On this day 250 years ago, the inhabitants of Hanover Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania assembled and adopted the following Resolves (I have emphasized the 4th Resolve):
1st. That the recent action of the Parliament of Great Britain is iniquitous and oppressive.
2d. That it is the bounded duty of the people to oppose every measure which tends to deprive them of their just prerogatives.
3d. That in a closer union of the Colonies lies the safeguard of the people.
4th. That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to Heaven and our rifles.
5th. That a committee of nine be appointed who shall act for us and in our behalf as emergencies may require.
The Hanover meeting and the Committee of Nine were chaired by Timothy Green, and the Committee’s other members were James Carothers, Josiah Espy, Robert Dixon, Thomas Copenheffer, William Clark, James Stewart, and John Rogers. Two years later, Colonel Timothy Green recruited the Hanover Rifle Battalion, with Major John Rogers and Captain Thomas Copenheffer serving as officers in the Battalion, and then led them to join the Continental Army where they served throughout the War.
On this day 250 years ago, the Connecticut House of Representatives elected Roger Sherman, Silas Deane and Eliphalet Dyer as Delegates to the First Continental Congress, making Connecticut the first colony to select its delegates. Sherman, Deane and Dyer would subsequently serve in the Second Continental Congress. Deane would go on to spend much of the Revolution representing the United States as a diplomat in Europe. Roger Sherman was the only Founding Father who would sign all four documents that established the United States of America: the Articles of Association in 1774; the Declaration of Independence in 1776; the Articles of Confederation in 1778; and the Constitution in 1787.
On this day 250 years ago in London, Parliament passed the fourth of the Intolerable Acts as punishment for the Boston Tea Party. The Quartering Act, unlike the previous three acts, was not limited to Massachusetts but instead applied to all thirteen American colonies. The Quartering Act allowed the British Army to quarter soldiers in private homes in all the Colonies, even over the objections of the homeowner.
On this day 250 years ago, the Royal Navy and Governor Gage closed the Port of Boston to essentially all shipping.
In Philadelphia most citizens attended church services, closed shops, and lowered their flags to half-mast in sympathy with Boston. Norton, Mary Beth,
Source: 1774 the Long Year of Revolution at 95.
The Patriots in Virginia attended church services at Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg and at other churches around the Commonwealth in observance of a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer. You can visit the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg today to sit in the pews where George Washington and other Patriots participated in the Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer. https://www.brutonparish.org/
And the Town of Fredericksburg adopted Resolutions in support of Boston. They were the first local Resolutions adopted in Virginia in response to the Intolerable Acts but many more would soon follow.
On this day 250 years ago in Baltimore, a town meeting was held at the courthouse to discuss the closure of the Port of Boston. The meeting adopted Resolutions that supported an embargo of Great Britain and also the West Indies. They also called for the formation of a Maryland congress and an intercolonial congress.
Source: Norton, Mary Beth, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution at p.98.
Also on this day 250 years ago, in Dumfries, Virginia a committee that included William Grayson, Andrew Leitch, Cuthbert Bullitt, Foushee Tebbs and Richard Graham issued a call to Prince William County’s freeholders to gather at the County courthouse on June 6 to “Deliberate on Measures . . . to be taken to avert the dreadful Calamities which . . . are threatened from the unconstitutional Act of Parliament [that] is fundamentally subversive of our ancient legal and vital Liberties.” Colonel William Grayson and Major Andrew Leitch would go on to serve in the Continental Army, with Leitch killed at the Battle of Harlem Heights. Richard Graham was an officer in the Prince William militia, and Bullitt and Tebbs both served on the Prince William Committee of Safety and held civil offices in the County and Richmond during the War.
Source: Cecere, Michael, In This Time of Extreme Danger: Northern Virginia in the American Revolution at p. 17.
On this day 250 years ago at Peyton Randolph’s home in Williamsburg, 25 ex-Members of the House of Burgesses write and sign a letter to the other Burgesses informing them of “the Receipt of the Letters and Resolves from Boston”, Maryland and Philadelphia and declaring
That it is the Opinion of all the late House of Burgesses who could be convened on the present Occasion, that the Colony of Virginia will concur with the other Colonies in such Measures as shall be judged most effectual for the Preservation of the Common Rights and Liberty of British America that they are of Opinion particularly that an Association against Importation will probably be entered into, as soon as the late Representatives can be collected, and perhaps against Exportations also after a certain Time. But that this must not be considered as an Engagement on the part of this Colony, which it would be presumption in us to enter into, and that we are sending Dispatches to call together the late Representatives to meet at Williamsburg on the first Day of August next to conclude finally on these important Questions.
The signers of this letter included many familiar names and some who you may have not heard about, but all deserve recognition for joining the call for the meeting on August 1, which would then directly lead to the First Continental Congress and ultimately our national Declaration of Independence:
Peyton Randolph, Moderator. Ro. C. Nicholas Edmd Pendleton Will: Harwood Richd. Adams Thom Whiting Henry Lee Lemuel Riddick
Th: Jefferson Mann Page Junr. Charles Carter Senr. Jas. Mercer R Wormeley Carter Go: Washington Francis Lightfoot Lee Thos Nelson jr. R Rutherford
Jno Walker James Wood Wm Langhorne T Blackburn Edmd Berkeley Jno. Donelson P. Carrington Lewis Burwell (Gloster)
You can learn a little about one of these little-known Founding Fathers — William Harwood — who served as a militia colonel, was elected to represent Warwick County (today’s Newport News) in all five Virginia Conventions that governed Virginia during the Revolution, and was also elected the first Virginia House of Delegates by visiting his surviving home Endview Plantation, just outside of Yorktown.
On this day 250 years ago, the Royal Navy positioned nine ships including the 64-gun HMS Captain, Admiral John Montagu’s flagship, in Boston Harbor to prepare for the blockade of the Port of Boston set to begin on June 1.
A blockade is an act of war and I think it is fair to assert that this act effectively was a declaration of war by Great Britain against the City of Boston if not its own colony of Massachusetts.
Also on that day, in Williamsburg, Peyton Randolph, the Chairman of Virginia’s Committee of Correspondence received an express letter from the Annapolis committee of correspondence, forwarding letters from the committees of Philadelphia and Boston. Randolph convenes the 25 ex-Burgesses still remaining in the town after dissolution of the Assembly to meet at his Williamsburg mansion to consider how to respond to the other colonies.
On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, the Virginia Committee of Correspondence including Thomas Jefferson, met. The Committee ordered letters to be sent to all the other colonies transmitting the declaration adopted by the “Association of Members of the Late House of Burgesses” at the meeting on the previous day.
Also on this day in Boston, Governor and General Thomas Gage adjourned the Massachusetts legislature and ordered it to reconvene in Salem on June 6, 1774.
On this day 250 years ago at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, 89 members of the dissolved Virginia House of Burgesses met to adopt an “Association” in response to the Boston Port Act and other restrictions on American Liberty coming from London. Among other things, the Association, without coordinating with the other colonies, joined Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and New York in calling for a Continental Congress to convene. Here is the full text of the Association’s declaration:
We his Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the late representatives of the good people of this country, having been deprived by the sudden interposition of the executive part of this government from giving our countrymen the advice we wished to convey to them in a legislative capacity, find ourselves under the hard necessity of adopting this, the only method we have left, of pointing out to our countrymen such measures as in our opinion are best fitted to secure our dearest rights and liberty from destruction, by the heavy hand of power now lifted against North America: With much grief we find that our dutiful applications to Great Britain for security of our just, antient, and constitutional rights, have been not only disregarded, but that a determined system is formed and pressed for reducing the inhabitants of British America to slavery, by subjecting them to the payment of taxes, imposed without the consent of the people or their representatives; and that in pursuit of this system, we find an act of the British parliament, lately passed, for stopping the harbour and commerce of the town of Boston, in our sister colony of Massachusetts Bay, until the people there submit to the payment of such unconstitutional taxes, and which act most violently and arbitrarily deprives them of their property, in wharfs erected by private persons, at their own great and proper expence, which act is, in our opinion, a most dangerous attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights of all North America. It is further our opinion, that as TEA, on its importation into America, is charged with a duty, imposed by parliament for the purpose of raising a revenue, without the consent of the people, it ought not to be used by any person who wishes well to the constitutional rights and liberty of British America. And whereas the India company have ungenerously attempted the ruin of America, by sending many ships loaded with tea into the colonies, thereby intending to fix a precedent in favour of arbitrary taxation, we deem it highly proper and do accordingly recommend it strongly to our countrymen, not to purchase or use any kind of East India commodity whatsoever, except saltpetre and spices, until the grievances of America are redressed. We are further clearly of opinion, that an attack, made on one of our sister colonies, to compel submission to arbitrary taxes, is an attack made on all British America, and threatens ruin to the rights of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied. And for this purpose it is recommended to the committee of correspondence, that they communicate, with their several corresponding committees, on the expediency of appointing deputies from the several colonies of British America, to meet in general congress, at such place annually as shall be thought most convenient; there to deliberate on those general measures which the united interests of America may from time to time require.
In addition to the 89 Burgesses, 21 “clergymen and other inhabitants” of Virginia signed the Association. The Burgesses who signed included two familiar to all Americans today — George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — plus other Founding Fathers who are well remembered by those who have studied the Revolution and the early Republic — such as Patrick Henry, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Benjamin Harrison, Robert Carter Nicholas, Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, Archibald Cary.
But almost all of the signers of the Association were committed Patriots who served Virginia and America in the Revolution. James Scott, for example, was a little known Burgess from Fauquier County who formed a company from Fauquier at the beginning of the War, marched north to join Washington’s army, fought at Brandywine and other engagements, but died during the war from an illness he contracted while serving. David Griffith from Loudoun County was one of the clergymen who added their names to the Burgesses on the Association. Griffith would become the surgeon and chaplain of 3d Virginia, serving at Long Island, Brandywine, Valley Forge and Monmouth before returning to Virginia to become minister of Fairfax Parish (incidentally, his home as minister incidentally was less than a mile from where I live now). All of the signers of the Association should be remembered. Here is the list:
Peyton Randolph, Ro. C. Nicholas, Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, Archibald Cary, Benjamin Harrison, George Washington, William Harwood, Robert Wormeley Carter, Robert Munford, Thomas Jefferson, John West, Mann Page, junior, John Syme, Peter Le Grand, Joseph Hutchings, Francis Peyton, Richard Adams, B. Dandridge, Henry Pendleton, Patrick Henry, junior, Richard Mitchell, James Holt, Charles Carter, James Scott, Burwell Bassett, Henry Lee, John Burton, Thomas Whiting, Peter Poythress, John Winn, James Wood, William Cabell, David Mason, Joseph Cabell, John Bowyer, Charles Linch, William Aylett, Isaac Zane, Francis Slaughter, William Langhorne, Henry Taylor, James Montague, William Fleming, Rodham Kenner, William Acril, Charles Carter, of Stafford, John Woodson, Nathaniel Terry, Richard Lee, Henry Field, Matthew Marable, Thomas Pettus, Robert Rutherford, Samuel M’Dowell, John Bowdoin, James Edmondson, Southy Simpson, John Walker, Hugh Innes, Henry Bell, Nicholas Faulcon, junior, James Taylor, junior, Lewis Burwell, of Gloucester, W. Roane, Joseph Nevil, Richard Hardy, Edwin Gray, H. King, Samuel Du Val, John Hite, junior, John Banister, Worlich Westwood, John Donelson, Thomas Newton, junior, P. Carrington, James Speed, James Henry, Champion Travis, Isaac Coles, Edmund Berkeley, Charles May, Thomas Johnson, Benjamin Watkins, Francis Lightfoot Lee, John Talbot, Thomas Nelson, junior, Lewis Burwell.
We the subscribers, clergymen and other inhabitants of the colony and dominion of Virginia, having maturely considered the contents of the above association, do most cordially approve and accede thereto.
William Harrison, William Hubard, Benjamin Blagrove, William Bland, H. J. Burges, Samuel Smith M’Croskey, Joseph Davenport, Thomas Price, David Griffith, William Leigh, Robert Andrews, Samuel Klug, Ichabod Camp, William Clayton, Richard Cary, Thomas Adams, Hinde Russell, William Holt, Arthur Dickenson, Thomas Stuart, James Innes.
On this day 250 years ago, Royal Governor Dunmore of Virginia summoned the Burgesses, numbering nearly one hundred, to the Council chamber in the Capitol in Williamsburg. Dunmore informed the Burgesses:
I have in my hand a Paper published by Order of your House, conceived in such Terms as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament of Great Britain; which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you; and you are dissolved accordingly.
The document in Dunmore’s hand was the broadside of the House’s Order for a Day of Fasting and Prayer. The phrase “reflect highly upon” in Dunsmore’s statement sounds to modern Americans like praise, but in the 18th Century it meant “reproach”. The response of the members of the House of Burgesses to Dunmore’s dissolution of the House would be another dramatic step towards Independence.
On This Day In The Revolution 