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On this day 250 years ago, New Hampshire militia commanded by Major John Sullivan of Durham and Colonel Nathaniel Folsom of Exeter marched with their men to join the militia in Portsmouth who had raided Fort William and Mary the previous day. Sullivan and Folsom had been New Hampshire’s representatives in the First Continental Congress…
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On this day 250 years ago in New Hampshire, 400 Sons of Liberty from the towns of Portsmouth, New Castle and Rye, New Hampshire and Kittery, Maine, led by John Langdon and Thomas Pickering attacked and captured Fort William and Mary on Castle Island at the mouth of the Piscataqua River. The fort was guarded…
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On this day 250 years ago, Paul Revere was riding the 60 miles from Boston on the Old Bay Road through Ipswich, Massachusetts to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Revere met at 4:00 pm with Samuel Cutts and the Portsmouth Committee of Correspondence at Stoodley’s Tavern and at Cutts’ waterfront home to deliver the warning that General…
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On this day 250 years ago in Fairfax County, Virginia, George Washington purchased 1168 acres of land west of Four Mile Run from the brothers George and James Mercer. The purchase was very complicated and involved agents representing George Mercer, who was then in England, and Washington’s bond to pay off certain debts of George…
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On this day 250 years ago, the H.M.S. Rose commanded by Captain James Wallace arrived at Newport, Rhode Island and discovered that the cannon had been removed from Fort George. Wallace met with Governor James Wanton and Watson reported that the Governor “very frankly told me, they had done it to prevent their falling into…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress adjourned. Before adjourning, the Provincial Congress prepared an address “To the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Towns and Districts of Massachusetts Bay” that requested that the militia prepare for war: The improvement of the militia in general in the art military has…
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On this day 250 years ago on an island off Newport in Narrangansett Bay, Rhode Island, militia were working around the clock since10:00 pm the previous night to remove cannon and military stores from Fort George. The militia loaded the artillery onto boats to carry them away to Providence where the British could not reach…
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On this day 250 years ago in Providence, the Rhode Island General Assembly received and considered a copy of British Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Dartmouth’s Order to Royal Governors and the Royal Navy to intercept and seize all arms and ammunitions shipped to the American Colonies. Out of concern that General Gates…
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On December 7, 1774, in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Journal published an article reporting That General Gage had … orders to prevent the congress at any rate, and to take those deputed into custody. If these orders were executed, it must either set all America in a flame, or damp the small fire of liberty that…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress issued a public resolution seeking support for the people of Boston and Charlestown suffering because of the closure of the Port of Boston we hold ourselves obliged, in Justice, to contribute to their Support; while they, under such a Weight of Oppression, are…