On This Day In The Revolution

On this day 250 years ago, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Lancaster County Committee of Observation met at the Court House to elect delegates to a general convention of the Province of Pennsylvania to meet on January 23 in Philadelphia. Source: https://www.pa-roots.com/lancaster/books/lancasteranditspeople/chapter1.html

On this day 250 years ago in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Royal Governor William Franklin (the son of Benjamin Franklin) addressed the New Jersey Assembly and implored them to remain loyal to the King: You have now pointed out to you, Gentlemen, two Roads, one evidently leading to Peace, Happiness, and a Restoration of the…

On this day 250 years ago in Darien, Georgia, the Patriots of St. Andrew’s Parish met and adopted Resolutions “by the authority and free choice of the inhabitants of the [Darien] District, now freed from their fetters”. The first Resolution proclaimed that the “firm and manly conduct of the loyal and brave people of Boston and Massachusetts Bay,…

On this day 250 years ago the South Carolina Provincial Congress convened in Charles Town, South Carolina, with Charles Pinckney elected as President of the Congress. The 184 members of the Provincial Congress included a long list of Patriots who would distinguish themselves in the Revolution including: all four South Carolina signers of the Declaration…

On this day 250 years ago, the Town of Walpole, Massachusetts voted that “one Quarter part of the Training Band Soldiars should be Inlisted in the Province Service to be Ready at a minutes warning.” The Town also voted that these minutemen should be paid out of the town’s treasury two shillings per day and…

On this day 250 years ago in Boston, General Gage issued an order for British Army officers in his command to let him know if they are “capable of taking sketches of a Country.” Although Gage did not disclose the nature of the assignment that needed these skills, he wanted to produce maps and directions…

On this day 250 years ago in London, Benjamin Franklin forwarded his friend Jonathan Shipley, the Bishop of St. Asaph, a copy of the Continental Congress’s Petition to King George IIII. Franklin wrote that he considered that Congress, as consisting of Men, the free, unbias’d, unsollicited Choice of the Freeholders of a great Country, selected…

On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Vice Admiral Samuel Graves reported: The rebellious proceedings of the Rhode Islanders, in forming a Magazine of Arms at Providence, and seizing the King’s Cannon at Fort George, made the Admiral lay aside his Design of keeping the Swan at Boston . . . ; and he…

On this day 250 years ago, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety orders the removal of 2 cannon from Boston that had been hidden away by William Dawes and other Patriots in Boston. Dawes would be better known a few months later as the second rider with Paul Revere who warned John Hancock, Samuel Adams and…