On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General Washington’s military secretary Lt. Col. Joseph Reed suggested a flag for the new Continental Navy that Washington had commissioned:
Please to fix upon some particular colour for a flag, and a signal by which our vessels may know one another. What do you think of a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, the motto “Appeal to Heaven?” This is the flag of our floating batteries.
Two heavily armed American scows, or “floating batteries,” on the Charles River were already using the “Pine Tree flag” as an ensign. Six schooners authorized by Congress and outfitted at Washington’s command — theHancock, Lee, Franklin, Harrison, Lynch, and Warren— would use the Pine Tree flag.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:
Congress has appointed Mr. [George] Wythe, Mr. [Silas] Deane and me, a Committee to collect an Account of the Hostilities committed by the Troops and Ships, with proper Evidence of the Number and Value of the Houses and other Buildings destroyed or damaged, the Vessels captivated and the Cattle, Sleep, Hogs &c. taken. We are about writing to all the general assemblies of New England, and to many private Gentlemen in each Colony to assist Us in making the Collections.
The Gentlemen with me are able Men. Deane’s Character you know. He is a very ingenious Man and an able Politician. Wythe is a new Member from Virginia, a Lawyer of the highest Eminence in that Province, a learned and very laborious Man: so that We may hope this Commission will be well executed. A Tale of Woe it will be! Such a scene of Distress, and Destruction and so patiently and magnanimously born. Such a Scene of Cruelty and Barbarity, so unfeelingly committed.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the New Hampshire delegates to the Continental Congress formally presented their instructions from the New Hampshire requesting the Congress to advise and direct New Hampshire in establishing a new government.
On this day 250 years ago the British fleet bombarded Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine) and a British landing party set fire to the town. In all more than 400 buildings and houses were damaged or destroyed, and an estimated 1,000 people were made homeless.
Today, the State of Maine commemorated the 250th anniversary of the burning of Falmouth by “celebrat[ing] Maine’s revolutionary heritage through tours, talks and exhibitions across the City of Portland organized by the First Parish Church, Greater Portland Landmarks, Maine Historical Society, Maine Ulster-Scots Project, Osher Map Library, Spirits Alive at Eastern Cemetery, and Tate House Museum”
On this day 250 years ago, Americans commanded by Maj. John Brown and Canadians commanded by Col. James Livingston captured Fort Chambly from the British Army.
Americans were defending their liberties from the King’s army 250 years ago. And on this day in 2025, over six million Americans participated in No Kings rallies to defend our liberties.
On this day 250 years ago, Captain Henry Mowat, the British commander of the HMS Canceaux, HMS Halifax, and two other ships anchored in the harbor of Falmouth, Massachusetts (today’s Portland, Maine) sent Lieutenant Alexander Fraser onshore to deliver this warning:
After so many premeditated Attacks on the legal Prerogatives of the best of Sovereigns; After the repeated Instances [of] Britain’s long forbearance of the Rod of Correction; and the Merciful and Paternal extension of her Hands to embrace you, again and again, have been regarded as vain and nugatory And in place of a dutiful and grateful return to your King and Parent state; you have been guilty of the most unpardonable Rebellion … Having it in orders to execute a just Punishment on the Town of Falmouth … I warn you to remove without delay the Human Species out of the said town; for which purpose I give you the time of two hours.
That evening residents of Falmouth scrambled to save their possessions from the impending bombardment and militia from surrounding communities began to arrive to try and defend the town.
Also on that day in Norfolk, Royal Governor Lord Dunmore of Virginia ordered a British force of over 100 soldiers, sailors, and marines to embark in small boats and proceed up the eastern branch of the Elizabeth River. Newtown. The British raiders then marched three miles to Kemp’s Landing where they encountered no resistance from militia but did capture militia Captain Matthews and a delegate to the Virginia convention representing Princess Anne County, William Robinson, and seized from several warehouses “a good many small arms, musket locks, a little powder and ball, two drums, and a quantity of buckshot, all of which we either brought off or destroyed.”
On this day 250 years ago, a squadron of four ships — HMS Canceaux, two other warships and a troop transport — under the command of Captain Henry Mowat anchored in Casco Bay off the Town of Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine). The Reverend Jacob Bailey later recalled that Mowat’s small fleet fired on a small schooner in the refused to surrender for inspection and that
Notwithstanding the discharge of several muskets and two cannon [the schooner] escaped in safety to the town. The populace, which were gazing by hundreds, were immediately thrown into furious agitation by this incident, and vowed revenge with the utmost menace and caution. The Committee, composed of tradesmen and persons of no property, prompted only for a flaming zeal for the liberty of their country, were not less enraged at this hostile appearance and … ordered the company of guards to … secure the cattle, intimidate the tories and observe the motions of the enemy
On this day 250 years ago in London, Prime Minister Lord North wrote a memorandum to King George III recommending an expedition to the southern colonies to suppress the rebellion. North contended that the Patriots in the southern colonies were in a “perilous situation” because of “the great number of their negro slaves, and the small proportion of white inhabitants.”
On this day 250 years ago in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Col. John Glover wrote a report to Gen. Washington on the work was nearly complete to outfit the armed schooners Hancock and Franklin, to be commanded by Captains Nicholson Broughton and John Selman, respectively. Broughton and Selman had served as captains of companies in Glover’s Marblehead Regiment. Captain Broughton had previously commanded the first ship commissioned by Gen. Washington, the Hannah, which was now decommissioned because of damage from its engagement with the HMS Nautilus. The Hancock and Franklin would become the second and third ships of the Continental Navy.
Source: “Colonel John Glover to George Washington, 15 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0161. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 169–170.]; O’Donnell at 162-63.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress resolved that “a director general and chief physician of the Hospital in Massachusetts be appointed in place of Doctor Benjamin Church, who is taken into custody for holding a correspondence with the enemy” and scheduled the vote for his replacement on the next day the Congress was scheduled to meet.
On this day 250 years ago, from his home at Gunston Hall, Virginia, George Mason wrote a lengthy report to his friend George Washington on the resolutions adopted by the Virginia Convention:
The Convention, not thinking this a time to relye upon Resolves & Recommendations only, and to give obligatory Force to their proceedings, adopted the Style & Form of Legislation, changing the word enact into ordain: their Ordinances were all introduced in the Form of Bills, were regularly referred to a Committee of the whole House, and underwent their Readings before they were passed. I inclose You the Ordinance for rising an arm’d Force for the Defence & protection of this Colony; . . . I hope it will merit your Approbation. The Minute-plan I think is a wise one, & will in a short time furnish 8,000 good Troops, ready for Action, & composed of Men in whose Hands the Sword may be safely trusted: to defray the Expence of the Provisions made by this Ordinance, & to pay the Charge of the last Year’s Indian war, we are now emitting the Sum of 350,000£ in Paper Curry. I have great Apprehensions that the large Sums in Bills of Credit now issueing all over the Continent may have fatal Effects in depreciating the Value, and therefore opposed any Suspension of Taxation, and urged the necessity of imediatly laying such Taxes as the people cou’d bear, to sink the Sum emitted as soon as possible; but was able only to reduce the proposed Suspension from three Years to one. . . . Our Friend the Treasurer was the warmest Man in the Convention for imediatly raising a standing Army of not less than 4000 Men, upon constant Pay: they stood a considerable time at 3000, exclusive of the Troops upon the western Frontiers; but at the last reading (as you will see by the Ordinance) were reduced to 1020 rank & file. In my Opinion a well judged Reduction, not only from our Inability to furnish at present such a Number with Arms & Ammunition, but I think it extreamly imprudent to exhaust ourselves before we know when we are to be attack’d: the Part we have to act at present seems to require our laying in good Magazines, training our People, & having a good Number of them ready for Action. An Ordinance is passed for regulating an annual Election of Members to the Convention, & County-Committees—for encouraging the making of Saltpetre, Sulphur & Gunpowder—for establishing a Manufactory of Arms, under the Direction of Commissioners; and for appointing a Committee of Safety, consisting of eleven Members, for carrying the Ordinances of the Convention into Execution, directing the Stations of the Troops, & calling the Minute Battalions, & Draughts from the Militia into Service, if necessary &c.
There is also an Ordinance establishing Articles for the Government of the Troops, principally taken from those drawn up by the Congress, except that a Court Martial upon Life & Death is more cautiously constituted, & brought nearer to the Principles of the common Law.
Source: “George Mason to George Washington, 14 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0156. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 163–166.]
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress received a report from Gen. George Washington that a British fleet, including six ships-of-the-line, was transporting five regiments of Royal Marines to America, and that four heavily armed ships and two transports with 600 men, two mortars, four howitzers, and several other artillery pieces, were preparing to sail from Boston. In addition, the Congress received another report from General Washington that he had authorize three schooners to cruise off Massachusetts in order to intercept and capture British supply ships. In response to these reports from General Washington the Congress
Resolved, That a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible dispatch, for a cruise of three months, and that the commander be instructed to cruise eastward, for intercepting such transports as may be laden with warlike stores and other supplies for our enemies, and for such other purposes as the Congress shall direct.
That a Committee of three be appointed to superintend the fitting the said vessel to prepare an estimate of the expense, and lay the same before the Congress, and to contract with proper persons to fit out the vessel. That another vessel be fitted out for the same purposes, and that the said committee report their opinion of a proper vessel, and also an estimate of the expense.
The Congress further resolved that a committee “bring in regulations for” the navy and named Silas Deane, John Langdon, and Christopher Gadsden as the initial members of the Navy Committee, although the Committee would soon add more members including John Adams. Because of these actions that day, October 13, 1775 is generally considered the birthdate of the United States Navy, although the case can be made that the Navy was born in the previous month when General Washington commissioned the Hannah to go to sea.
On this day 250 years ago at the Great Carrying Place in Maine, Col. Benedict Arnold wrote to General Washington reporting that his entire command, which had been reduced to 950 men from the 1100 who started out, had left the Kennebec River and were engaged in hauling their bateaux on trails and over three ponds to the Dead River. Arnold predicted that in eight or ten days the men and their provisions would be on the Chaudiere River in Canada. Although Arnold acknowledged that “you would have taken the Men for amphibious Animals, as they were great Part of the Time under Water, add to this the great Fatigue in Portage,” he also claimed that “the Officers, Volunteers and privates in general have acted with the greatest Spirit & Industry.” Arnold’s report to Washington was entirely too optimistic, and the expedition would soon face calamity as they learned the distance to the Chaudiere River was much further than they had anticipated, torrential downpours would soak the men, provisions would run out and wash away in the flood, men would fall ill and be sent back to Fort Western to recuperate, and an entire division of the force would turn back against orders.
On this day 250 years ago, Dr. John Connolly arrived in Portsmouth, Virginia where Royal Governor Dunmore commissioned him as a Lieutenant Colonel. Connolly had been Dunmore’s agent in the Fort Pitt area the previous year and had participated in Dunmore’s War against the Shawnee and Mingo. Connolly proposed to Dunmore a plan for Connolly to return to Fort Pitt where he would raise a force of Indians and Loyalists to seize Fort Pitt and Cumberland, Maryland then march down the Potomac River to meet Dunmore at Alexandria, Virginia.
On that same day, William Cowley, who had been an aide to Connolly and had traveled with Connolly to meet General Gage in Boston, disclosed Connolly’s plot to General Washington and his staff in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cowley provided Washington a letter that declared that
a real Friend to Liberty would join in my Sentiments to stop such outragious Actions & Rebellious Works which are going to be put into Execution—please your Excellency I lived along with Major John Connelly of Fort Pitt have done this two years—last July he was obliged to retire from Fort Pitt the Inhabitants had a suspicion of his being an Enemy to his Country . . . the Major . . . just after we left Boston he ask’d me if I was willing to go with him into the Indian Country as he had been with General Gage to get a Commission & Orders to go into the Indian Countrys to raise the Indians & the French . . . he intends to fall upon is Fort Pitt & to take That & then he says that he thinks that most part of that Quarter will join him as he says he has Orders to give them three hundred Acres of Land to each Man that will join him—And another Scheme he told me he was going to put into Execution that is in regard to Convicts & indentured Servants to set them at their Liberty & to give them Land to join him & when he has taken Fort Pitt he intends to proceed down for Alexandria & there he is to be reinforced by Lord Dunmore & some men of War & then to sweep all the Country before him
General Washington on that same day wrote to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and his cousin Lund Washington at Mount Vernon, who passed the information on to George Mason of the Fairfax Committee of Safety. Mason in turn alerted the Virginia and Maryland Committees of Safety to Dunmore’s plans. By the end of the month local committees of safety in Virginia were on the lookout for Connolly.
“William Cowley to George Washington, 30 September–12 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0063. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 67–69.]; “George Washington to John Hancock, 12 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0140-0001. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 146–150.]
Also on this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, John Adams forwarded to his close friend James Warren, President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress a “Proposal Regarding the Procurement of Powder” by sending vessels to Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Martins and St. Eustatius in the West Indies.
Sources: “Enclosure: A Proposal Regarding the Procurement of Powder, 12 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-03-02-0100-0002. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 3, May 1775 – January 1776, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, pp. 197–198.]
And on this day 250 years ago in Topsham, in the District of Maine, Massachusetts, Sarah Fulton, Alenar Clarke, Jannet Berry, and Hannah Harvard wrote to General Washington:
We your humble Petitioners beg Leave to lay our pitiful Circumstances before you & intreat your Favour. we would hope from your Elevated Station & Goodness that something may be done in our Favour. In the Month of August in the present Year, Messiers Robert Fulton, Robert Clarke, Joseph Berry, Thomas Harvard, our Husbands, with John Patten, William Patten & David Fouke young Men, went in a Sloop eastward as far as St Mary’s Bay, in the Province of Nova-Scotia, to get food Hay for themselves & were unfortunately taken by two Sloops of War, Cap. Douson, Cap. Graves, being Commanders of them, & sent them to Boston —We have, some of us, large Families of Young Children & are unable to help ourselves or them—our Friends & Neighbors, tho’ never so willing, can afford us but little Relief—by reason of the great Scarcity of Provisions occasion’d by the Drought, the Sterility of the Land, & Trade being stopped—We would humbly Intreat you, honor’d Sir, to give our Petitions a gracious hearing; & if you please, upon the Redemption of Captives to favor the above mention’d Persons, it will Cause our Hearts to sing for Joy.
We should today remember the suffering of not just the crew of the Merry Meeting imprisoned for their service to America but their wives and families who also suffered on behalf of American liberty.
Source: “Sarah Fulton, Alenar Clarke, Jannet Berry, and Hannah Harvard to George Washington, 12 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0139. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 145–146.]
On this day 250 years ago in Boston, General Thomas Gage boarded a ship and departed the city. With his departure, General William Howe assumed command of the British Army in North America.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress wrote to General Philip Schuyler, who they presumed to be in command of the invasion of Canada. Schuyler had returned to Fort Ticonderoga from the siege of Fort St. Jean in Canada in order to recuperate from illness, but remained in command of the New York Department. Hancock directed that:
the Canadians be induced to accede to an Union with these Colonies, and that they form from their several Parishes a Provincial Convention and send Delegates to this Congress. . . .
You may assure them that we shall hold their Rights as dear as our own, and on their Union with us, exert our utmost Endeavors to obtain for them and their Posterity the Blessings of a free Government, and that Security to their Persons and Property which is derived from the British Constitution. And you may further declare that we hold sacred the Rights of Conscience, and shall never molest them in the free Enjoyment of their Religion.
On This Day In The Revolution 