On This Day In The Revolution

On this day 250 years ago the Maryland General Assembly was in session in Annapolis but had adjourned for this Sunday so the Members of the Assembly could attend church. Nothing momentous was being considered in the Assembly, but the representatives of the people in Maryland, as in all the American Colonies, were engaged in…

250 years ago in London Lord Dartmouth wrote a letter to Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts informing him that General Thomas Gage had been appointed as Governor of Massachusetts. Dartmouth indicated that Gage’s appointment was temporary, and that Hutchinson should expect to resume office at a later date. However, when Hutchinson departed for England in…

On this day 250 years ago in London Thomas Paine was fired from his job as an exciseman (i.e., tax collector) by the British Government for attempting to organize his fellow excisemen to demand higher wages. Before the end of the year Paine would be in America and soon thereafter causing much more trouble for…

On this day 250 years ago Royal Governor William Tryon’s ship departed New York City for London. Tryon took a leave of absence as Governor of New York for personal health and financial reasons. When he returned to New York in June 1775 the Colonies would be at war with Britain. Source: https://allthingsliberty.com/2021/05/william-tryon-and-the-park-that-still-bears-his-name/

On this day 250 years ago in London, Lord Dartmouth, the British Colonial Secretary, wrote a letter to Governor Dunmore ruling that Virginia veterans of the French and Indian War were not entitled to claim bounty land. The British Government’s denial of colonial claims for western lands infuriated Patriot leaders such as George Washington, George…

On this day 250 years ago (or maybe a few days earlier) a Loyalist observer later reported that “The Ladies have burnt tea in a solemn procession” in Wilmington, North Carolina in protest of the Tea Act. Source: https://emergingrevolutionarywar.org/2023/03/08/the-womens-tea-parties/

On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, immigrant St. George Tucker of Bermuda was admitted to the Bar of Virginia. Tucker would go on to serve with distinction in the Virginia Militia at the Battles of Guilford Courthouse and Yorktown and after the War would become one of the most influential legal scholars and…

On this day 250 years ago, Jane Randolph Jefferson, the second daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, was born at Monticello. Source: https://www.sparknotes.com/biography/jefferson/timeline/

On this day 250 years ago in London, King George III appointed the Commander of all British Forces in North America Lieutenant General Thomas Gage as Governor of Massachusetts replacing Thomas Hutchinson. Source: https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/boston-port-act-facts/

On this day 250 years ago in Orange County, Virginia, James Madison wrote to his friend William Bradford about the prospects for petitions for religious toleration that Baptists and Presbyterians were planning to submit to the coming session of the Virginia Assembly: I can not help being very doubtful of their succeeding in the Attempt.…