On this day 250 years ago, in Providence, Rhode Island, the General Assembly wrote to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress that it was meeting “to consult and act upon the present distresses into which your Colony and all of New-England are involved” and that Rhode Island was
firm and determined. . . . A greater unanimity scarce ever prevailed in the Lower House than was found in the great questions before them . . . . We pray God that he would be graciously pleased to bring to nothing the counsels and designs of wicked men against our lives and liberties, and grant his blessing upon our righteous contest.
The Rhode Island General Assembly further pledged to raise 1,500 men to
continue in this Colony, as an Army of Observation; to repel any insults or violence that may be offered to the inhabitants; and also, if it be necessary for the safety and preservation of any of the Colonies, that they be ordered to march out of this Colony, and join and cooperate with the Forces of our neighbouring Colonies.
Sources: https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/april-25-1775-rhode-island-firm-determined-writes-metcalf-bowler/; https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/siege-of-boston/
Also on that day in New York City, Scottish immigrant Alexander McDougall mustered hundreds of New Yorkers into service and gave each “a Good firelock, Bayonet, Cartouch Box, and Belt.”
And on that day in Mount Vernon, Virginia, William Johnson, the Muster Master of the Fairfax Independent Company, dined with George Washington and presented him a letter signed by Captain James Hendricks, George Gilpin, and Robert H. Harrison requesting Washington’s direction on whether the Company should “take the Fashion of the Hunting Shirt Cap & Gaiters” as its uniform. Thomas Davis from Fredericksburg also met with Washington at Mount Vernon to pay him £4 16s. to buy gunpowder for the Spotsylvania Independent Company.
Sources: “To George Washington from Fairfax Independent Company, 25 April 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0268. [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. 344–345.]; “[Diary entry: 25 April 1775],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0005-0008-0025. [Original source: The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 3, 1 January 1771–5 November 1781, ed. Donald Jackson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978, p. 323.]
On This Day In The Revolution 