On This Day In The Revolution

On this day 250 years ago, Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia published his essay “On Patriotism” in which he wrote that if the ships headed to America with tea were allowed to unload their cargo “then farewell American liberty! . . . let us with one heart and hand oppose the landing of it. .…

A band of 19 warriors from three different tribes (Delaware, Shawnee and Cherokee) angry at the westward expansion of white settlements attacked, tortured and killed James Boone, Henry Russell, John Mendenhall, Richard Mendenhall, Samuel Drake and Charles (an enslaved member of their party) on Wallen’s Creek in the Yadkin Valley of Virginia. Although the attack…

Captain William Russell’s 17-year old son Henry Russell with Daniel Boone’s 17-year old son James Boone departed Russell’s home at Castle’s Woods in Fincastle County, Virginia with a party of 8 carrying supplies to join Daniel Boone’s trek into Kentucky. They would soon become the first casualties in “Dunmore’s War”, an importtant precursor to the…

Thomas Mifflin of Philadelphia, writing as “Scaevola” published a broadside threatening any agents accepting delivery of tea from the East India Company. Mifflin was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly and later would serve in the Continental Congress, the Continental Army and as Governor of Pennsylvania. Source: Norton, Mary Beth, 1774: The Long Year of…

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…