On This Day In The Revolution

On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution, Governor Patrick Tonyn of East Florida wrote Lord Dartmouth to report on his meeting with Creek Indians in St. Augustine earlier in March. Source: Cashin, Edward J., William Bartram and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier at 83-84, 273 n. 34. [Note to readers —…

On this day 250 years ago in London Arthur Lee drafted this petition to the House of Lords: The petitioners, being Americans, are deeply concerned with any proceeding of the House that touches life, liberty, or property in America. They and their countrymen have law as their inalienable birthright, and it requires that no man…

On this day 250 years ago in London Parliament passed the Boston Port Act. This bill closing the Port of Boston to commerce was the first of the Intolerable Acts. These bills were intended to coerce the American colonies into submitting to rule from London but had the opposite of effect of uniting all thirteen…

On this day 250 years ago the Rhode Island legislature passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves. This law was the first step in the abolition of slavery in the United States although there were many examples in which Rhode Island subsequently failed to enforce the law. Source: https://www.tfdsupplies.com/blogs/today-in-history/5-fun-facts-about-march-24-in-rhode-island-history-1

On this day 250 years ago, Thomas Chittenden, Ira Allen, Ethan Allen, Remember Baker and the other proprietors of the town of Burlington, Vermont held their first meeting in Salisbury, Connecticut. These men would go on to become the famed Green Mountain Boys whose heroic deeds include the capture of Fort Ticonderoga at the beginning…

On this day 250 years ago in London Benjamin Franklin wrote Thomas Cushing, Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly: I suppose we never had since we were a People, so few Friends in Britain. The violent Destruction of the Tea seems to have united all Parties here against our Province, so that the Bill now brought…

On this day 250 years ago, Hugh Mercer of Fredericksburg, Virginia wrote George Washington ofering to buy the farm in Fredericksburg where Washington’s mother lived and where Washington had grown up. At the Battle of Princeton less than three years later General Mercer would be mortally wounded leading the initial charge against the British line…

On this day 250 years ago at Mount Vernon signed Articles of Agreement with Valentine Crawford to act as the “Overlooker & manager” of the expedition of workers to establish a settlement on Washington’s lands on the Great Kanawha River at the site of present-day Charleston, West Virginia. Crawforrd would later serve as a Colonel…

On this day 250 years ago, preparations were being made for an expedition of indentured servants and hired laborers to be led by Valentine Crawford to George Washington’s property on the Great Kanawha River in western Virginia, now West Virginia. The expedition was intended to clear land, plant corn, and peach trees, and erect fences…

On this day 250 years ago in London, the British Prime Minister Lord North introduced in Parliament a bill to close the Port of Boston to all shipping as punishment for the Boston Tea Party. Source: https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/boston-port-act-facts/#:~:text=March%2018%2C%201774%20—%20Lord%20North,to%20the%20House%20of%20Commons.