On this day 250 years ago in Braintree, Massachusetts, Abigail Adams wrote to her friend Mercy Otis Warren about the British officers who had assaulted the Boston Watch a few days earlier (see my blog for January 21, 1775)
Thus are we to be in continual hazard and Jeopardy of our lives from a Set of dissolute unprincipald officers, and an Ignorant abandoned Soldiery who are made to believe that their Errant here is to Quell a Lawless Set of Rebels—who can think of it without the utmost indignation. “Is it not better to die the last of British freemen than live the first of British Slaves.”
Also on this day in Exeter, New Hampshire, the Second Provincial Convention met and adopted the Continental Association and elected John Sullivan and John Langdon (the leaders of the raids on Fort William and Mary in the prior month) to the Second Continental Congress.
On that day in Winthrop, Massachusetts (now Manchester, Maine) the Town formed a militia company with Ichabod How as its Captain, and Elias Taylor, Sr. as a First Sergeant.
On this day 250 years ago in Annapolis, Maryland, Thomas Johnson wrote to his good friend George Washington at Mount Vernon, Virginia that he would forward to Washington copies of a plan for organization of the American militia prepared by Charles Lee. Johnson also said:
There has been more Alacrity shewn by our people than I expected but we are but illy prepared with Arms &c. I am apprehensive that the Vigilance of the Govt at Home will make it necessary for us to turn our Thoughts towards an internal Supply of Materials.
Johnson had served with Washington in the First Continental Congress and he would serve as the General commanding the Maryland Militia and as Governor of Maryland during the War. Lee was a recently arrived immigrant from England who had had a long career in the British Army and a short stint as a General in the Polish Army. He was widely regarded as the most experienced military officer in the Colonies when the War and would be named as the Major General second-in-command to Washington but would end up being dismissed from the Continental Army after disputes with Washington, the Continental Congress and a host of others before the War ended.
Source: “To George Washington from Thomas Johnson, 24 January 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0175. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 242–244.]
On this day 250 years ago, Mercy Otis Warren’s play The Group was published in the Boston Gazette. The play is a thinly disguised satire of leading Tories in Massachusetts that was widely circulated and praised (although I have to say as much as I have studied Massachusetts in 1775, it is quite hard for me to decipher many of the allusions in the play).
Also on this day 250 years ago, a detachment of 100 men from the 4th Regiment of Foot with two artillery pieces and 300 extra muskets sailed the short distance down the coast from Boston to the town of Marshfield. Tories in Marshfield had requested protection by the Redcoats from belligerent Patriots in Plymouth and other nearby towns who were threatening the Marshfield Tories for their refusal to participate in the Continental Association boycott of trade with Britain. The British soldiers set up barracks and distributed muskets to Tories in the town. With this occupation, Marshfield joined Boston as the only towns in all Massachusetts subject to British rule, although it would not last long.
Elsewhere on this day in Massachusetts, in a propaganda war of Patriot versus Loyalist pamphlets, John Adams writing under the pseudonym “Novanglus” published his refutation of arguments made by an anonymous Tory writing “under the signature of Massachusettensis”:
“A small mistake in point of policy” says he, “often furnishes a pretence to libel government and perswade the people that their rulers are tyrants, and the whole government, a system of oppression.” This is not only untrue, but . . . repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt, that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties; not to oppress an individual or a few, but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government and all the checks by which it is limitted.
“I. To the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, 23 January 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0072-0002. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 2, December 1773 – April 1775, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977, pp. 226–233.]
And on that day in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Provincial Convention convened to adopt the Articles of Association to preserve “our Just Rights and Liberties”, and separately a meeting of the people of the City and County of Philadelphia elected a Committee of Inspection and Observation. Along with well-remembered Founding Fathers John Dickinson and Thomas Mifflin, the people of Philadelphia elected an immigrant from Germany and baker named Christopher Lutwick to the Committee. This remarkable man would go on to become a soldier, recruiter and spy but most importantly the “Baker General” of the Continental Army, and may have done more to keep the Army fed than any other person. He deserves to be better remembered for his commitment and contributions to American Liberty.
On this day 250 years ago in Boston, John Andrews wrote to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia about further outrages by the British troops:
The Officers’ animosity to the watch still rankling in their breast, induc’d two of them to go last night to the watch house again at about 10 o’clock and threaten the watch that they would bring a tile of men and blow all their brains out.
Also on that day in Charles Town, South Carolina, Henry Laurens wrote to his son John Laurens:
I feel for the distresses of my Country, I weep for the horrid effects of Civil discord which must soon be produced if we proceed in our Contest with Great Britain, & tis impossible that we should forbear unless she will withdraw her oppressive hand. . . . Alas my Country! Alas my Children, alas humanity! You must be spoiled & massacred, you cannot reach the wished for Land of Liberty but through the Wilderness & a Sea ofBrother’s Blood.
John Laurens would indeed be killed seven years later as one of the last casualties of our War to make America the Land of Liberty.
On this day 250 years ago in Boston, John Andrews wrote to his brother-in-law William Barrell in Philadelphia:
Last evening a number of drunken Officers attacked the town house watch between eleven and 12 o’clock, when the assistance of the New Boston watch was call’d, and a general battle ensued ; some wounded on both sides. A party from the main guard was brought up with their Captain together with another party from the Governor’s. Had it not been for the prudence of two Officers that were sober, the Captain of the Main Guard would have acted a second Tragedy to the 5th March, as he was much disguis’d with Liquor and would have order’d the guard to fire on the watch had he not been restrain’d. . . .
This afternoon there was a general squabble between the Butchers in the market and a number of Soldiers. It first began by a Soldier’s tripping up the heals of a fisherman who was walking through the market with a piece of beef in his hands. A guard from the 47th Barracks appear’d and carried off the Soldiers, together with one butcher who was most active, the Officer taking him by the Collar. He was able to have crush’d the officer, but was advis’d to lie quiet. Young Ned Gray insisted on it that he should not he carried into the guard house, upon which many hard words pass’d between him and the Captain of the Guard. However Gray prevail’d, and they carried the man into Miss Foster’s store close by the barracks, from whence the Officer dismiss’d him after finding upon deliberation that his conduct was not justifiable — and seem’d to he much afraid least the Butcher should take advantage of him by Law or complaint.
On that same day a British officer recorded in his diary the British view of the riot on the night of the 20th:
Last night in King Street there was a riot in consequence of an officer having been insulted by the watchmen, which has frequently happened, as those people suppose from their employment that they may do it with impunity; the contrary, however, they experienced last night. A number of officers as well as townsmen were assembled, and in consequence of the watch having brandished their hooks and other weapons, several officers drew their swords and wounds were given on both sides, some officers slightly; one of the watch lost a nose, another a thumb, besides many others by the points of swords but less conspicuous than those above mentioned.
Both sources confirm that there was bloodshed in fighting between Americans and British soldiers on the night of the 20th even though they disagreed on who started the riot.
Also on that day 250 years ago in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts wrote a letter to a friend in London explaining:
The Congress consisted of the representatives of twelve colonies. Three millions of free white people were there represented. Many of the members were gentlemen of ample fortunes and eminent abilities. Neither corruption nor intrigue had any share, I believe, in their elections to this service, and in their proceedings you may see the sense, the temper and principles of America, and which she will support and defend, ever by force of arms, if no other means will do.”
The state of this province is a great curiosity: I wish the pen of some able historian may transmit it to posterity. Four hundred thousand people are in a state of nature, and yet as still and peaceable at present as ever they were when government was in full vigour. We have neither legislators nor magistrates, nor executive officers. We have no officers but military ones. Of these we have a multitude chosen by the people, and exercising them with more authority and spirit than ever any did who had commissions from a Governor.
The town of Boston is a spectacle worthy of the attention of a deity, suffering amazing distress, yet determined to endure as much as human nature can, rather than betray America and posterity. General Gage’s army is sickly, and extremely addicted to desertion. What would they be if things were brought to extremities? Do you think such an army would march through our woods and thickets, and country villages, to cut the throats of honest people contending for liberty?
The neighbouring colonies of New-Hampshire, Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, are arming and training themselves with great spirit, and if they must be driven to the last appeal, devoutly praying for the protection of heaven.
On this day 250 years ago, the freeholders of Fincastle County, Virginia met to elect a Committee to enforce the Continental Association and to govern the County in place of Royal authority. Fincastle County in 1775 was a huge territory that comprises multiple counties in southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia as well as all of Kentucky. Although it was subsequently claimed that the Fincastle County meeting occurred at the Chiswell Lead Mines, the more likely location for the meeting was at James McGavock’s Ordinary in Fort Chiswell, in present-day Wythe County, Virginia.
The meeting unanimously adopted a resolution declaring:
even to these remote regions the hand of unlimited and unconstitutional power hath pursued us, to strip us of that liberty and property with which God, nature, and the rights of humanity, have vested us. We are ready and willing to contribute all in our power for the support of his Majesty’s government, if applied to constitutionally, and when the grants are made by our own representatives; but cannot think of submitting our liberty or property to the power of a venal British parliament, or to the will of a corrupt Ministry.
. . .
But if no pacifick measures shall be proposed or adopted by Great Britain, and our enemies will attempt to dragoon us out of these inestimable privileges which we are entitled to as subjects, and to reduce us to a state of slavery, we declare, that we are deliberately and resolutely determined never to surrender them to any power upon earth, but at the expense of our lives.
These are our real, though unpolished sentiments, of liberty and loyalty, and in them we are resolved to live and die.
The Fincastle Resolutions have often been claimed as the first pledge to fight to the death to defend American liberties, although similar rhetoric had been used in earlier resolutions.
The meeting also elected as the Committee to govern Fincastle County:
Reverend Charles Cummings, Colonel William Preston, Colonel William Christian, Captain Stephen Trigg, Major Arthur Campbell, Major William Inglis, Captain Walter Crockett, Captain John Montgomery, Captain James McGavock, Captain William Campbell, Captain Thomas Madison, Captain Daniel Smith, Captain William Russell, Captain Evan Shelby and Lieutenant William Edmondson. After the election the committee made choice of Colonel William Christian for their chairman, and appointed Mr. David Campbell to be clerk.
As indicated by their ranks, all these men were officers in the Virginia militia (including Cummings who served as a chaplain and was known as a “fighting parson”) and would continue to serve in the militia and in public office for Virginia throughout the Revolutionary War, although William Inglis (or Ingles) was accused of being a Tory in 1780. William Campbell would command a large detachment of men from the former Fincastle County (by then divided into other counties) who joined the Overmountain Men at the critical American victory of Kings Mountain and at Guilford Courthouse, and would then die from illness as a general in the Continental Army during the Yorktown Campaign. Colonel William Preston also fought at Guilford Courthouse and would die of illness in militia service in 1783. Colonel William Christian, Lt. Col. Stephen Trigg, and Lt. Col. John Montgomery would all be killed by Indian allies of the British in the years following Yorktown. William Russell served in the Continental Army and was at both the American surrender at Charleston and British surrender at Yorktown rising to the rank of Brigadier General at the end of the war.
On January 27, 2025, Smyth County, Virginia will host a celebration and reenactment of Rev. Cummings’ role in adoption of the Fincastle Resolutions . https://va250.org/event-detail/?id=1425
Also on January 20, 1775, James Madison wrote to his friend William Bradford in Philadelphia:
We are very busy at present in raising men and procuring the necessaries for defending ourselves and our frends in case of a sudden Invasion. The extensiveness of the Demands of the Congress and the pride of the British Nation together with the Wickedness of the present Ministry, seem, in the Judgment of our Politicians to require a preparation for extreme events There will by the Spring, I expect, be some thousands of well trained High Spirited men ready to meet danger whenever it appears, who are influenced by no mercenary Principles, bearing their own expences and having the prospect of no recompence but the honour and safety of their Country.
And on that day in London, William Pitt the Elder gave his most eloquent speech before the House of Lords in support of a motion to remove British troops from Boston. His hour-and-a-half-long speech included:
now, my Lords, we find that instead of suppressing the opposition in Boston, these measures have spread it over the whole continent. They have united that whole people by the most indissoluble of all bands—intolerable wrongs…
Resistance to your acts was as necessary as it was just, and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince or enslave your fellow subjects in America who feel that tyranny, whether ambitioned by an individual part of the Legislature, or by the bodies which compose it, is equally intolerable to British principles…
Woe be to him who sheds the first—the inexpiable—drop of blood in an impious war with a people contending in the great cause of public liberty. I will tell you plainly, my Lords: No son of mine, nor any one over whom I have influence, shall ever draw his sword upon his fellow subjects…
I trust it is obvious to your Lordships that all attempts to impose servitude, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract, while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent and oppressive Acts. They must be repealed!
When Pitt finished speaking, the House of Lords voted 68-18 to leave British troops in Boston.
On this day 250 years ago in New York City, Rivington’s Gazette published a letter from a loyalist in Hartford, Connecticut reporting that:
The Governor of Connecticut called his counsel together on the 4th instant; their deliberations are kept very secret; but we are told they have ordered three hundred barrels of gunpowder, and lead in proportion, to be purchased at the public expense. The militia in the whole colony is mustered every week, and in most towns they have a deserter from his Majesty’s forces, by way of drill sergeant. Nothing but a spirit of independence would suffer matters to be carried to such extremities
Also on that day, the people of Topsfield, Massachusetts at a Town Meeting voted to form a company of minutemen as recommended by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and set times and dates for the minutemen to drill.
On this day 250 years ago, in Savannah, the Georgia Gazette published a letter written by “Margaret Homespun” urging women to boycott East India Company tea. She reasoned that “the principal bone of contention (to wit the article of tea) lies altogether between the Parliament of Great-Britain and the Women of America,” so “silence in our sex” is “unpardonable.” And she concluded that “Whatever may be the event of the present struggle, let it never be said our sex were accessory to the death of AMERICAN LIBERTY.”
Source: Norton, Mary Beth, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution, New York: Vintage Books, 2021 at p. 63.
Also on that day in Savannah, the Georgia Provincial Congress convened for the purpose of electing delegates to the Second Continental Congress in May. However, the men of the Provincial Congress were unable to decide on instructions to its delegates whether or not Georgia would join the Continental Assocation boycott of trade with Britain, so the Provincial Congress did not send anyone to the Second Continental Congress.
Also on that day 250 years ago, 60 representatives of townships in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, gathered at John Ringo’s Tavern (in the present-day Ringoes Historic District) to elect a County Committee for Hunterdon County. The meeting was chaired by John Hart (who would later be one of New Jersey’s Signers of the Declaration of Independence) and resolved:
The Committee taking into consideration the Proceedings of the late Continental Congress, highly approve thereof, and the Association entered into do recommend and will abide by, and thank the Delegates for their firm and steady conduct.
The Committee then taking into their consideration the method of choosing Delegates for this Province, to attend at Philadelphia, the 10th day of May next, or sooner, if necessary, in Continental Congress, agreed to . . . recommend that the several County Committees meet at Trenton, on Wednesday, the 29th day of March next, . . . to choose Delegates for the purpose aforesaid, and we do hereby appoint Samuel Tucker, John Mehelm, John Hart, Daniel Hunt, Jasper Smith, Charles Coxe, Richard Stevens, Samuel Johnson, Esquires, Messrs. Thomas Jones and Thomas Stout, a County Committee for the purpose aforesaid, who, or any three of them, are also appointed a Committee of Correspondence
On this day 250 years ago in Alexandria, Virginia, the Fairfax Independent Company under George Washington’s command drilled during the day. That night, the Fairfax County Committee, chaired by Washington, passed a resolution stating
As well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen, freeholders, and other freemen, is the natural strength and only staple security of a free government . . . it is recommended to . . . inhabitants sixteen to fifty years of age, to form themselves into companies of 68 men. They provide themselves with good firelocks, and use their utmost endeavours to make themselves masters of the military exercise published by order of his majesty in 1764.
The Committee also voted to assess a 3 shilling tax on every tithable person in the county to pay for powder, and to keep a list “of such persons as shall refuse to pay the same,”
George Washington succinctly described his busy day in his diary as “Under Arms this day also and in Committee in the Eveng.”
On this day 250 years ago, in Alexandria, Virginia, George Washington wrote in his diary that he “Went up to Alexandria to a review of the Independant Company & to choose a Com[mitt]ee for the County of Fairfax.” George Mason accompanied Washington to Alexandria for the Committee of Safety meeting. Washington was the Commander of the Independent Company and Mason had been the primary organizer of the Company. The Fairfax Committee had been organized in the prior year with Washington and Mason as members, but the original members and new members of the Committee were elected in this meeting.
