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On this day 250 years ago, a squadron of four ships — HMS Canceaux, two other warships and a troop transport — under the command of Captain Henry Mowat anchored in Casco Bay off the Town of Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine). The Reverend Jacob Bailey later recalled that Mowat’s small fleet fired on a small schooner…
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On this day 250 years ago in London, Prime Minister Lord North wrote a memorandum to King George III recommending an expedition to the southern colonies to suppress the rebellion. North contended that the Patriots in the southern colonies were in a “perilous situation” because of “the great number of their negro slaves, and the…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress resolved that “a director general and chief physician of the Hospital in Massachusetts be appointed in place of Doctor Benjamin Church, who is taken into custody for holding a correspondence with the enemy” and scheduled the vote for his replacement on the next day…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress received a report from Gen. George Washington that a British fleet, including six ships-of-the-line, was transporting five regiments of Royal Marines to America, and that four heavily armed ships and two transports with 600 men, two mortars, four howitzers, and several other artillery pieces,…
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On this day 250 years ago, Dr. John Connolly arrived in Portsmouth, Virginia where Royal Governor Dunmore commissioned him as a Lieutenant Colonel. Connolly had been Dunmore’s agent in the Fort Pitt area the previous year and had participated in Dunmore’s War against the Shawnee and Mingo. Connolly proposed to Dunmore a plan for Connolly…
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On this day 250 years ago in Boston, General Thomas Gage boarded a ship and departed the city. With his departure, General William Howe assumed command of the British Army in North America. Sources: Ketchum, Richard M., Decisive Day: The Battle of Bunker Hill, New York: Owl Books, 1999 at p. 213; https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/william-howe On this…
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On this day 250 years ago, the first ship of the Continental Navy, the schooner Hannah, was chased by the sloop HMS Nautilus and ran aground off the coast of Beverly, Massachusetts. The Nautilus was unable to capture the Hannah because it was defended by the Hannah’s own guns and the guns of a small…
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On this day 250 years ago, Rev. Ezra Stiles recorded in his diary that Captain James Wallace and his fleet continued bombing Rhode Island towns on Narragansett Bay: The infernal Wallace with 3 Men o’ War, 2 or 3 more armed Vessels of which one Bomb with several Transports — a fleet of perhaps 8…
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On this day 250 years ago, the HMS Canceaux and three smaller ships commanded by Lieutenant Henry Mowat sailed north from Boston Harbor. Mowat had orders from Admiral Samuel Graves to “chastise” ten named towns north of Boston, starting with nearby Marblehead and ending with Machias, close to the Canadian border. Mowat was ordered to lay waste,…
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On this day 250 years ago, a small British fleet commanded by Captain James Wallace anchored off Bristol, Rhode Island. Wallace demanded that the town provide 200 sheep and 30 cattle to feed the hungry British troops besieged in Boston or he would open fire on the town. When the townspeople refused his demand he…
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On This Day In The Revolution 