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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress dispatched messengers to Boston and Salem “in order to gain what intelligence can be had by the last vessels from London.” Source: https://archive.org/details/journalsofeachprma00mass/page/52/mode/2up
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On this day 250 years ago in Essex County, New Jersey, the Committee of Correspondence issues a call to the Freeholders of Essex County to elect Committees of Observation to enforce the Continental Association boycott of trade with Great Britain. The Committee of Correspondence praised the citizens of Essex County for the “zeal you have…
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On this day 250 years ago in Norfolk, Virginia, Loyalist merchant James Parker wrote to Charles Steuart about reports of the intimidation of Loyalist merchants two weeks earlier: At Wmsbg there was a pole erected by order of Colo Archd Cary a strong Patriot, opposite the Raleigh tavern upon which was hung a large mop…
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On this day 250 years at his family’s home Montpelier in Orange County, Virginia, James Madison writes to his good friend William Bradford in Pennsylvania: The proceedings of the Congress are universally approved of in this Province & I am persuaded will be faithfully adheared to. A spirit of Liberty & Patriotism animates all degrees and…
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On this day 250 years ago in Boston schoolteacher James Lovell wrote to his good friend Josiah Quincy, Jr, who was on a not-too-ssecret mission to London that: I imagine I may by this Time congratulate you upon a general Change in the Prejudices of the People of England with Regard to us Americans and…
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On this day 250 years ago, the New-York Journal republished the “Political Observations” initially published in a Philadelphia newspaper on November 14, 1774. The anonymous article praised the recently completed Continental Congress as the most “august, and . . . equitable Legislative body [that ]ever existed” but provoked a strong reaction with its bold and…
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On this day 250 years ago in North Carolina At a meeting of the Freeholders in the Court-house at Wilmington for the purpose of Choosing a Committee for said town to carry more effectually into Execution the resolves of the late congress held at Philadelphia, the following names were proposed & universally assented to —…
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On this day 250 years ago at the City Hall in New York City, a meeting of the freeholders and freemen of the city elected 60 men to be a Committee of Inspection (also referred to as the “Committee of Sixty” or the “Committee of Observation”). The Committee was charged with enforcing the boycott of…
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On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Dr. Joseph Warren wrote to his good friend Josiah Quincy II in London: America hath in store her Bruti and Caesii… patriots and heroes, who will form a band of brothers, men who will have… courage and swords, courage that shall inflame their ardent bosoms till their…
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On this day 250 years ago, itinerant Methodist preacher William Duke organized the first Methodist society in Alexandria, Virginia, which would become today’s Trinity United Methodist Church. Teenage British immigrant John Littlejohn was a founding member of the congregation and would himself become a Methodist minister. The Methodists at this time were strongly antislavery, and…