On this day 250 years ago in Annapolis, Maryland, the ninth and final Provincial Convention of Maryland convened to form a constitution for the State of Maryland. The 81 men who met in what is now called the Maryland Constitutional Convention of 1776 included a few men who had signed the Declaration of Independence of the United States and others who would sign the United States Constitution. However all 81 of these men, as well as the men who served in the conventions that formed the constitutions of the other 12 original states, helped form the United States and we should honor them as Founders today.

Source: https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc2600/sc2685/html/conv1776.html

On this day 250 years ago at his headquarters at the Richmond Hill estate on Manhattan, General Washington issued orders naming Alexander Scammell and Lewis Morris as “Aids-de-Camp” to Major General John Sullivan and William Peck and Charles Whiting as Aids-de-Camp to Major General Joseph Spencer. All four men would later be promoted and continue in service but Whiting would die of illness in 1779 and Col. Alexander Scammell would lose his life in the final major battle of Yorktown.

General Washington also ordered that

three days provision to be cooked immediately, that the Soldiers have their Canteens filled, and be ready to meet the enemy on a short notice.

Source: “General Orders, 14 August 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-06-02-0013. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 6, 13 August 1776 – 20 October 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase and Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994, pp. 17–18.]

Washington was reacting to the arrival two days earlier of 100 additional British ships carrying 1000 additional British troops and 7800 Hessian soldiers to Staten Island. And only the day before Governor Dunmore’s small fleet from Virginia arrived carrying a couple hundred more troops including the 100-man remnant of Dunmore’s “Ethiopian Regiment” of escaped slaves. In all 24,000 British, Hessian and Loyalists troops were on Staten Island, guarded by heavily armed warships and 10,000 Royal Navy sailors manning the 30 warships, 400 transports, and a host of small landing craft clogging New York Harbor. Washington knew that these troops could be ferried at any day to attack New York City directly or to outflank the city by landing on Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester County or on Manhattan north of the city.

Source: Schecter at 115-16

250 years ago General Washington’s headquarters at Richmond Hill was on the outskirts of New York City but the location today is on Varick Street between Charlton and Vandam Streets in the heart of Manhattan. Nothing remains of the Richmond Hill mansion today, and even the historic marker that used to mark the entrance to the estate on Sixth Avenue is reportedly missing.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Hill_(Manhattan); https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=163867