Month: July 2026

On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 21, 1776

July 21st, 2026

On this day 250 years ago 300 Cherokee warriors led by Ooskwha (usually called “Old Abram” or “Abraham of Chilowee”) attacked Fort Watauga (now in Tennessee). The day before Tsiyu Gansini (usually referred to in English as “Dragging Canoe” and Savanukah (or “The Raven of Chote”), with 400 men had attacked the Holston and Carter’s Valley settlements, but Dragging Canoe was defeated at the Battle of Island Flats and forced to retreat The Cherokees had been armed by the British and planned their attacks to coincide with the British attack on Charlestown but did not know the British had been defeated there. The Cherokees had planned to surprise the White settlers, but the Cherokee Wise Woman (and Dragging Canoe’s aunt) Nanyehi , who usually went by the name “Nancy Ward,” had alerted the settlers that a raid was coming.

The Cherokees attacked Fort Watauga at daybreak surprising several women who were outside the fort milking. All of the women made it into the fort safely, but the fort was defended by only 75 men (including boys and slaves bearing arms) with only six pounds of gunpowder. Nevertheless the garrison commanded by Lt. Col. John Carter, Capt. James Robertson and Lt. John Sevier was able to fend off the attack. Notably as part of the defense Ann Robertson Johnson (sister of James Robertson) threw scalding water on Cherokees who were attempting to set fire to the fort and forced them back.

After the initial assault failed, Old Abram and his warriors besieged the fort for two weeks before a relief force approached and the Cherokees retreated. About 25 of the settlers were killed or wounded in the siege, including the teenager Tom Moore who was captured outside the fort and later tortured to death. The Cherokee had about the same number killed or wounded in the siege.

Fort Watauga has been reconstructed at its original location which is now the Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park in Elizabethton, Tennessee. On July 25, 2026, the Sycamore Shoals Park will be conducting a guided tour of Fort Watauga to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Siege of the fort as part of its celebration of Independence on the Frontier that day.

Sources: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=268366; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=268078; https://revolutionarywar.us/year-1776/; https://historicforts.com/fort-watauga/; https://www.greenevillesun.com/living/sycamore-shoals-to-host-independence-on-the-frontier-july-25/article_4b0b7aaa-41b6-4c48-a717-26f8ef8f506e.html;

https://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/TennesseeFamilies&Places/Boone%27s%20Creek.html

Also on this day 250 years ago at Dewee’s Inlet on Long Island (now Isle of Palms), South Carolina, the British transport HMS Glasgow Packet ran aground on a sand bar. A South Carolina row galley with 10 small cannon, commanded by Lt. Francis Pickering, attacked the Glasgow Packet. The British ship was armed with six larger four-pounder guns, but the Glasgow Packet was stuck in the sand and it was unable to turn so its guns could fire on the South Carolinians. All of the British onboard were captured and the next day the Glasgow Packet was burned to prevent approaching British ships from recapturing the Glasgow Packet. One report was that 43 men of the Royal Highland Emigrants and eight seamen were captured but another source claims the Americans captured 50 Highlanders and 30 seamen. Only four British seamen were able to escape in a long boat to seek help from other British ships.

Sources: https://revolutionarywar.us/year-1776/; Parker’s Guide at 134
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 20, 1776

July 20th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago Major General Philip Schuyler wrote to General Washington from German Flatts in the Mohawk Valley of New York with intelligence (that turned out to be faulty for the most part) about the Iroquois:

Mr [Peter] Ryckman on his Return from Niagara past thro’ most of the six Nations, and he and his party were at every one of their Villages entertained with the Accounts brought by those that have lately returned from New York and Philadelphia, and such is the Idea they have conceived of our power and Resources that the Opinion that we shall be an Over-Match for our Enemies begins pretty generally to prevail—If this be true, and I have no Reason to doubt it, we shall meet with no Trouble from the Savages.

Source: https://big250.substack.com/p/a-delegation-from-the-iroquois

On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Virginia, Dixon & Hunter’s Virginia Gazette published the Declaration of Independence. Purdie’s Virginia Gazette had published an excerpt from the Declaration the day before but did not publish the full text until its next issue the following week.

Source: Display at the David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 19, 1776

July 19th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago in Watertown, Massachusetts, the Micmac and Maliseet tribes signed a treaty of alliance and friendship with the United States. The treaty is now known as the Treaty of Watertown.

Source: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/native-americans-revolutionary-war/

On this day 250 years ago, George Gibson of the 1st Virginia Regiment left Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh — then claimed by both Pennsylvania and Virginia) with Lieutenant William Linn and 15 to 25 men disguised as traders. Gibson and his men rafted down the Ohio River heading to New Orleans where they were to try and obtain gunpowder and supplies from the Spanish.

Sources: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gibson-george; https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30095212.pdf?addFooter=false
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 18, 1776

July 18th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Massachusetts, the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony of the State House by Col. Thomas Crafts to a crowd of the city’s citizens gathered in King Street. Abigail Adams was in the crowd and later wrote to her husband to describe the event:

Last Thursday after hearing a very Good Sermon I went with the Multitude into Kings Street to hear the proclamation for independance read and proclamed. Some Field peices with the Train were brought there, the troops appeard under Arms and all the inhabitants assembled there (the small pox prevented many thousand from the Country). When Col. Crafts read from the Belcona of the State House the Proclamation, great attention was given to every word. As soon as he ended, the cry from the Belcona, was God Save our American States and then 3 cheers which rended the air, the Bells rang, the privateers fired, the forts and Batteries, the cannon were discharged, the platoons followed and every face appeard joyfull. Mr. Bowdoin then gave a Sentiment, Stability and perpetuity to American independance. After dinner the kings arms were taken down from the State House and every vestage of him from every place in which it appeard and burnt in King Street. Thus ends royall Authority in this State, and all the people shall say Amen.

“Belcona” is an 18th Century alternative spelling of “balcony.” Mr. Bowdoin is James Bowdoin, President of the executive council of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, effectively making him governor of Massachusetts at the time. Bowdoin was plagued with illness throughout the Revolution and had a limited role in government at times, but would be officially elected Governor in 1785.

Sources: https://www.masshist.org/objects/cabinet/july2002/july2002.htm; “Abigail Adams to John Adams, 21 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0033. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 55–57.]; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bowdoin

You can visit the Old State House in Boston today to see the scene of the reading of the Declaration.

Source: https://www.nps.gov/bost/learn/historyculture/osh.htm
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 17, 1776

July 17th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago in Boston, James Warren wrote to John Adams in Philadelphia:

When you are Informed, that on the variety of Changes that have taken place in this Town, it is now become A Great Hospital for Inoculation, you will wonder to see A Letter from me dated here, but so it is that the rage for Inoculation prevailing here has whirled me into its vortex, and brought me with my other self into the Croud of Patients with which this Town is now filled. Here is A Collection of Good, Bad, and Indifferent of all Orders, Sexes, Ages and Conditions. Your good Lady and Family among the first. She will give you (I presume) such an account of her self &c. as makes it unnecessary for me to say more on that head.

She will perhaps tell you that this is the reigning subject of Conversation, and that even Politics might have been suspended for A Time, if your Decleration of Independence, and some other political Movements of yours had not reached us. The Decleration came on Saturday, and diffused A general Joy. Every one of us feels more Important than ever. We now Congratulate each other as freemen. It has really raised our Spirits to A Tone Beneficial to mitigate the Malignancy of the small Pox, and what is of more Consequence seems to Animate, and Inspire every one to support, and defend the Independency he feels.

Source: “James Warren to John Adams, 17 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0169. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 4, February–August 1776, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, pp. 389–391.]

On this day 250 years ago in Maryland, Lord Dunmore’s British fleet and soldiers on St. George’s Island continued combat with Maryland militia but were still blocked from crossing to the mainland.

Sources: https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/chron/html/chron17.html; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=18720; Wrike at 91
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 16, 1776

July 16th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:

I am informed that you were about taking the Small Pox, with all the Children. . . . It is not possible for me to describe, nor for you to conceive my Feelings upon this Occasion. Nothing, but the critical State of our Affairs should prevent me from flying to Boston, to your Assistance.

. . .

I can do no more than wish and pray for your Health, and that of the Children. Never—Never in my whole Life, had I so many Cares upon my Mind at once. . . . I shall feel like a Savage to be here, while my whole Family is sick at Boston. But it cannot be avoided. I cannot leave this Place, without more Injury to the public now, than I ever could at any other Time, being in the Midst of scaenes of Business, which must not stop for any Thing.

Source: “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 16 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0028-0001. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 50–51.]

Also on that day in Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Richard Henry Lee in Virginia:

I am sorry the Convention of Virginia did not accept of my resignation here. The state of Mrs. Jefferson’s health obliges me to persist in it. I hope you will be here before the 11th. of August when I propose going: otherwise the colony will be unrepresented. Indeed I wish you would come immediately. The confederation is just brought in and the plan of alliances will be reported to-day. The former is in every interesting point the reverse of what our country would wish. You can never be absent at a time so interesting to your country. I make no doubt it will be long in it’s passage through the1 Committee so that you may be here in time to attack it in the house from Alpha to Omega.

Source: “Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, 16 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-15-02-0546. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 15, 27 March 1789 – 30 November 1789, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958, p. 577.]

On this day 250 years ago in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, 300 British troops on St. George’s Island, and a specially designed row galley designed to protect soldiers in the channel between the island and the mainland, exchanged fire with several hundred Maryland militia under the command of Cols. Jeremiah Jordan and Richard Barnes. One British soldier was mortally wounded and Capt. Rezin Beall of the Maryland militia was badly wounded but survived. The fighting would continue for the next three days in the largest engagement of the War in Maryland.

Sources: Wrike at 89-91; https://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/maryland-largest-battle-revolution.html
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 15, 1776

July 15th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, James Cannon, an immigrant from Scotland, became a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, and was put in charge of drafting the instructions for Pennsylvania’s delegates to Congress. The Convention also made him a Justice of the Peace for the state of Pennsylvania, and appointed him to serve as a member of the Council of Safety from July 24, 1776 to December 4, 1777. Cannon
is regarded as one of the two principal draftsmen of

the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, the most progressive state constitution of the Revolution.

Sources: Hogeland, Declaration at 181; https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/2137578
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 14, 1776

July 14th, 2026

On this day 250 years in New York, brothers Admiral Richard Howe and General William Howe, the British Naval and Army commanders in America sent a messenger under a flag of truce in a small boat from Staten Island to Manhattan. The message offering a “pardon” to all who would pledge allegiance to Great Britain was addressed to “George Washington, Esq.” The letter was returned unopened to the British messenger by two of Washington’s most trusted officers, Col. Joseph Reed and Col. Henry Knox, who informed the messenger that there was no one with that title in the Continental Army.

Source: https://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/howe-brothers-attempt-negotiate-george-washington.html; Schecter at 107-08

On this day 250 years ago in Albany, New York, Captain Elisha Phelps, the Commissary of Connecticut troops, died from a disease he contracted caring for sick soldiers, most likely smallpox. You can visit Captain Phelps’ home in Connecticut today.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Phelps-1196; https://lostnewengland.com/2017/04/phelps-tavern-simsbury-connecticut/; https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%228%20September%201775%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=5&sr=; https://www.simsburyinn.com/attractions/phelps-tavern-museum-and-homestead
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 13, 1776

July 13th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, 300 militia commanded by Col. Richard Barnes guarded the shore opposite St. Georges Island. The previous day the militia had captured a small British boat with five crewmen and learned that the British fleet commanded by Royal Governor Dunmore of Virginia and Royal Governor Eden of Maryland planned to seize St. Georges Island. Col. Barnes counted about 70 British ships in the fleet off St. Georges Island; the British and Loyalists had lost more boats in a storm since leaving Gwynn’s Island in Virginia. Barnes decided not to defend St. Georges Island but called for more militia reinforcements to oppose British landings on the mainland.

Source: Wrike at 89

On this day 250 years ago in Providence, Rhode Island, the Declaration of Independence was published in the Providence Gazette. That same day the news of the Declaration reached Boston and would be published in the next few days.

Sources: Display at the David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello; https://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/north_of_boston/rare-copies-of-the-declaration-to-be-shown-in-danvers/article_16397acb-dde5-5818-bb58-004ca2d780c0.html
On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — July 12, 1776

July 12th, 2026

On this day 250 years ago in New York, the HMS Phoenix with 40 guns and HMS Rose with 20 guns sailed up the Hudson River to Tarrytown firing at the Continental Army’s batteries on Manhattan along their way. Six American artillerymen lost their lives in the cannonade, although most of the American losses were because the men were either too drunk or too inexperienced to load and fire their cannons properly. Only one British sailor was wounded by the American artillery.

Also on that day Admiral Lord Richard Howe, the commander of the Royal Navy in North America, arrived off Staten Island in the Bay of New York on the HMS Eagle.

Sources: https://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/admiral-howes-fleet-arrives-staten-island.html; Schecter at 104-06

On this day 250 years in Rowan County (now Burke County near present day Morganton) North Carolina, 2400 North Carolina militia led by Brigadier General Griffith Rutherford relieved the siege of McDowell’s Fort. Earlier Cherokee raiders had killed 37 settlers along the Catawba River and 120 settlers had fled to Lt. Col. Charles McDowell’s fort where they were defended by only 10 members of the Rowan County militia. The Cherokees had begun the siege of the fort on July 3 but McDowell and his men were able to hold them off from taking the fort until Rutherford’s men arrived. Rutherford would next lead his men to attack the villages of the Cherokee.

Source: https://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/admiral-howes-fleet-arrives-staten-island.html

And on this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Articles of Confederation were introduced in the Continental Congress. The proposed Articles began by declaring that the “Name of this Confederacy shall be ‘The United States of America.’” Overlooking that the Thirteen Colonies were now independent states the next article pledged that the “Colonies unite themselves so as never to be divided by any Act whatever.” The Articles also included a provision to preserve the “Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities and Advantages” of the “Inhabitants of each Colony,” but the Articles of Confederation would not be adopted for another five years.

Source: https://americanfounding.org/entries/second-continental-congress-july-12-1776/