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On this day 250 years ago in Newport, Rhode Island, Samuel Hopkins wrote to Thomas Cushing who was then a member of the Massachusetts delegation in the Continental Congress: They have indeed manifested much wisdom and benevolence in advising to a total stop of the slave trade, and leading the united American Colonies to resolve…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir wrote to the French ambassador to Britain Comte de Guines a report to pass along to the French foreign minister Comte de Vergennes regarding his second meeting on December 27 with Benjamin Franklin and John Jay of the Committee of Secret Correspondence of the…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, The Pennsylvania Journal published an editorial by Benjamin Franklin (written under the pseudonym “An American Guesser”) contending that the rattlesnake should be the symbol for the United Colonies because it may be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever…
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On this day 250 years ago General Richard Montgomery met with Colonel Benedict Arnold and the other key officers in his army besieging Quebec City including Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Greene, Major Timothy Bigelow, Major Return Jonathan Meigs, Captain Daniel Morgan, Captain Aaron Burr, Captain William Hendricks, Captain John Lamb, Captain John MacPherson, and Captain Jacob…
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On this day 250 years ago on Prospect Hill in the siege lines around Boston, Private Micah Bumpo was serving in the company of Capt. Abijah Child of Col. William Bond’s Massachusetts Regiment and received an “order for bounty coat or its equivalent in money.” Private Bumpo was a man of color who had served…
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On this day 250 years ago in New York, Col. Henry Knox was on foot alone scouting out the route for his train of artillery as the snow began falling. At the ruins of Fort Miller (on the south edge of the modern town of Fort Edward), Judge William Duer, an immigrant from England who…
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On this day 250 years ago at his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General George Washington’s aide Robert Hanson Harrison wrote letters dictated and signed by General Washington to James Warren, President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress (and Paymaster General of the Continental Army), Governor Jonathan Trumbull, Sr. of Connecticut, Governor Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island,…
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On this day 250 years ago in London, King George III assented to the Prohibitory Act that banned trade with the thirteen American colonies in rebellion and ordered the Royal Navy to blockade the American coast. Although the Continental Congress was still declaring loyalty to the British Crown, and that its armed resistance was only…
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On this day 250 years ago in Exeter, the Fifth and final New Hampshire Provincial Congress convened with 76 delegates, 31 who had been members of the preceding Provincial Congress. As its first order of business the Congress elected Matthew Thornton as President, Ebenezer Thompson as Secretary, and Noah Emery as Assistant Secretary. The Provincial…
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On this day 250 years on the Delaware River at Philadelphia the Gadsden Flag was flown for the first time aboard the USS Alfred. The flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina Gadsden gave the flag to Commodore Esek Hopkins to fly on the main mast of…
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