On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Virginia, Royal Governor Lord Dunmore issues a proclamation outlawing Richard Henderson and the Transylvania Company for their unauthorized purchase of land from the Cherokees:

And whereas advice has been received, that one Richard Henderson, and other disorderly persons, his associates, under pretence of a purchase made from the Indians, contrary to the aforesaid orders and regulations of his Majesty, do set up a claim to the lands of the Crown in the limits of this Colony; I have thought fit, therefore, to issue this my proclamation, strictly charging all justices of the peace, sheriffs, and other officers, civil and military, to use their utmost endeavours to prevent the unwarrantable and illegal designs of the said Henderson and his abettors; and if the said Henderson or others concerned with him, shall take possession of, or occupy and lands in the limits of his Majesty’s government of Virginia, merely under any purchase, or pretended purchase, made from the Indians, without any other title, that he or they may be required, in his Majesty’s name, forthwith to depart, and relinquish the possessions so unjustly obtained; and in case of refusal and of violent detaining of such possession, that he or they may be immediately fined & imprisoned in the manner the laws in such cases direct

Source: https://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/8/daniel-boone/history/chap8.htm

On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Samuel Adams wrote to John Augustine Washington to thank him “for one thousand and ninety two bushels of grain , being a generous donation sent by the inhabitants of Westmoreland County , in Virginia, to the sufferers in this Town by the Boston Port Bill.” Washington was the younger brother of George Washington, but was also Chairman of the Westmoreland County Committee and would serve in the War as Westmoreland County’s representative in the Virginia House of Delegates and as colonel of the County’s militia.

Source: https://andyreiter.com/wp-content/uploads/military-justice/us/Government%20Documents/United%20States%20-%201907%20-%20The%20Writing%20of%20Samuel%20Adams%201773-1777.pdf

Also on that day in Portsmouth, England, Benjamin Franklin boards a ship to return to America. He had spent over ten years in England representing the Colonies and unsuccessfully trying to reconcile the British government to America. He would never return.

Source: https://250andcounting.com/2025/03/21/march-21-1775-franklin-departs-london-forever/