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On this day 250 years ago Isaiah Thomas, publisher of the Massachusetts Spy, smuggled his printing press out of Boston with the assistance of Timothy Bigelow and Joseph Warren. Thomas removed his press and paper to Bigelow’s home in the Patriot stronghold of Worcester were it would be safe from seizure by the British Army.…
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On this day 250 years ago in Alexandria, Virginia, George Washington drilled the Fairfax Militia. Source: “[Diary entry: 15 April 1775],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0005-0008-0015. [Original source: The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 3, 1 January 1771–5 November 1781, ed. Donald Jackson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978, p. 321.] accessed at https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2215%20April%201775%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr= On this day 250 years…
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On this day 250 years ago, the HMS Nautilus docked in Boston carrying a secret dispatch for General Gage from London. The letter was written by William Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the American Colonies. Dartmouth criticized Gage’s ineffective response to “proceedings that amounted to actual revolt” and informed him that…
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On this day 250 years ago in Wilmington, the North Carolina Light Dragoons was formed as part of the Province’s militia. Source: https://www.revwartalk.com/corps-of-north-carolina-light-dragoons/ On this day 250 years ago in Concord, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress directed the Committee of Safety to form six companies of artillery. Sources: The Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts…
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On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Massachusetts Governor Gage wrote to Governor Josiah Martin of North Carolina that This Province has some time been, and now is, in the new-fangled Legislature, termed a Provincial Congress, who seem to have taken the Government into their hands. Source: https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/april-12-1775-gen-thomas-gage-hopes-madness-wears/ On that day in Groton, Massachusetts,…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rev. John Eliot wrote that “it is now too late to think of any other method of obtaining redress than by the dint of the sword.” Source: Norton at 337. On that day in Boston, John Andrews wrote that we are all in confusion at present,…
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On this day 250 years ago in Assonet (now Freetown), Massachusetts, hundreds of Massachusetts militia from Attleborough, Dartmouth and Middleborough commanded by Col. John Daggett raided the home of Loyalist Col. Thomas Gilbert where his company of Loyalist militia was encamped. The Patriots captured 29 Loyalists (but not Gilbert, who was away seeking British troops…
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On this day 250 years ago, Col. John Daggett of the Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Militia led a raid from Attleborough (now Attleboro), Massachusetts to the nearby town of Assonet to seize gunpowder Loyalists had stored there. Source: https://www.drjosephwarren.com/2013/07/attleboros-solemn-league-and-covenant/ On that same Sunday in Boston, during services at the Brattle Street Meeting, Joseph Warren warned…
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On this day 250 years ago in Concord, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress called for the establishment of a New England Army, and appointed delegates to travel to New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut to ask each colony to contribute troops to the army. Sources: Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts at 135-36 accessed at https://archive.org/details/journalsofeachprma00mass/page/134/mode/2up?view=theater;https://250andcounting.com/2025/04/08/april-8-1775-the-new-england-army/; And…
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On this day 250 years ago in Concord, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress resolved that This Congress, deeply sensible of the high-handed insult offered the town of Billerica, the colony of the Massachusetts Bay, and this continent in general, in the vile and ignoble assault in the person of Thomas Ditson, by a party of the…
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