On this day 250 years ago at the Parish Church of Henrico County (now St. John’s Episcopal Church) in Richmond the Second Virginia Convention convenes. 95 delegates are present on the first day and over the next week a total of 120 delegates would participate in the convention including Peyton Randolph, Patrick Henry, George Washington, George Wythe, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Robert Carter Nicholas, Carter Braxton, George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Richard Bland, Adam Stephen, Andrew Lewis, William Christian, Thomas Jefferson, and other men whose contributions to American Independence are less well known to history. On this first day, the delegates name Peyton Randolph as President and John Tazewell as Clerk of the Convention and ask Rev. Miles Cary Selden of the Parish Church to say prayers each morning. Miles was a member of the Henrico Committee of Safety and would be later known as the “Patriot Parson.” Tazewell was a member of the Williamsburg Committee and would continue to serve as Clerk of each succeeding Virginia Convention and then of the House of Delegates that replaced the Conventions before his appointment as a judge. Tazewell would die serving as a judge before the end of the War.

Sources: https://www.historicstjohnschurch.org/2nd-virginia-convention; https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/colonials-patriots/sitec57.htm; https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Selden-161; https://history.house.virginia.gov/clerks/1

On this day 250 years ago in Boston, a “Letter from Boston to Newport, Rhode-Island” reported that British soldiers guarding Boston Neck attacked and “barbarously cut and mangled” men who were carting supplies out of town.

Source: Norton at 333.