On This Day In The Revolution

On this day 250 years ago, the Dartmouth, carrying 114 chests of tea, sailed into Boston Harbor. Source: https://www.masshist.org/revolution/teaparty.php#:~:text=On%20Sunday%2C%2028%20November%2C%20the,is%20called%20at%20Faneuil%20Hall. Today, November 28, 2023, at 11:00 am Eastern, the City of Boston will lay wreaths at the graves of Samuel Adams and John Hancock to commemorate the response of Adams, Hancock and the Sons of Liberty to…

On this day 250 years ago, the “Committee for Tarring and Feathering” sent a public letter to river pilots threatening them as the committee’s name implies if they assisted Captain Ayers and the Polly in docking to unload the ship’s cargo of tea in Philadelphia. Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.14303100/?st=text

On this day 250 years ago, The Massachusetts Spy published a letter by someone writing under the pseudonym “Locke” addressed to The American Colonies with a clarion call to rebellion: “YOUR exertions in the great cause of freedom have been noble; and they must be continued with redoubled vigour. The time is now come which…

On this day 250 years ago the Sons of Liberty in New York led by Isaac Sears were expecting the arrival of a ship carrying East India Company. They were prepared to block it from unloading its contents but the ship had been blown off course in a storm and would not arrive until April.…

On this day 250 years ago, George Washington dined with Peyton Randolph at Randolph’s home in Williamsburg, Virginia. We do not know what they talked about but at that time Randolph was Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses and Washington was a leading Member of the House of Burgesses. Only 17 months later Randolph…

On this day 250 years ago the Boston Committee of Correspondence issued a joint letter with the committees of correspondence of the towns in the vicinity of Boston that proclaimed: Our rights have been for several years invaded by cruel and remorseless enemies; sometimes they have acted with open violence, at other times they have…

On this day 250 years ago, “Junius Brutus” (which may have been a pseudonym used by the publisher), wrote in Peter Timothy’s South Carolina Gazette that “a Tax of the value of one penny levied upon us without our consent, as effectually takes away our liberty, as if the sum were a million.” The Patriots made it clear…

On this day 250 years ago Club Forty-Five met in Charleston under the Liberty Tree to swear oaths to oppose British tyranny, and to drink to excess. Club Forty-Five comprised 45 South Carolina Patriots including John and Edward Rutledge. The Club was named for a famous essay “North Briton No. 45” written by the radical…

On this day 250 years ago, a Spanish officer at Arkansas Post reported to another Spanish official that a Quapaw chief had been visiting the British in Pensacola. The Spanish were concerned because the Quapaw had been long allied with the French in Louisiana in warfare against the British and the Spanish had expected to…

On this day 250 years ago, “A Plea to the American Public to Protect Their Liberties” by resisting the importation of tea that was written by “a student of law” is printed as a broadside in New York Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23149623?seq=14 at p. 60