On this day 250 years ago in New York, the HMS Phoenix with 40 guns and HMS Rose with 20 guns sailed up the Hudson River to Tarrytown firing at the Continental Army’s batteries on Manhattan along their way. Six American artillerymen lost their lives in the cannonade, although most of the American losses were because the men were either too drunk or too inexperienced to load and fire their cannons properly. Only one British sailor was wounded by the American artillery.
Also on that day Admiral Lord Richard Howe, the commander of the Royal Navy in North America, arrived off Staten Island in the Bay of New York on the HMS Eagle.
On this day 250 years in Rowan County (now Burke County near present day Morganton) North Carolina, 2400 North Carolina militia led by Brigadier General Griffith Rutherford relieved the siege of McDowell’s Fort. Earlier Cherokee raiders had killed 37 settlers along the Catawba River and 120 settlers had fled to Lt. Col. Charles McDowell’s fort where they were defended by only 10 members of the Rowan County militia. The Cherokees had begun the siege of the fort on July 3 but McDowell and his men were able to hold them off from taking the fort until Rutherford’s men arrived. Rutherford would next lead his men to attack the villages of the Cherokee.
And on this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Articles of Confederation were introduced in the Continental Congress. The proposed Articles began by declaring that the “Name of this Confederacy shall be ‘The United States of America.’” Overlooking that the Thirteen Colonies were now independent states the next article pledged that the “Colonies unite themselves so as never to be divided by any Act whatever.” The Articles also included a provision to preserve the “Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities and Advantages” of the “Inhabitants of each Colony,” but the Articles of Confederation would not be adopted for another five years.
On this day 250 years ago off Gwynn’s Island, Virginia, Governor Dunmore’s fleet weighed anchor and sailed out into the Chesapeake Bay. The British fleet which had numbered more than 100 ships, was reduced to 96 ships because of damage from Patriot cannon fire and lack of experienced seamen, but the Virginians were able to salvage several of the ships that had been scuttled by the British. With the abandonmemnt of Gwynn’s Island the British lost their last foothold in Virginia and would not return for another three years.
Source: Wrike at 87-88
On this day 250 years ago in New York City, Gen. George Washington wrote to the Massachusetts General Court (i.e., the general assembly of Massachusetts) about the recruitment of Native Americans in Maine who had volunteered for the Continental Army:
the Congress have been pleased to empower me, as you will perceive by the Inclosed copy of their Resolve, which I have the honor of transmitting you, to call to our aid so many of the St John’s, Nova Scotia and Penobscott Indians, as I might Judge necessary; At the same time they have desired that I should request the assistance of your Honble body in carrying their views into execution, and to assure you that whatever expences you may necessarily Incur in doing It, and as Incident to It, they will reimburse.
Esteeming their service of much importance, particularly If the Enemy should attempt an Impression into the Interior parts of the Country, I must entreat your kind Offices upon this occasion, and your friendly exertions immediately to engage on the best terms you can, Five or Six hundred Men of these Tribes, and have them marched with all possible expedition to Join the Army here.
Having professed a strong inclination to take part with us in the present contest, It is probable they may be engaged for less pay & on better Terms than the Continental Troops, but If they can not, they must be allowed It. The Term of their Inlistment should be for Two or three years unless sooner discharged, (the right of which should be reserved us) If they will engage for so long a time—If not, for such time as they will agree to, provided It is not too short: and It must be part of the Treaty, & enjoined upon ’em, to bring every man his Firelock If It can be possibly effected. As the Services they may render will probably depend on their early & timely arrival, It is unnecessary to suggest to you the necessity of the utmost dispatch in the matter.
Maine was part of Massachusetts at that time.
Source: “George Washington to the Massachusetts General Court, 11 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-05-02-0194. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 5, 16 June 1776 – 12 August 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, pp. 270–271.]
On this day 250 years ago the Virginia Continental Army and Militia forces under the command of Brig. Gen. Andrew Lewis occupied Gwynn’s Island, Virginia. They first drove off the remaining British ships guarding the island with artillery, and took canoes to capture the damaged sloop Lady Charlotte, its longboat and a pilot boat and their crew. The Patriots then used the canoes and captured longboat and pilot boat to ferry 250 men commanded by Lt. Col. Alexander McClanahan onto Gwynn’s Island. The Americans marched across the island just as the last British troops were rowing away. The British had left behind hundreds of escaped slaves dead and dying from smallpox, with some of the dead left unburied. One soldier wrote “such a scene of misery, distress, and cruelty my eyes never beheld.” But the Americans were able to capture a nine-pound cannon, numerous muskets and small arms, large officers tents, baggage, horses and cattle.
Continental Army Lt. Samuel Denny was one of the unsung heroes of the Battle of Gwynn’s Island 250 years ago today. The previous day he had taken command of the battery after Capt. Arundel was killed by the explosion of his experimental cannon, and then Lt. Denny effectively led his battery as it drove off the British fleet and troops. Then on this day he took command of the captured Lady Charlotte, manned it with men from his battery and other volunteers and then sailed toward the British fleet where he traded shots with the HMS Otter. According to his brother-in-law years later, Denny had enlisted in the British Army as a boy before the Revolution but “not being willing to fight against his Country he made his escape from the British Service” in Canada at the beginning of the War and made his way home to Virginia where he joined the Continental Army. He would be promoted to Captain and continue in Continental service through the siege of Yorktown serving until January 1, 1782, but died shortly thereafter without leaving children to carry on his memory. So we should honor his service today.
On this day 250 years ago in White Plains, New York, the Fourth Provincial Congress changed its name to the Convention of Representatives of the State of New York, and “acts as legislature without an executive” for the State. They began the task of writing a new constitution for New York.
On this day 250 years ago, ten delegates from the St. John’s, or Maliseet, and the Mi’kmaq tribes arrived in Watertown, Massachusetts. Over the next several days Ambroise Saint-Aubin of the Maliseets, the speaker of the delegation, pledged the military aid of sixty Maliseet men and more than 280 Mi’kmaq men and claimed that “all our People are all one as Boston.”
On this day 250 years ago at White Plains, the Fourth Provincial Congress of New York convened and declared the State of New York independent.
On the same day on the Commons in New York City, the Declaration of Independence was read by George Washington to the Continental Army and local citizens. The crowd then proceeded to the nearby Bowling Green where they tore down the statue of George III.
On this day 250 years ago on Cricket Hill in Virginia, over 2000 men of the 7th Virginia Regiment with companies from the 2nd and 6th Virginia and Virginia militia, over 2000 men in all, with two artillery batteries with a total of seven cannon, began bombarding British forces commanded by Gov. Lord Dunmore on Gwynn’s Island, and his fleet of ships anchored off the island. Although the Virginia soldiers outnumbered Dunmore’s men about four to one, they had had only a few canoes to cross the narrow channel from Cricket Hill to Gwynn’s Island.
The overall American commander was Brig. Gen. Andrew Lewis and the artillery was under the command of Capt. Louis d’O’hickey Arundel (frequently referred to as “Dohickey Arundel”), a volunteer from France, who had trained his artillerymen well. Capt. Arundel had invented a cannon made of wood bound with iron bands and Arundel insisted on firing his experimental cannon during the bombardment of Gwynn’s Island. The cannon exploded in its first use, killing Arundel instantly. He was the only American casualty of the battle but the American artillery were very effective. The British never reported their casualties but they may have exceeded 100 (not counting the hundreds who perished on the island from smallpox) with the second American shot famously killing the boatswain of Lord Dunmore’s ship Dunmore and wounding the Governor slightly. The American bombardment forced the British to abandon Gwynn’s Island and severely damaged the British ships before they could pull out of range.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Colonel John Nixon read the Declaration of Independence to a crowd in the State House Yard (now known as Independence Square) in the first public reading of the Declaration. After the reading the crowd shouted “God bless the free states of North America!” three times and then tore down the King’s coat of arms from the State House.
Later that day, the men of Philadelphia and from across Pennsylvania gathered in the State House to elect delegates to a convention to draft a new constitution for Pennsylvania. This vote was not limited to men with considerable property as in prior elections in Pennsylvania, and the voters elected several men who had not previously served in the government of the colony: farmer Robert Whitehill, farmer Thomas Smith, Dr. Thomas Young, Scottish immigrant James Cannon, recent immigrant and famous author Thomas Paine, the clerk to the Continental Congress Timothy Matlack, Irish immigrant George Bryan, Lambert Cadwalader, Jonathan Hoge, and James McLene, but also elected the more prominent Benjamin Franklin as Chairman, George Ross as vice-chairman and George Clymer as a delegate to the Convention. All three of the latter men had also been elected to the Continental Congress and would sign the Declaration of Independence.
Today, July 8, 2026, in Independence Square in Philadelphia, the National Park Service will reenact Col. Nixon’s reading of the Declaration of Independence. I am doubtful that the National Park Service will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the election of the little known delegates who would draft the most radical of the state constitutions during the Revolution.
On this day 250 years ago in Virginia, the HMS Fowey and HMS Fincastle returned from the Eastern Shore with provisions and 100 Loyalist recruits for Governor Dunmore’s sick and dwindling army on Gwynn’s Island. Upon learning that Dunmore had been reinforced, Virginia Gen. Andrew Lewis decided to march his men from Williamsburg to assault Gwynn’s Island.
Wrike at 76-77
On this day 250 years ago in Connecticut, John Francis Putnam provided his son Jared Putnam a musket with this poem:
I send you this my gun,
Do not handle it in fun,
But with it make ye British run.
Join ye ranks of ye Washington,
And when our independence is won
We will talk a drink of good old rum.
In 2026 this musket and poem are on display at the Griswold Inn in Essex, Connecticut.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was published in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.
On this day 250 years ago in Annapolis, the Maryland Convention issued this resolution declaring independence from Great Britain:
We the delegates of Maryland, in convention assembled, do declare, that the king of Great Britain has violated his compact with this people, and that they owe no allegience to him; we have therefore thought it just and necessary to empower our deputies in congress to join with a majority of the united colonies in declaring them free and independent states, in framing such farther confederation between them, in making foreign alliances, and in adopting such other measures as shall be judged necessary for the preservation of their liberties . . . . We have also thought proper to call a new convention, for the purpose of establishing a government in this colony. . . . To maintain inviolate our liberties, and to transmit them unimpared to posterity, was our duty and first wish; our next, to continue connected with, and dependent on Great Britain. For the truth of these assertions, we appeal to that Almighty Being who is emphatically styled the searcher of hearts, and from whose omniscience nothing is concealed. Relying on his divine protection and affiance, and trusting to the justice of our cause, we exort and conjure every virtuous citizen to join cordially in defence of our common rights, and in maintainance of the freedom of this and her sister colonies.
The Maryland Convention had presumably received word of the Continental Congress’s passage of the resolution for independence on July 2, but apparently had not yet received a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Irish immigrant John Dunlap completed printing of the first 200 or so copies of the Declaration of Independence. These first copies were in the form of a broadside — essentially a poster to be tacked or pasted onto a wall for the public to read. These initial copies do not include the signatures of the Signers that we are familiar with today as they would not begin signing until the next month. The only names on the Declaration at this point were the printed names of John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress, Charles Thomson as Secretary of the Congress, and John Dunlap the Printer. Hancock and other members of the Congress immediately began distributing copies to each of the state conventions, the Continental Army and others.
As almost all Americans know, on this day 250 years ago at what is now called Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. I have been thinking about the Declaration all day today, as well as in the past few days, and over the past year. I want to use this blog today to share a few of my thoughts on the Declaration of Independence.
As we also know, the Declaration sets forth the principles that the United States of America was founded on. Today, July 4, 2026, Americans and others across the United States and around the world have read or listened to the stirring words of the Declaration. The full text is easy to find and I do not need to repeat it all here, but I want to focus on two passages of the Declaration that I feel are especially important to reiterate today.
Some historians claim this as the greatest sentence ever written, and I am not inclined to argue:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
In the Declaration of Independence our Founding Fathers did not cite as the basis for the creation of our nation English laws such as the Magna Carta, their national heritage as Englishmen (although most were of English ancestry), their European ethnicity (though all were descended from Europeans), or the Bible or the Christian religion (although all were nominally Christian even if some were privately Deist). Some of the Founding Fathers certainly cited these attributes in their arguments for American Liberty, but our Founding document — the Declaration — does not. Instead the Declaration of Independence indicates our rights are derived from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” that are “self-evident.” The Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence “by Authority of the good People of these Colonies,” and the American people needed no other authority to create a new nation.
Some point to the reference to “Nature’s God” and other sentences in the Declaration that invoke the authority of a monotheistic God. But they simply reflect that the American colonists who worshipped God believed in a monotheistic God. After all Americans in 1776 were overwhelmingly Christian with only a smattering of Jews and Deists, and all of them were Monotheists. Even if some slaves carried to America from Africa or Native Americans may have retained polytheistic beliefs, the Founding Fathers sadly did not consider them to be citizens of the new United States. So the references to “Nature’s God” and the “Creator” in the Declaration cannot possibly be cited as authority for the proposition that the United States was founded as a Christian nation or on the authority of the Bible. Some may argue that the Declaration indicates that belief in a single God is a founding principle of our nation, yet the Founding Fathers cited Roman and Greek sources as frequently as they did the Bible in arguing for Independence, notwithstanding that they were fully aware that the Greeks and Romans worshipped multiple gods. So you cannot conclude from the Declaration that the Founding Fathers wanted a nation that welcomes only people of monotheistic faiths, such as Christians and Jews, and excludes people of polytheistic faiths.
The Declaration of Independence only indicates that the Founding Fathers believed that the universal tenets shared by all religions — “self-evident truths” — are founding principles for our nation. Nothing in the Declaration supports claims that the United States of America was intended to be the homeland of those of European heritage or Judeo-Christian faith, or that other faiths or heritage can be excluded from the United States because they do not belong here.
The Declaration declares that the founding principles of the United States are “self-evident” and include “unalienable rights”. The Continental Congress left it to Americans to decide if they agreed that these truths are self-evident and if they wanted to defend their unalienable rights. Some did not — many Americans in 1776 refused to recognize these truths are self-evident, or could not accept the consequences of claiming their unalienable rights, and became Loyalists to the King. But we won the Revolutionary War, not just with the force of arms, but also with the force of the ideas and ideals of these self-evident truths and unalienable rights. Our Nation was dedicated to these self-evident truths and unalienable rights and patriotic Americans should fight for them today, even if some Americans are willing to abandon them.
The Declaration also makes clear that the founding principles of the United States are not defined by statutes or laws or other documents written by kings or parliaments — or by the Founding Fathers themselves. They are “self-evident”. Our “unalienable rights” were not created by the Continental Congress, or the Constitutional Convention, and they cannot be taken away — they cannot be alienated — by a President, or a Congress, or a Supreme Court. Our “unalienable rights” were not given to us by anybody; they were claimed by Americans 250 years ago in a Revolution, and we should preserve them today.
The most important of the unalienable rights is that Governments must derive their “powers from the consent of the governed.” The “consent of the governed” is fundamentally expressed through periodic free elections. When the President, or legislators, or the courts impose or enforce restrictions on who can vote, or how people can vote, or whose votes get counted to secure the outcome they prefer in elections, they are not deriving their “powers from the consent of the governed.”
We should also remember if our present “Government becomes destructive of” of our unalienable rights or of “Life, Liberty, or pursuit of Happiness, . . . it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” Furthermore, as the Declaration asserts in a later paragraph, when a Government “evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” Our Founders had to fight a Revolution to abolish the government that became destructive of their unalienable rights, but I hope Americans today will be able to alter ours through peaceful the means of protests, litigation and elections.
Finally, I want to focus on one of the abuses of the King of Great Britain that Thomas Jefferson listed as a justification for throwing off British government, specifically that the King was
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither
It is ironic and tragic that 250 years later our President and his Administration are obstructing the laws for the Naturalization of Foreigners and refusing to allow immigrants who came to this country lawfully to remain in the United States, and that our Supreme Court ruled only this past week that the President can do so. American citizens have an unalienable right as part of their “pursuit of Happiness” to have their friends and families and neighbors who entered into this country lawfully, and abide by our laws, remain in this country. The President and the Court do not have the authority to take that unalienable right away, and it angers and saddens me that they are doing so.
In counterpoint and on a happier note today, July 4, 2026, I was at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and the Naturalization ceremony for 75 immigrants who became American citizens today. It gladdens me and gives me hope to see new Americans pledging their loyalty and commitment to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, and to be with hundreds if not a thousand Americans who joined me in celebrating their new citizenship today.
You can see photos from Monticello at my Facebook page here:
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress debated the draft of the Declaration of Independence that had been prepared by Thomas Jefferson and edited and approved by the other members of the committee (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston), but
not having finished . . . Resolved, That this Congress will, to morrow . . . take into their farther consideration, the Declaration.
Also on that day in Philadelphia, John Adams wrote two letters to his wife Abigail. One letter has been widely quoted by historians and is worth considering today:
Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects. . . .
But . . . the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it.—The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished.—Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their Judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act.—This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.
But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not.—I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.—Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
In his first letter to Abigail on that same day John Adams wrote this memorable paragraph:
Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony “that these united Colonies, are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, and as such, they have, and of Right ought to have full Power to make War, conclude Peace, establish Commerce, and to do all the other Acts and Things, which other States may rightfully do.” You will see in a few days a Declaration setting forth the Causes, which have impell’d Us to this mighty Revolution, and the Reasons which will justify it, in the Sight of God and Man. A Plan of Confederation will be taken up in a few days.
Sources: “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0016. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 29–33.]; “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0015. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 27–29.]
On this day 250 years ago in New York, additional Royal Navy ships arrived bringing the total to 130 British ships in the Bay of New York. More British troops also landed on Staten Island that day.
Sources: American Battlefield Trust at 36; “Elizabethtown Committee of Safety to George Washington, 3 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-05-02-0125. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 5, 16 June 1776 – 12 August 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, pp. 189–190.]
Also on that day, Col. Hugh Stephenson and Lt. Abraham Shepherd left New York City to return to Virginia to recruit a new regiment of riflemen. Stephenson died in August 1776 while home recruiting.
And on this day 250 years ago in Annapolis, the Maryland Convention resolved that a new convention be elected to prepare a constitution for the State that did not refer to parliament or the king, but would be a government “…of the people only.”
On This Day In The Revolution 