On this day 250 years ago in New York City, Rivington’s Gazette published a letter from a loyalist in Hartford, Connecticut reporting that:

The Governor of Connecticut called his counsel together on the 4th instant; their deliberations are kept very secret; but we are told they have ordered three hundred barrels of gunpowder, and lead in proportion, to be purchased at the public expense. The militia in the whole colony is mustered every week, and in most towns they have a deserter from his Majesty’s forces, by way of drill sergeant. Nothing but a spirit of independence would suffer matters to be carried to such extremities

Source: https://historycarper.com/1775/01/19/governor-of-connecticut/

Also on that day, the people of Topsfield, Massachusetts at a Town Meeting voted to form a company of minutemen as recommended by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and set times and dates for the minutemen to drill.

https://www.topsfieldhistory.org/revolution/Topsfield_and_Revolution.pdf