On this day 250 years ago, in Alexandria, Virginia, George Washington wrote in his diary that he “Went up to Alexandria to a review of the Independant Company & to choose a Com[mitt]ee for the County of Fairfax.” George Mason accompanied Washington to Alexandria for the Committee of Safety meeting. Washington was the Commander of the Independent Company and Mason had been the primary organizer of the Company. The Fairfax Committee had been organized in the prior year with Washington and Mason as members, but the original members and new members of the Committee were elected in this meeting.

Source: “[Diary entry: 16 January 1775],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0005-0001-0016. [Original source: The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 3, 1 January 1771–5 November 1781, ed. Donald Jackson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978, p. 303.] available at https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2216%20January%201775%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr=

Also on this day in Baltimore and Annapolis, Maryland, the Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County Committees met to raise and arm militia companies.

Source: Norton, Mary Beth, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution, New York: Vintage Books, 2021 at pp. 253 & 437