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On this day 250 years ago in Bedford, New Hampshire, Irish immigrant, salmon fisherman, justice of the peace, and committee of safety member Matthew Patten recorded that I weut to Amherst to judge Esqur Whiting for his being a Tory and I took two Salmon with me that weighed 20 £ I sold one to…
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On this day 250 years ago, a detachment of two companies of Rangers (53 men) from the newly-formed 3rd South Carolina Regiment commanded by Major James Mayson and Captains John Caldwell and Moses Kirkland, captured Fort Charlotte in western South Carolina as the first military action in the South Carolina interior in the Revolution. The…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress received a report that two companies of riflemen had been raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, instead of one. The Congress resolved that “both the companies be taken into the continental service” and requested that 50 of the Pennsylvania recruits with prior military experience be…
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On this day 250 years ago in Watertown, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress approved a resolve for supplying the Penobscot Indians with gunpowder . . . as follows, viz. : Whereas, application has been made to this Congress, by Capt. John Lane, agent for the Penobscot tribe of Indians, for a small quantity of powder, for…
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On this day 250 years ago two barges with South Carolina militia commanded by Captain John Barnwell and Captain John Joyner, an immigrant from England) and the Georgia ship Liberty commanded by Captain Oliver Bowen captured the HMS Phillippa and the supply ship it was escorting near Bloody Point on Tybee Island, Georgia. The Liberty “hoisted at…
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On this day 250 years ago in Alexandria, Virginia, Captain James Hendricks and Lieutenants George Gilpin and Robert Hanson Harrison of the Fairfax Independent Company signed a letter to the Company’s former commander George Washington giving him the Company’s most hearty congratulations upon your appointment to the supreme military command of the American confederated forces.…
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On this day 250 years ago in Savannah, the Georgia Provincial Congress elected Noble Wimberly Jones, Archibald Bulloch, John Houstoun, Lyman Hall and Rev. John Zubly as Delegates to the Second Continental Congress. On that same day, the armed schooner HMS Philippa and a supply ship anchored off Tybee Island, Georgia waiting for a river…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.” This Declaration was written by Thomas Jefferson and revised by John Dickinson and laid out the reasons for America taking up arms in rebellion against British rule of the colonies: The legislature…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress issued “the Olive Branch Petition” to the King, in a last-ditch effort to reconcile with Britain before further bloodshed. The King would ignore the petition when he received it. Source: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/olive-branch-petition On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Col. Thomas Gardner was…
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On this day 250 years ago in Savannah, the Second Provincial Congress of Georgia convened at Tondee’s Long Room. Over the next two weeks the Congress effectively created the first independent government of Georgia, naming a Council of Safety and a “Parochial Committee” to act when the Provincial Congress was in recess. Mordecai Sheftall, a…