On This Day In The Revolution

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.…

On this day 250 years ago in London King George III signed the Boston Port Act closing the Port of Boston to essentially all trade effective June 1, 1774. The closure of the Port would be enforced by the Royal Navy. Source: https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/boston-port-act-facts/ The Boston Port Act when soon coupled with the other “Intolerable Acts”…

On this day 250 years ago in London the Public Advertiser published a report on the passage of the Boston Port Act in the House of Lords. Although the bill was adopted with an overwhelming vote, the Dukes of Richmond and Manchester and Lords Camden, Rockingham, Shelburne, Stair, and Temple opposed the bill. Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%222%20April%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=6&sr=

On this day 250 years ago the Boston Committee of Correspondence wrote to the Committee of Newport, Rhode Island about the British Postal Service. The letter stated that the existing postal system was “unconstitutional, and a usurpation of the British Parliament no longer to be borne. . . . and dangerous to the liberties of…

On this day 250 years ago, the Boston Gazette and Country Journal published a Resolution of the Town of Plymouth adopted on March 24 that declared anyone offering tea for sale “an enemy to America” as well as a Resolution of the Town of Braintree adopted at a meeting of the Town on March 11…