On this day 250 years ago, in Williamsburg, Virginia, several hundred (estimates range from 200 to 500) merchants “voluntarily and generally signed” the Continental Association. The Continental Association had been issued by the Continental Congress in the previous month. It provided that the signers would not import from, export to or consume products of Britain. The merchants presented their signatures at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg to Peyton Randolph, Edmund Pendleton, and Richard Bland, three of the Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress who had carried copies of the Continental Association with them when they returned from Philadelphia.

Although I presume most of the merchants signing the Continental Association were Patriots and signed willingly, some Loyalist merchants complained that they were intimidated into signing. Specifically they reported that there was a “pole erected by order of Colo Archd Cary a strong Patriot, opposite the Raleigh tavern upon which was hung a large mop & a bag of feathers, under it a bbl of tar” to threaten the merchants with tarring and feathering if they did not sign. Archibald Cary was a delegate to the First Virginia Convention who was Chair of the Williamsburg Committee established by the Convention to enforce the boycott of British goods.

https://allthingsliberty.com/2019/04/the-mystery-of-the-alternative-of-williams-burg/

Also on this day the Massachusetts delegation returned to Boston from the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Warren, Joseph