On this day 250 years ago in New Bern, North Carolina, the Provincial Assembly, which Governor Josiah Martin had declared “the only lawful Representatives of the people of” North Carolina, merges with the Provincial Congress, which Martin had deemed “highly offensive to the King and dishonorable.” The merger made sense to the members of the North Carolina Assembly and the Congress, if not to Governor Martin, since their membership largely overlapped and both bodies had elected the same man — John Harvey — to lead them.

Norton at pp. 327-29.

On that day in Concord, Massachusetts, the Second Provincial Congress adopts “articles, rules, and regulations for the army, that may be raised for the defence and security of our lives, liberties, and estates.” The 52 Articles adopted by the Massachusetts Congress were based on the 1765 British Articles of War.

https://www.discoverconcordma.com/articles/110-massachusetts-provincial-congress-britains-guiltless-children; https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/american-revolutionary-war-timeline-1775-january-june/

On the same day in Boston, General Gage requested that Admiral Graves of the Royal Navy prepare ships to ferry soldiers across the Back Bay to Cambridge.

Source: Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride at 86-87; https://250andcounting.com/2025/04/05/april-5-1775-the-british-gear-up-for-war/

And 250 years ago at Mount Vernon, Virginia, George Washington writes to his old friend and comrade George Mercer, then in London, that

A great number of very good companies were raised in many Counties in this Colony, before it was recommended to them by the Convention, & are now in excellent training; the people being resolved, altho’ they wish for nothing, more ardently, than a happy & lasting reconciliation with the parent State, not to purchase it at the expence of their liberty, & the sacred compacts of Government.

Washington’s letter to Mercer mostly deals with properties that Washington had purchased from Mercer including 1200 acres on Four Mile Run in present-day Arlington that George Mercer had jointly owned with his brother James Mercer. The purchase was very complicated for many reasons including that the brothers were estranged — perhaps because James was an ardent Patriot and George was a Loyalist. James Mercer would go on to serve on the Virginia Committee of Safety, as a delegate to the Continental Congress and as Judge on the Virginia Court of Appeals, throughout the Revolution. George Mercer, on the other hand, would remain in London and never return to Virginia.

Washington’s correspondence indicates, however, that the falling out between the brothers was more personal than political. In the same letter to George Mercer, Washington writes

I could wish most sincerely that the unhappy jealousies which seem to prevail between you, were removed, & the confidence which I believe both of you are entitled to, restored. You do not, if I may be allowed to give my opinion, make proper allowances for the situation of each other. The great distance you are apart—miscarriage of Letters, & various other incidental causes have, I dare say, lead each of you into conjectural mistakes which might be explained at a personal interview, but scarce possible in an epistolary way, after the mind is corroded with unfavourable suspicions.

On the same day Washington writes to a lawyer representing another party in the complicated land transactions:

It gives me much pain to find two Gentln, brothers, who individually stand high in the esteem of their Countrymen, imbibing unfavourable impressions, and, to their joint Friends, mu[tu]ally arraigning the conduct of each other, when I am satisfied that both think themselves right, and that neither hath made proper allowance for the situation of the other. . . . the uneasiness I feel at seeing two Brothers, accustomed to live in perfect amity, now bickering, & accusing each other of hardships occasioned by the other, led me into this digression, for which I ask your pardon. 

“From George Washington to George Mercer, 5 April 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0251. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 326–328.]; “From George Washington to Edward Montagu, 5 April 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0252. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 328–330.]

At any event, because of the falling out between the Mercer brothers, whether it was tied to their views on the Revolution or only personal, George Washington acquired a large tract of land in present-day Arlington. Every year I lead a tour of George Washington’s property in Arlington for the Arlington Historical Society, and this year it will be on May 10, 2025.

George Washington’s Forest Guided Walking Tour