On This Day In The Revolution

250 years ago this week, Delaware and Iroquois chiefs met with Arthur St. Clair and George Croghan at Croghan’s home in western Pennsylvania. Croghan, an Irish immigrant to America, was an adopted member of the Iroquois and was married to Takarihoga (known in English as Catherine) the head of the Turtle clan of the Mohawk.…

On this day 250 years ago in Boston John Trumbull wrote John Adams about a humorous story told about town of one of the [British Army] deserters, though I cannot say it is absolutely to be depended upon as a fact: a soldier, whose name is Patrick, deserted sometime ago and settled in a country…

On this day 250 years Abigail Adams from their home in Braintree, Massachusetts wrote to her husband John Adams on his way to Philadelphia: The great distance between us, makes the time appear very long to me. It seems already a month since you left me. The great anxiety I feel for my Country, for…

On this day 250 years ago, the Massachusetts Gazette reported that £350 had been received from Alexandria, Virginia, while vessels filled with large quantities of flour and wheat had come from Virginia and Maryland, for the “noble cause” of the relief of Boston. Source: https://www.proquest.com/openview/1119b060b8f5bee4f22ba92c3ead5759/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y Also on this day John Adams recorded in his diary…

On this day 250 years ago in New Haven, Connecticut, John Adams and the Massachusetts delegation on their way to the Continental Congress met with Roger Sherman. Adams recorded in his diary that Sherman’s views on the rights of the American colonies were even more radical than those expressed by the leading Patriots in Massachusetts:…

On this day 250 years ago, about 1500 citizens of Berkshire County, Massachusetts gathered in Great Barrington to prevent the sitting of judges appointed by the Royal Governor. The people of western Massachusetts were showing that they would not submit to judges unless they were elected by the people. Sources: Also on this day, John…

On this day 250 years ago the Worcester Committee of Correspondence wrote to the Boston Committee of Correspondence to propose a joint meeting of towns from Worcester, Suffolk and Middlesex Counties in the expectation that other towns in the rest of Massachusetts would join the meeting. Such a meeting would be in open defiance of…

On August 14, 1774, Col. Israel Putnam of Connecticut was driving 130 sheep from Brooklyn Parish, Connecticut to Boston as relief for the people of Boston under the blockade. Putnam and his sheep would enter Boston the next day, August 15, 1774. Putnam was a hero of the French and Indian War and would the…

On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Royal Governor/General Thomas Gage summoned the Selectmen of Boston to inform them that new town meetings could not be held because they were prohibited by the Massachusetts Government Act, unless the Selectmen first obtained authorization from him. Gage later wrote that I assembled the Select Men in…

On this day 250 years ago, Colonel Andrew Lewis met in a council of war at his home Richfield (in present day Salem, Virginia) with Colonels William Christian, William Fleming and William Preston. The council was planning the march of the Fincastle, Botetourt, Augusta and Bedford County militias to the Ohio River to attack the…