Pat and I are going on vacation out of the country and I won’t be posting again until October 11. But I am posting in advance a few dates of significance while we are gone.
Category: Uncategorized
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On this day 250 years ago, the Pennsylvania Chronicle published an excerpt from a letter with intelligence that the East India Company was making arrangements to ship tea to American ports. The letter writer did not know that the ships had set sail that very day from England but he encouraged Philadelphians to reject the tea if it arrived there. The publisher of the Philadelphia paper added his own plea for Americans to resist!:
Extract of a letter from New-York, September 27.
“Six hundred chests of tea are destined by the
East-India House for your place, 600 for this, and
300 for Boston. Our London Captains have refus-
ed taking it, and I hope yours will follow their ex-
ample. Their owners have commended them.
Some ships will no doubt be hired, to transport it
hither. Whether it may be landed or not, I will
not take upon me to say ; if it is, I hope no pur-
chaser will offer for it. I am told that it is to be
exposed at vendue as soon as it comes.”We are assured the above is a scheme of Lord
North’s, to whom an application was made by the
East-India Directors, the last Session of Parliament,
to bring in a bill for the repeal of the American
Tea Act, as they found the merchants on this side
the Atlantic, had virtue enough to forego their
profit, stand to their agreement, and did not pur-
chase or import any tea, which he absolutely re-
fused ; and being a great schemer struck out the
plan of the East-India Company’s sending this ar-
ticle to America ; hoping thereby to out wit us,
and to effectually establish that Act, which will for
ever after be pleaded sa a precedent for every imposi-
tion the Parliament of Great-Britain shall think
proper to saddle us with.It is much to be wished, that the Americans will
convince Lord North, that they are not yet ready
to have the yoke of slavery rivetted about their necks,
and send back the tea from whence it came.Source: https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=401&mode=dual&img_step=1#page1
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On this day 250 years ago, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney married Sarah Middleton uniting two of the most prominent Patriot families of South Carolina. Sarah was the daughter of Henry Middleton, who would soon serve as President of the First Continental Congress, and brother of Arthur Middleton who would be a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney would serve in the Continental Army during the Revolution rising to the rank of Brigadier General, and later sign the Constitution and run for President as the candidate of the Federalist Party.
Source: https://www.nps.gov/people/charles-cotesworth-pinckney.htm
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On this day 250 years ago the first of seven ships carrying East India Company tea left England for America. One ship was headed to Charleston, another to Philadelphia, a third ship to New York, and four ships headed to Boston. The cargo of three of those ships ended up in Boston Harbor in the well-known Boston Tea Party, but Patriots in the other three cities would take less drastic measures that also effectively prevented the sale of the East India Company’s tea. The coordinated efforts of Patriots in all the American Colonies to block the sale of tea taxed by Parliament without any representation of the Colonies would lead directly to the Independence of the United States of America.
Source: https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/tea-blog/five-facts-you-didnt-know-about-the-boston-tea-party
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On this day 250 years ago, George Washington was taking a break from politics and dined at Rawling’s Tavern in Anne Arundel County, Maryland on his way to the races in Annapolis.
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On this day 250 years ago Daniel Boone led his family and five other families from their homes in North Carolina to travel on the Wilderness Road from Virginia into Kentucky. Their planned settlement in Kentucky was aborted two weeks later by an attack by a party of Indians in which his son and others were brutally killed, although Boone and his family did establish a settlement in Kentucky two years later. The westward expansion of White American settlements and Native American resistance to the settlements were factors that contributed to the American Revolution.
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On this day 250 years ago, William Fitzhugh of Calvert County was appointed Commissary General of Maryland by the Royal Governor of the colony. Fitzhugh was a close friend of George Washington, and like Washington, chose the Patriot side in the Revolution. He continued in office as Commissary General after the Patriots effectively took control of the Maryland government in 1774, and later served in the Maryland state legislature.
Source: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000662/html/am662–39.html
Note to readers: I am not an objective historian and make no apologies that I consider the Patriots to be the good guys (even if some them did some terrible things) and the British and the Loyalists to be the bad guys (even though I recognize that many of them were honorable people) of this history. I write this blog to celebrate the achievements and sacrifices of the Patriots as they overthrew British rule and created the independent United States of America.
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Benjamin Franklin published in London his satire An Edict by the King of Prussia. The Edict points out the absurdity of London’s claims of entitlement to control and enjoy all benefits from the American colonies by inventing similar claims by the King of Prussia of dominion over England.
Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0223
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On this day 250 years ago, the Boston Committee of Correspondence wrote that “Our Enemies . . . are alarmed at the Union which they see is already established in this Province, and the Confederacy into which they expect the whole Continent of America, will soon be drawn, for the Recovery of their violated RIGHTS” and urged the Weymouth Committee of Correspondence (and presumably other Committees) to “communicate to us any Discoveries or just Suspicions of their sinister Designs; and also, that you will never be wanting in encouraging that Unity and Harmony in Councils, so essentially necessary to the obtaining the great End we have in View, the Salvation of Ourselves and Posterity from Tyranny & Bondage.”
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On this day 250 years ago, Nathaniel Saunders of Orange County, Virginia was convicted in neighboring Culpeper County of unlawful preaching and sedition. Saunders was a Baptist preacher although it was against the law in Virginia and most of the colonies to conduct religious services not sanctioned by the established Church of England. Although there is no record that Saunders served in any capacity in the Revolutionary War, the members of the “Dissenting” churches such as the Baptists and especially the Presbyterians were later the backbone of the Patriot forces in Revolution. They were rebelling against both the Government of England and the Church of England. James Madison was from Orange County and was a neighbor of Saunders. Some scholars speculate that Madison’s advocacy of Freedom of Religion and Separation of Church and State stemmed at least in part from his familiarity as an idealistic 22-year old just graduated from college with the injustice of the conviction and imprisonment of Nathaniel Saunders.
Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2220338
On This Day In The Revolution 