Late at night 250 years ago in Charlestown, South Carolina, Patriot leaders Charles Pinckney (President of the Provincial Congress), Henry Laurens (Chairman of the General Committee), Thomas Lynch (Delegate to the Continental Congress), Benjamin Huger, William Bull and William Henry Drayton, with the assistance of several “mechanics,” including Daniel Cannon, William Johnson, Anthony Toomer, Edward Weyman, and Daniel Stevens, raided the Armory in the State House. They seized at least 800 muskets with bayonets, 200 cutlasses, leather cartridge boxes, and match and gun flints. The Town Guard stood by and did not intervene.

That same night,1,025 pounds of gunpowder were seized from the Hobcaw magazine across the river from Charlestown, and about 500 pounds of gunpowder disappeared from the magazine on Shipyard Creek.

Sources: https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/rebellion-south-carolina-april-21st-1775; https://schistory.org/april-1775-the-rebellion-of-south-carolina/; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=36688

In the early hours on this date 250 years ago, twenty marines and seamen from the armed schooner HMS Magdalen broke into the Powder Magazine in Williamsburg and began loading a wagon with 18 half-barrels of gunpowder. They also removed the flintlocks from the guns stored in the Magazine They were discovered and the alarm was sounded and armed townsmen began to muster, but not in time to prevent the marines from escaping with the gunpowder to their ship on the James River. By 6:00 am, the marines and seamen unloaded the gunpowder on their ship at Burrell’s Ferry on the James River.

An angry crowd and the Williamsburg Militia Company assembled near the Governor’s Palace and it appeared they would storm the Palace. Governor Dunmore armed his servants, but Peyton Randolph and other town leaders convinced the crowd to stand down while they met with Dunmore. The Governor falsely claimed that he had secured the gunpowder because of a report of a planned slave insurrection and he promised to return the powder if it was needed to defeat a rebellion. This promise temporarily satisfied the Town and the crowd dispersed, but in the meantime word of the Governor’s raid on the Powder Magazine had been dispatched throughout the Commonwealth.

Tonight April 21, 2025, Colonial Williamsburg is reenacting the Gunpowder Incident at the Powder Magazine where it happened 250 years ago.

Sources: https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/04/prelude-to-rebellion-dunmores-raid-on-the-williamsburg-magazine-april-21-1775/; https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/discover/historic-area/historic-places/magazine/the-gunpowder-incident/; https://www.whro.org/arts-culture/2025-04-17/williamsburg-marks-the-250th-anniversary-of-the-shot-not-heard-around-the-world

Early this morning 250 years ago, the Plymouth County Militia commanded by Colonel Theophilus Cotton marched into Marshfield, joining the Patriot militia from Marshfield at Anthony Thomas’s farm, about a mile from the British garrison in Marshfield. The Plymouth Militia outnumbered the British garrison and Loyalists 500 to 100, and reinforcements were on their way, but Cotton did not give the order to advance. By 3:00 pm the Kingston Company commanded by Capt. Peleg Wadsworth grew impatient and advanced to the British position. There they discovered that the British garrison was withdrawing to two ships that General Gage had sent from Boston to evacuate the British garrison and Loyalists from Marshfield. The Plymouth Militia then occupied the next-to-last British outpost in Massachusetts outside of Boston without firing a shot. British troops were still in Charlestown across the Back Bay from Boston but General Gage would withdraw those troops to Boston the next day.

Source: https://historicaldigression.com/2011/01/10/the-almost-battle-of-marshfield/

This morning at 9:00 am the Town of Marshfield will commemorate the evacuation of Marshfield 250 years ago.

Source: https://www.marshfield-ma.gov/news_detail_T6_R322.php

On this day 250 years ago, news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord had reached New Haven and most of the other towns of Connecticut.

Source: Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride at 325.