On this day 250 years ago, “a Meeting of the Officers under the Command of [Virginia Governor Dunmore], convened at Fort Gower [present day Hockingport, Ohio] for the Purpose of considering the Grievances of BRITISH AMERICA.” adopted what are now known as the “Fort Gower Resolves.” Although these officers had just completed the military campaign against the Shawnee and Mingo Indians that is known as “Dunmore’s War”, the Fort Gower Resolves were definitely not approved by Lord Dunmore. Although it included praise for Governor Dunmore on the successful campaign against the Shawnee, as well as the obligatory pledges of loyalty to King George III, this remarkable document made the most belligerent assertion of colonial resistance to British authority issued by any assembly of Patriots to that date:
Having now concluded the Campaign, by the Assistance of Providence, with Honour and Advantage to the Colony, and ourselves, it only remains that we should give our Country the strongest Assurance that we are ready, at all Times, to the utmost of our Power, to maintain and defend her just Rights and Privileges. We have lived about three Months in the Woods, without any intelligence from Boston, or from the Delegates at Philadelphia. It is possible, from the groundless Reports of designing Men, that our Countrymen may be jealous of the Use such a Body would make of Arms in their Hands at this critical Juncture. That we are a respectable Body is certain, when it is considered that we can live Weeks without Bread or Salt, that we can sleep in the open Air without any Covering but that of the Canopy of Heaven, and that our Men can march and shoot with any in the known World. Blessed with these Talents, let us solemnly engage to one another, and our Country in particular, that we will use them to no Purpose but for the Honour and Advantage of America in general, and of Virginia in particular. It behooves us then, for the Satisfaction of our Country, that we should give them our real Sentiments, by Way of Resolves, at this very alarming Crisis.
. . . as the Love of Liberty, and Attachment to the real Interests and just Rights of America outweigh every other Consideration, we resolve that we will exert every Power within us for the Defence of American Liberty, and for the Support of her just Rights and Privileges; not in any precipitate, riotous, or tumultous Manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous Voice of our Countrymen.
Although the only officer named in the Fort Gower Resolves was the clerk of the meeting, Benjamin Ashby, the identities of many of the officers who voted to approve the Resolves nemine contradicente (i.e., unanimously) are well known. Col. Adam Stephen is widely considered to be the author of the Fort Gower Resolves. Stephen was an emigrant from Scotland who would go on to become a General in the Continental Army. The names of other officers known to be present in the meeting at Fort Gower reads like a roster of Revolutionary War heroes: Daniel Morgan, George Rogers Clark, Andrew Lewis, William Campbell, William Crawford, William Russell, Simon Kenton, Michael Cresap, Ebenezer Zane, William Harrod, Angus McDonald. These men pledged their all in the Defense of American Liberty.
On Saturday, November 9, 2024, the State of Ohio is hosting a symposium on the role of the Fort Gower Resolves in Defining American Liberty in Athens, Ohio.
But today, November 5, 2024, we all have the opportunity to define American Liberty going forward. Please vote today if you have not already, and please vote to Defend American Liberty, and not to turn it into merely a slogan masking jingoistic nationalism. Please honor the Founding Fathers –and Mothers — who sacrificed so much, and risked everything, for American Liberty, by voting for American Liberty today.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/fort-gower-resolves
On This Day In The Revolution 
One response to “On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — November 5, 1774”
Few are as willing “to maintain and defend her just Rights and Privileges” as those who have shed blood and watched their fellow patriots die for their country. I am ever grateful for their sacrifices then as now.
That being said, let us pray that none are so misguided as to fight to disrupt the lawful processes their forefathers died to preserve.
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