On this day 250 years ago, news of the battles of Lexington and Concord arrived in New York City. Upon hearing the news, Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett led a contingent of New York Militia in a raid on the public arsenal. Willett and his men seized and removed weapons.

https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/american-revolutionary-war-timeline-1775-january-june/; Lowenthal, Larry, Marinus Willett, Defender of the Northern Frontier, Fleischmanns, New York, Purple Mountain Press, 2000 at 17

On this day 250 years ago in Watertown, Massachusetts, in response to a request from General Artemas Ward the Massachusetts Provincial Congress passed a resolution for the “Establishment of Forces now immediately to be raised for the Recovery and Preservation of our undoubted Rights and Liberties.” The Provincial Congress authorized an army of 30,000 men with 13,000 from Massachusetts, and the remaining 17,000 to be requested from New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Sources: Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts at 148-49 accessed at https://archive.org/details/journalsofeachprma00mass/page/148/mode/2up?view=theater; https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6519095