On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety met and recorded that
Capt. Benedict Arnold, captain of a company from Connecticut, attended, and reported, that there are at Ticonderoga, 80 pieces of heavy cannon, 20 pieces of brass cannon, from 4 to 18 pounders, 10 to 12 mortars ; at Skeenhorough, on the South Bay, 3 or 4 pieces of brass cannon ; the fort, in a ruinous condition, is supposed to have about 40 or 45 men, a number of small arms and considerable stores ; and that there is a sloop of 70 or 80 tons on the lake.
The Committee of Safety also appointed Andrew Craigie “to take care of the medical stores,” a post that would later be called the “Commissary of Medicinal Stores.” The Committee also voted that Joseph Pearse Palmer “be appointed to the post of quarter master general of the army.” Both would continue to serve in the War; Craigie becoming Apothecary General of the Continental Army and Palmer serving as a brigade major as well as quartermaster general of the Massachusetts Militia.
Source: Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts at 529-30 accessed at https://archive.org/details/journalsofeachprma00mass/page/528/mode/2up?view=theater
And on that day in Watertown, Joseph Warren, President Pro Tem of the Massachusetts Provincial Congresss issued this broadside
THE barbarous Murders on our innocent Brethren o? Wednesday the 19th Instant, has made it absolutely necessary that we immediately raise an Army to defend our Wives and our Children from the butchering Hands of an inhuman Soldiery, who, incensed at the Obstacles they met with in their bloody Progress and enraged at being repulsed from the Field of Slaughter; will without the least doubt take the first Opportunity in their Power to ravage this devoted Country with Fire and Sword: We conjure you, therefore, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred, that you give all Assistance possible in forming an Army: Our all is at Stake, Death and Devastation are the certain Consequences of Delay, every Moment is infinitely precious, an Hour lost may deluge your Country in Blood, and entail perpetual Slavery upon the few of your Posterity, who may survive the Carnage. We beg and entreat, as you will answer it to your Country, to your own Consciences, and above all as you will answer to God himself, that you will hasten and encourage by all possible Means, the Inlistment of Men to form the Army, and send them forward to Head-Quarters, at Cambridge, with that Expedition, which the vast Importance and instant Urgency of the Affair demands.
Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.03801200/?st=text
And on that day in Boston, Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie recorded in his diary:
Arrived The Faulcon, and Otter, Sloops of war from England.
We hear by some persons who came in within a day or two, that there are a good many British deserters in arms with the Rebels. They have also a few of The Stockbridge Indians with them, who Shew themselves at the ferry at Charlestown.
On This Day In The Revolution 