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On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Vice Admiral Samuel Graves reported: The rebellious proceedings of the Rhode Islanders, in forming a Magazine of Arms at Providence, and seizing the King’s Cannon at Fort George, made the Admiral lay aside his Design of keeping the Swan at Boston . . . ; and he…
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On this day 250 years ago, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety orders the removal of 2 cannon from Boston that had been hidden away by William Dawes and other Patriots in Boston. Dawes would be better known a few months later as the second rider with Paul Revere who warned John Hancock, Samuel Adams and…
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On this day 250 years ago in London, Lord Dartmouth wrote a circular letter to each of the governors of the American colonies informing them what they already knew about the First Continental Congress requesting that each colony appoint delegates to attend a Second Continental Congress scheduled to convene in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775.…
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On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, William Milnor replied to a letter from George Washington in Mount Vernon requesting arms for the Fairfax Independent Company that: I engaged 40 Musquets this Morning. Mr Palmer says he will certainly have them all ready by the first of Aprill. The Cartouch boxes, I have agreed…
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On this day 250 years ago, the Town Meeting of Watertown, Massachusetts voted “that a minute company should be formed for military exercises, each man being allowed for his attendance once a week four coppers (for refreshment).” The officers of the Watertown Minutemen were: Captain Samuel Barnard; First Lieutenant John Stratton; Second Lieutenant Phineas Stearns;…
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On New Year’s Day 250 years ago the Patriots and Loyalists in America were celebrating the New Year. A British officer in Boston recorded in his diary: Nothing remarkable but the drunkenness among the Soldiers, which is now got to a very great pitch, owing to the cheapness of the liquor, a Man may get…
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On New Year’s Eve 250 years ago, Josiah Quincy, Jr. on his mission to Britain to inform British leaders “of the true situation of political affairs” in Massachusetts, met in Bath, England with Catherine Macauley. Quincy wrote that he visited the celebrated Mrs. Macaulay: delivered my letters to her, and was favoured with a conversation…
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On this day 250 years ago in Annapolis, Maryland, Royal Governor Robert Eden wrote: The spirit of resistance against the Tea Act, or any mode of internal taxation, is as strong and universal here as ever. I firmly believe that they will undergo any hardship sooner than acknowledge a right in the British Parliament in that…
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On this day 250 years ago in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Mercy Otis Warren wrote to English writer and historian Catherine Macauley in London that the American colonies were waiting for the British response to their grievances “with the sword half Drawn from the scabard.” At about the same time Abigail Adams also wrote Macauley from Braintree…
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On this day 250 years ago in Braintree, Massachusetts, John Adams wrote to James Burgh in London to thank him for a copy of Burgh’s book Political Disquisitions. Burgh was a radical reformer and his book made an influential plea for freedom of speech and universal suffrage and Adams offered his hopes that the British…
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