On this day 250 years ago at the home of Christopher Billop on Staten Island, New York, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge representing the Continental Congress met with Admiral Lord Richard Howe in his capacity as the Peace Commissioner for the British crown. The Americans quickly learned that Lord Howe did not have authority to negotiate peace but only to issue pardons to Americans who laid down their arms, so the meeting lasted only three hours. Lord Howe’s brother had died fighting in the French and Indian War and was honored by the Americans as a hero. John Adams later wrote that Howe asserted in the meeting “his gratitude and affection” for Americans for the honor they had given his family and “that he felt for America as for a brother, and if America should fall, he should feel and lament it like the loss of a brother.” Adams also recorded Franklin’s witty reply that “we will do our utmost endeavors to save your lordship that mortification.”

Christopher Billop was a Loyalist who would flee to Canada at the end of the Revolution, but his own brother Thomas Farmer fought for America as a private. The Billop home is still standing but is now called the Conference House and is maintained as a New York City Park open to the public for tours.

On Saturday, September 12, 2026, Conference House Park will be hosting a Celebration and Reenactment to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Staten Island Peace Conference.

Sources: https://events.siparent.com/event/america250-1776-peace-conference-celebration-reenactment/; https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/conference-house-park/events/2026/09/12/250th-1776-peace-conference-celebration; Stembler, Sol, The Bicentennial Guide to the American Revolution, Vol. I, The War in the North, New York: Saturday Review Press (1974) at 220-26; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Billop; https://conferencehouse.org/about/history/; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=7889; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=8727; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=287877; Schecter at 175-77