boston. Tudor would soon travel from Boston to Philadelphia to meet with John Adams. She gave Tudor a letter for delivery to her husband, but also added her own exhortation to the young man:

I wish you a prosperous journey and a safe return that you may distinguish yourself in these perilous Times by arouseing your Ambition and animating your attention, even to the “Bareing your Bold Breast, and pouring your generous Blood” in defence of the just claims of your much injured Country. In the foremost rank of her Heroes may you obtain that glory which your merrit deserves, and live to see those Halcion Days when Ancient fraud shall cease, and returning justice lift aloft her scale.

Tudor would join the Continental Army the next year, and end up serving as the Judge Advocate General of the Army with the rank of Lt. Colonel.

Also on this day in Boston, Abigail Smith Adams’s sister Mary Smith Cranch wrote to their cousin Isaac Smith Jr., who was a minister as well as a tutor at Harvard College:

Orthodoxy in Politicks is full as necessary a quallification for Settling a minister at the present Day as orthodoxy in divinity was formely, and tho you should preach like an angel if the People suppose you unfriendly to the country and constitution and a difender of the unjust, cruil and arbitary measures that have been taken by the ministry against us, you will be like to do very little good. I hope you do not deserve it but this is the oppinion that manny in this and the neighbouring towns have of you and the very People who a Twelvemonth ago heard you with admiration and talk’d of you with applause, will now leave the meeting-house when you inter it to preach. This my cousin has been the Case I have been told by several in two meetings houses in this town within these Six weeks. I have said every thing I could in your defence but cant remove the prejudice.

I fear you have been imprudent. You have no doubt a right to enjoy you own oppinion but I Query whether your Duty calls you to divulge your Sentiments curcomstanced as you are. While the spirit of the People runs so high, you cannot imagine what trouble these Storys have given me. I cannot bear to think that my cousins amiable disposition and great abillities should be effaced by arbitary principles. I had rather think that he understands Divinity better than Politicks. The management of our publick affairs is in very good hands, and all that is requir’d of you is your Prayers and exhortations for a general reformation. It is not my province to enter into politicks, but sure I am that it is not your Duty to do or say any thing that shall tend to distroy your usefulness. You will not only hurt your self but you will injure your father in his business, for it will be said and I know it has been said “If the son is a Tory the father is so to be sure.” You will grieve your mother beyond discription, and if I know you I think you would not willingly wound such tender parents.

Despite the urging of his Patriotic cousins, Isaac Smith remained a firm Loyalist and would depart Boston for London when the British Army evacuated Boston in 1776.

Sources: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2215%20October%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=2&sr=;

Also on this day in Maryland, the Peggy Stewart was docked in Annapolis Harbor with its cargo that included “seventeen packages, containing 2320 lb. of that detestable weed tea.” Despite handbills posted around town threatening him if he unloaded the tea, the ship’s owner Anthony Stewart made the decision to pay the tea tax and do just that. He would soon regret that decision.

Sources: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2012/12/16/annapolis-tea-party-1774; https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-mob-and-the-peggy-stewart.htm

On this day 250 years ago, Lord Dunmore commanding the northern wing of his invasion force attacking the Shawnees had crossed the Ohio River and was marching across Ohio toward the Shawnee villages. Col. Andrew Lewis was still reorganizing his command at Point Pleasant after their significant losses at the battle there three days earlier but received Dunmore’s order to cross the Ohio and march west to join Dunmore that morning.

Col. William Fleming was left behind in command of the camp at Point Pleasant although he had been seriously wounded in the battle. On this day he wrote his wife “that you may be convinced I am yet amongst the living” although he had “receivd three balls two through my left Arm, & one in my left breast, but I praise the Almighty, I did not fall and had strength with Assistance to reach my tent.” He was much more candid in a letter to Col. William Bowyer on the same day in describing the extent of his wounds:

I receivd three balls in the left Line two struck my left arm below the Elbow broke both the bones, & I find one of them is lodged in my arm. a third entered my breast about three Inches below my left Nipple and is lodged some where in the Chest. on finding my self effectually disabled I quitted the Field, when I came to be drest, I found my Lungs forced through the wound in my breast, as long as one of my fingars. Watkins Attempted to reduce them ineffectually, he got some part returned but not the whole, being in considerable pain, some time afterwards, I got the whole Returned by the Assistance of one of my Own Attendants, since which I thank the Almighty I have been in a surprizing state of ease. Nor did I ever know such daingerous wounds.

Sources: https://archive.wvculture.org/history/dunmore/ppfleminga.html;

https://archive.wvculture.org/history/dunmore/ppfleming.html; https://vtecworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/71162a0b-144f-48cd-b6da-567f105ba785/content

On this day 250 years ago in London, Benjamin Franklin wrote Joseph Galloway in Philadelphia that “3 Ships of the Line are fitting out for America, which are to be over-mann’d, to have a double Number of Marines, and several arm’d Tenders; it is rumour’d they are to stop all the Ports of America.”

Additionally, Franklin reported on the risk he faced remaining in London:

My Situation here is thought by many to be a little hazardous, for that if by some Accident the Troops and People of N E. should come to Blows I should probably be taken up, the ministerial People affecting every where to represent me as the Cause of all the Misunderstanding; and I have been frequently caution’d to secure my Papers, and by some advis’d to withdraw: But I venture to stay in Compliance with the Wish of others, till the Result of the Congress arrives, since they suppose my being here might on that Occasion be of Use: and I confide in my Innocence, that the worst which can happen to me will be an Imprisonment on Suspicion, tho’ that is a thing I should much desire to avoid, as it may be expensive and vexatious, as well as dangerous to my Health.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2212%20October%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=2&sr=