On this day 250 years ago, the HMS Fowey and seven vessels sailed out of Chesapeake Bay departing Virginia waters. Readers of this blog may recall several mentions of the Fowey which had been sailing in Virginia waters since June 1775 in frequent combat with Virginia forces. The previous day, the HMS Otter, which had also been in combat with the Virginians for the previous year, departed the Chesapeake for St. Augustine, Florida, with 40 Loyalist boats and 28 American prisoners. Royal Governor Lord Dunmore was left with only 15 ships anchored in Lynnhaven Bay.

Source: Wrike at 100

Also on this day 250 years ago in Virginia,

the Declaration of Independence was publicly proclaimed in the town of Richmond, before a large concourse of respectable freeholders of Henrico county, and upwards of 200 of the militia, who assembled on that grand occasion. It was received with universal shouts of joy, and re-echoed by three vollies of small arms. The same evening the town was illuminated, and the members of the committee held a club, when many patriotic toasts were drank. Although there were near 1000 people present, the whole was conducted with the utmost decorum, and the satisfaction visible in every countenance sufficiently evinces their determination to support it with their lives and fortunes.

On that same day in Charlestown (now Charleston), South Carolina, printer Peter Timothy printed broadsides of the Declaration of Independence with his name on the bottom and distributed them throughout town. There were three public readings of the Declaration to “the acclamations of a vast concourse of people” at the Exchange Building, at what is now the County Courthouse on Broad and Meeting streets, and under the Liberty Tree on Alexander Street in Charleston. Peter Timothy in 1780 would be imprisoned by the British for his temerity in attaching his name to the Declaration

Sources: https://declaration.fas.harvard.edu/blog/july-proclamations quoting Virginia Gazette (Aug. 10, 1776) & Pennsylvania Journal (Sep. 18, 1776); Emily Sneff, “Spreading The News: When and how the Declaration of Independence reached Williamsburg”, Trend and Tradition: The Magazine of Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Summer 2026) at 54; https://charlestonmag.com/features/a_rare_declaration_of_independence_copy_comes_home_to_charleston

And on this day 250 years ago at Fort Ticonderoga, New York, Col. Jeduthan Baldwin recorded in his journal that

in clearing the guns on bord of one of the gundelows one of the cannon went of as they were charging it & Killd the gunners mate he was blown into many peices & scatterd on the water,

I wish Col. Baldwin had recorded the name of the gunners mate who was killed that day. Today I honor the unnamed gunners mate who gave his life for American liberty 250 years ago today.

Source: Baldwin at 65 accessed at https://archive.org/details/revolutionaryjo00baldgoog/page/n143/mode/2up