On this day 250 years ago in New Jersey, the freeholders of Somerset County formed Committees of Inspection for each township within the county and for the county itself. Another county in America established its own government independent of British rule.

Source: https://kevinsrevolutionarywarchronology.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/bc087-newjerseyamericanrevolutionchronologydennisryan.pdf

On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety issued a formal request to “the Committees of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia, and of the several counties in this province” to identify “the officers of the Military Association, in order that commissions may be made out for them.” Unlike the other colonies, Pennsylvania did not have a provincial Militia. Instead of taking over existing Militia units as in the other colonies, the Patriots of Pennsylvania instead formed armed units of volunteer “Associators” in Philadelphia and several counties. Acting at the direction of the Continental Congress, with this request the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety essentially incorporated the Associator units as militia force available for call up to support the Continental Army when needed.

One of the Associator officers who would receive a commission as a Colonel was George Taylor of the Northampton County Associators. Taylor was an immigrant from Ireland who came to America as an indentured servant in an ironworks, but he became the manager of the ironworks, and a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly. Taylor would go on to be elected to the Continental Congress where in 1776 he signed the Declaration of Independence. In addition to his service in Congress and in the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, Taylor contributed to the American cause by supplying cannon balls and shot for the Continental Army but his health began fading in 1777 and he passed away in early 1781 with the War still ongoing.

Sources: “Advertisement by the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, 28 July 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0075. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 22, March 23, 1775, through October 27, 1776, ed. William B. Willcox. New Haven and London:: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 135–136.]; https://www.revolutionary-war.net/george-taylor/

Also on that day in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted a message to the people of Ireland that included the litany of British oppression of the American people:

Taxes, for the first time since we landed on the American shores, were, without our consent, imposed upon us; an unconstitutional edict to compel us to furnish necessaries for a standing army, that we wished to see disbanded, was issued; and the legislature of New York suspended for refusing to comply with it. Our antient and inestimable right of trial by jury was, in many instances, abolished; and the common law of the land made to give place to Admiralty jurisdictions. Judges were rendered, by the tenure of their commissions, entirely dependent on the will of a Minister. New crimes were arbitrarily created: and new courts, unknown to the constitution, instituted. Wicked and insidious Governors have been set over us; and dutiful petitions, for the removal of even the notoriously infamous Governor Hutchinson, were branded with the opprobrious appellation of scandalous and defamatory. Hardy attempts have been made, under colour of parliamentary authority, to seize Americans, and carry them to Great Britain to be tried for of fences committed in the Colonies. Ancient charters have no longer remained sacred; that of the Massachusetts Bay was violated; and their form of government essentially mutilated and transformed. On pretence of punishing a violation of some private property, committed by a few disguised individuals, the populous and flourishing town of Boston was surrounded by fleets and armies; its trade destroyed; its port blocked up; and thirty thousand citizens subjected to all the miseries attending so sudden a convulsion in their commercial metropolis; and, to remove every obstacle to the rigorous execution of this system of oppression, an act of parliament was passed evidently calculated to indemnify those, who might, in the prosecution of it, even embrue their hands in the blood of the inhabitants.

. . .

Our trade with foreign states was prohibited; and an act of Parliament passed to prevent our even fishing on our own coasts. Our peaceable Assemblies, for the purpose of consulting the common safety, were declared seditious; and our asserting the very rights which placed the Crown of Great Britain on the heads of the three successive Princes of the House of Hanover, stiled rebellion. Orders were given to reinforce the troops in America. 

But the Continental Congress also included an apology to the people of Ireland for its decision to suspend trade with Ireland in addition to trade with Great Britain that ended with a remarkably prescient prediction of Irish immigration to America:

permit us to assure you, that it was with the utmost reluctance we could prevail upon ourselves, to cease our commercial connexion with your island. Your parliament had done us no wrong. You had ever been friendly to the rights of mankind; and we acknowledge, with pleasure and gratitude, that your nation has produced patriots, who have nobly distinguished themselves in the cause of humanity and America. On the other hand, we were not ignorant that the labor and manufactures of Ireland, like those of the silk-worm, were of little moment to herself; but served only to give luxury to those who neither toil nor spin. We perceived that if we continued our commerce with you, our agreement not to import from Britain would be fruitless, and were, therefore, compelled to adopt a measure, to which nothing but absolute necessity would have reconciled us. It gave us, however, some consolation to reflect, that should it occasion much distress, the fertile regions of America would afford you a safe assylum from poverty, and, in time, from oppression also; an assylum, in which many thousands of your countrymen have found hospitality, peace, and affluence, and become united to us by all the ties of consanguinity, mutual interest, and affection.

Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/contcong_07-28-75.asp