On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress appointed new officers to a Connecticut regiment, directing that

John Brown be commissioned as lieutenant colonel, and Robert Cockran, now acting as eldest captain in the said regiment, be commissioned as major of the same, in the room of Major Israel Curtis, deceased.

John Brown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, had already served the people of the Massachusetts and the United States in multiple capacities as a political organizer, governing official, spy, diplomat and soldier before the first shots in the Revolution and would continue in Continental and Massachusetts state service until 1780 when he was killed in combat in New York. Although overshadowed in history by the abolitionist with the same name, this John Brown deserves much better recognition for his heroic service to our Nation. Major Robert Cockran (usually spelled Cochran) also continued in Continental Army service for the rest of the War. I have not been able to find much information on Major Israel Curtis except that he was miller who operated a saw mill and grist mill in Windsor, Vermont before the War, recruited a company of soldiers in Hanover, New Hampshire to join the Continental Army in their advance on Quebec, and died on May 19, 1776, of battle wounds he had received in that campaign. I hope more has been done to honor the service and sacrifice of Major Israel Curtis that I have just not found on the internet.

Sources: Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. V at p. 615 accessed at https://archive.org/details/us_congress_continental/lljc005/page/615/mode/2up; https://homepages.rootsweb.com/~sam/curtis/israel.html; https://www.americanwars.org/ct-american-revolution/colonel-elmores-regiment-1776.htm; https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/john-brown-pittsfield-massachusetts/; https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24581/pg24581-images.html

On this day 250 years ago in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Father Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Father Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, with eight other men began an expedition to find an overland route from Santa Fe to Monterey, California. The friars went on the expedition to convert Native Americans to Christianity, but they also intended to solidify Spanish claims to the region between New Mexico and California. The Dominquez and Escalante Expedition would unintentionally lay the groundwork for the expansion of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Source: https://www.deseret.com/magazine/2026/07/11/dominguez-escalante-expedition/