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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General Washington wrote to Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut: Having heard that it is doubtful whether the Reverend Mr [Abiel] Leonard from your Colony, from the circumstances of his affairs, will have it in his power to continue here as a Chaplain, I cannot but express…
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On this day 250 years ago in New York City, after a debate between its conservative members and more radical members, the New York Provincial Congress adopted the language proposed by radical leaders John Morin Scott and Alexander McDougall that resolved That though this Colony in conjuncture with the other United Colonies has had recourse…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia the Continental Congress resolved That five ships of thirty-two guns, five of twenty-eight guns, three of twenty-four guns, making in the whole thirteen, can be fitted for the sea probably by the last of March next, viz. in New Hampshire one, in Massachusetts bay two, in Rhode…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress’s Committee of Secret Correspondence set to gathering intelligence in Europe. Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson and John Jay on behalf of the Committee wrote to Arthur Lee in London: It would be agreable to Congress to know the Disposition of Foreign Powers towards us, and…
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On this day 250 years ago at a gun battery in the American lines besieging Quebec, Jemima Warner was killed and a man was wounded by British artillery fire. Warner had marched with her husband in Colonel Benedict Arnold’s troops through the wilderness of Maine, carrying her husband’s musket after he died of illness on…
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On this day 250 years ago in Rhode Island, the Reverend Ezra Stiles recorded in his diary a raid by at least 200 (Stiles thought more) British Marines on Conanicut Island and the burning of the village of Jamestown: This Morning we were awaked with the Conflagration of Jamestown on Conanicott. An awful Sight! The…
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On this day 250 years ago the Patriots of Virginia defeated the British at the Battle of Great Bridge. As the Virginia commander Colonel William Woodford accurately described it in a letter a few days afterwards, the battle was a “second Bunker’s Hill affair, in miniature, with this difference: that we kept our post and…
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On this day 250 years ago at Quebec, General Richard Montgomery ordered his cannon to begin bombarding the city after his men fired arrows over the city walls bearing letters demanding surrender the previous day and the British refused to capitulate. Unfortunately for the American Army their cannons would do very little damage to the…
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On this day 250 years ago, “a Convention of Delegates, chosen by the several counties of the province of Maryland at the city of Annapolis” convened. Their first order of business was to elect Matthew Tilghman as the President of the Convention. Tilghman would serve as one of Maryland’s delegates to the Continental Congress and…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress responded to the Proclamation of Rebellion that King George III had issued in August 1775. They asserted: We know of no laws binding upon us, but such as have been transmitted to us by our ancestors, and such as have been consented to by ourselves, or…
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On This Day In The Revolution 