On This Day In The Revolution

Alexander McDougall, a leader of the Sons of Liberty in New York City, writing as “Hampden” published the first of five broadsides (essays printed on a large sheet of paper) entittled The Alarm attacking the East India Company. His final essay called for a boycott of its tea. McDougall would later servc with distinction as…

The Massachusetts Gazette republished the Pennsylvania Chronicle‘s September 29 article calling Prime Minister North a “great schemer.” Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-ushistory1/chapter/the-destruction-of-the-tea-and-the-coercive-acts/#footnote-170-2

Pat and I are going on vacation out of the country and I won’t be posting again until October 11. But I am posting in advance a few dates of significance while we are gone.

On this day 250 years ago, the Pennsylvania Chronicle published an excerpt from a letter with intelligence that the East India Company was making arrangements to ship tea to American ports. The letter writer did not know that the ships had set sail that very day from England but he encouraged Philadelphians to reject the…

On this day 250 years ago, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney married Sarah Middleton uniting two of the most prominent Patriot families of South Carolina. Sarah was the daughter of Henry Middleton, who would soon serve as President of the First Continental Congress, and brother of Arthur Middleton who would be a Signer of the Declaration of…

On this day 250 years ago the first of seven ships carrying East India Company tea left England for America. One ship was headed to Charleston, another to Philadelphia, a third ship to New York, and four ships headed to Boston. The cargo of three of those ships ended up in Boston Harbor in the…

On this day 250 years ago, George Washington was taking a break from politics and dined at Rawling’s Tavern in Anne Arundel County, Maryland on his way to the races in Annapolis. Source: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=3141

On this day 250 years ago Daniel Boone led his family and five other families from their homes in North Carolina to travel on the Wilderness Road from Virginia into Kentucky. Their planned settlement in Kentucky was aborted two weeks later by an attack by a party of Indians in which his son and others…

On this day 250 years ago, William Fitzhugh of Calvert County was appointed Commissary General of Maryland by the Royal Governor of the colony. Fitzhugh was a close friend of George Washington, and like Washington, chose the Patriot side in the Revolution. He continued in office as Commissary General after the Patriots effectively took control…

Benjamin Franklin published in London his satire An Edict by the King of Prussia. The Edict points out the absurdity of London’s claims of entitlement to control and enjoy all benefits from the American colonies by inventing similar claims by the King of Prussia of dominion over England. Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0223