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On this day 250 years ago on Sullivan’s Island in Charles Town Harbor, South Carolina, Lt. John Withers leading 54 men of Capt. John Allston’s “Raccoon Company” of the Georgetown District Militia surprised British sailors and armed runaway slaves encamped on at the “Pest House.” The Pest House was originally built to quarantine slaves with…
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On this day 250 years ago in the second-floor library of Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay of the Committee of Secret Correspondence of the Continental Congress met with Julien Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir, an envoy from French Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes on a secret mission to assess America’s determination to…
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On this day 250 years ago at Fort George, New York, Col. Henry Know wrote to General Washington: I have had made forty two exceedingly strong sleds & have provided eighty yoke of oxen to drag them as far as Springfield where I shall get fresh cattle to carry them to camp – the rout…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Koquethagechton, the war chief and chief sachem of the Lenape Nation (often called the Delaware Indians), who was usually referred to by Americans as “Captain White Eyes” or “White Eyes” addressed the Continental Congress and proposed that the Lenape ally with the Americans in return for recognition…
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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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