On this day 250 years ago, George Washington arrived in Williamsburg for a sojourn of more than a month. He had dinner in the Raleigh Tavern. During his previous visit to Williamsburg in March, Washington had participated in the House of Burgesses’ formation of Virginia’s Committee of Correspondence, and on his next visit in May 1774 he was again at Raleigh Tavern when the members of the Virginia Assembly defiantly reconvened there after being dissolved by Governor Dunmore. Washington’s time in Williamsburg from October to December 1773 seems to have been focused on his family’s personal affairs. But he did dine several times with Virginia Speaker Peyton Randolph, soon to be another of America’s Founding Fathers, and twice with Governor Dunmore, who would soon be the enemy as the war began.
Category: Uncategorized
-
On this day 250 years ago, the Boston Gazette published a letter from “Scaevola” (Thomas Mifflin of Philadelphia) entitled “BY UNITING WE STAND — BY DIVIDING WE FALL To the Commissioners appointed by the EAST INDIA COMPANY For the SALE of TEA in AMERICA.” In this letter, Mifflin warned the commisioners “to save YOURSELVES much Trouble” and resign.
Source: https://www.masshist.org/2012/juniper/assets/ed-curricula/blackington_bostontea_party_documents.pdf
-
Moravian missionaries established a church (their second) at Schoenbrunn, Ohio for Delaware Indians. These “praying Indians” were friendly to American colonists and provided supplies and information to American forces during the Revolution. Because of their pacifism, however they tried to remain neutral during the war but were mistrusted by both sides. In the worst atrocity by American forces in the Revolution, in 1782 the Moravian Indians in the nearby village of Gnadenhutten were massacred by Pennsylvania militiamen, but the Indians at Schoenbrunn were warned and fled their village before they could meet the same fate.
-
On this day 250 years ago, Delaware formed a Committee of Correspondence, joining eight other colonies.
Source: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/committees-of-correspondence/
-
On this day 250 years ago, The Connecticut and New-Haven Journal and Post-Boy published “An Address to Americans, upon Slave-keeping” written by Rev. Jonathan Edwards Jr. of New Haven. Edwards wrote that “Americans . . . must stand convicted by their own arguments, of the most flagrant Injustice towards the poor Backs Born among us . . . And surely, if we have any sense of Feeling, an American, that has shewn himself a Son of Liberty, must blush to reflect, that, in one breath, he has been exclaiming against the Tyranny of the British Parliament in but attempting to deprive him of his Natural Rights; while in the next, he is exercising a far worse Tyranny over his Negro Slaves; denying them in the most high handed arbitrary manner, those Rights which he acknowledges to be Natural and Unalienable; which he deems so sacred, and which are so dear to himself.”
Source: https://slavery.princeton.edu/uploads/edwards-1773-oct-22.pdf
-
On this day 250 years ago, Samuel Adams wrote a letter that he and Thomas Cushing signed on behalf of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence to the other colonies urging that all of the colonies be “united” in their resistance to Parliament’s efforts to sell East India Company tea in America.
Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Meeting-of-the-First-Continental-Congress-in-1774; https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/samuel-adams#:~:text=On%20October%2021%2C%201773%2C%20Adams,took%20aim%20at%20the%20consignees.
-
On this day 250 years ago, the Pennsylvania Journal published “To His Fellow Countrymen: On Patriotism” written by Benjamin Rush under the pseudonym “Hamden”. Rush wrote:
“we are informed that vessels were freighted to bring over a quantity of tea . . . to raise a revenue from America. Should it be landed . . . then farewell America Liberty! We are undone Forever. All the images we can borrow from everything terrible in nature are too faint to describe the horror of our situation. . . . Let us with one heart and hand oppose the landing of it. The baneful chests contain in them a slow poison in a political as well as physical sense. They contain something worse than death—the seeds of Slavery.”
Source: https://allthingsliberty.com/2019/01/resolutions-shared-by-two-towns-300-miles-apart/
-
On this day 250 years ago, all seven ships carrying East India Company tea were sailing to America. The seven ships did not all set sail together and the initial ships had departed two weeks earlier. The American colonists were making plans for the arrival of the ships that would make it clear their cargo was not welcome.
Source: https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/three-ships-tea-party
-
On this day 250 years ago, The Boston Gazette and Country Journal published an editorial by Sam Adams writing as “Praedicus.” Adams warned of the East India Company’s plan to ship tea to America.
-
On this day 250 years ago, the Philadelphia Committee of Merchants formed the previous day reported that Thomas and Isaac Wharton had agreed to resign as agents for the East India Tea Company but that the firm of James and Drinker had not agreed.
Source: https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text:352118#page/1/mode/1up
On This Day In The Revolution 