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On this day 250 years ago, Lt. Matthew Squire of the Royal Navy commanding a flotilla of the 14-gun HMS Otter, the sloop HMS Hawke, another sloop and two tenders, entered the Hampton River to bombard Hampton, Virginia. The 25 men of Capt. George Nicholas’s company of the 2nd Virginia Regiment on one side of…
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This evening 250 years ago, four British tenders from the HMS Otter raided homes on Mill Creek at the mouth of the Hampton River in Virginia. This was the beginning of the first combat of the Revolution in Virginia and would continue for the the next two days. This weekend, October 25-26, 2025, there is…
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On this day 250 years ago at his camp in Roxbury, Massachusetts besieging Boston, General John Thomas replied to a letter from Congressman John Adams passing on criticism of the Massachusetts regiments voiced by some of the members of the Continental Congress from the Southern colonies: I am Sorrey to hear that any Prejudice Should…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General William Heath wrote to John Adams that There are in the Massachusetts Regiments some few lads and old men, and in several regiments, some negroes. Among the African Americans serving in the Massachusetts regiments are Privates Jacob Francis, Cuff Chambers (then known as Cuff Blanchard),…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Peyton Randolph died at age 54 of a stroke while having dinner with his cousin and fellow delegate to the Continental Congress, Thomas Jefferson. Although little known today, Randolph was the first President of the Continental Congress and the President of the first three Virginia Conventions. He…
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On this day 250 years ago in Braintree, Massachusetts, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John attending the Continental Congress an interesting account of a man named Haskings who had escaped from Boston: He had been in Irons 3 weeks, some malicious fellow having said that he saw him at the Battle of Lexinton, but…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General Washington’s military secretary Lt. Col. Joseph Reed suggested a flag for the new Continental Navy that Washington had commissioned: Please to fix upon some particular colour for a flag, and a signal by which our vessels may know one another. What do you think of a…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: Congress has appointed Mr. [George] Wythe, Mr. [Silas] Deane and me, a Committee to collect an Account of the Hostilities committed by the Troops and Ships, with proper Evidence of the Number and Value of the Houses and other Buildings…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the New Hampshire delegates to the Continental Congress formally presented their instructions from the New Hampshire requesting the Congress to advise and direct New Hampshire in establishing a new government. On this day 250 years ago the British fleet bombarded Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine) and a…
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On this day 250 years ago, Captain Henry Mowat, the British commander of the HMS Canceaux, HMS Halifax, and two other ships anchored in the harbor of Falmouth, Massachusetts (today’s Portland, Maine) sent Lieutenant Alexander Fraser onshore to deliver this warning: After so many premeditated Attacks on the legal Prerogatives of the best of Sovereigns;…
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On This Day In The Revolution 