On This Day In The Revolution

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…

On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Purdie & Dixon’s Virginia Gazette published the “Association” pledging to stop imports from Britain, as well as the Instructions to the delegates to the Continental Congress, that had been adopted by the Virginia Convention in the preceding week. The 7th and 8th Resolutions of the Association authorized…

On this day 250 years ago, in Worcester, Massachusetts a meeting of the Committee of Correspondence of Worcester County passed a resolution in response to the Massachusetts Government Act which had revoked the right granted in the Massachusetts Charter for the colonists to elect their own representatives and judges. The Worcester Committee resolved “that an…

On this day 250 years ago the Committee of Safety of Rowan County, met in Salisbury, North Carolina, to adopt the Rowan Resolves. The Rowan Resolves were the first county resolutions adopted in North Carolina and comprised 17 resolutions similar to those adopted by counties in Virginia and the other colonies including: RESOLVED, That the…