At noon on this day 250 years ago in Charleston, South Carolina, Patriots rowed Captain Ball and the three merchants who had agreed to purchase his tea out to the Britannia anchored in the harbor where “an oblation was made to NEPTUNE, of the said seven chests of tea.” A crowd of Charlestonians watched from the docks and gave three hearty cheers as the tea was dumped into the waters of the harbor.
On this day 250 year ago in Alexandria, Virginia, the Fairfax Independent Company drilled, probably in the fields north of the town. George Washington recorded in his diary two days earlier that he met with other officers of the Company at Mount Vernon and on this day said he went to Alexandria for the day so he probably led the drill. An observer wrote an “effigy of Lord North was shot at, then carried in a great parade into the town, and burnt.”
And on this day 250 years ago in Boston, Benjamin Franklin’s sister Jane Mecom wrote a letter to Franklin who was still in London that “there is hardly four and twenty hours Pases without some fray” between British soldiers and people of Boston.
Source, Norton, Mary Beth, 1774 the Long Year of Revolution at 219.
On this day 250 years ago in Newport, the Rhode Island Assembly issued charters for two militia companies in Kent County. The First Independent Company Kent County based in East Greenwich had been organized a month before as the “Kentish Guards” and retained that name through distinguished service in the Revolutionary War and is still in existence with that name today. The first commander of the Kentish Guards, James Mitchell Varnum, went on to become a Brigadier General in the Continental Army, but its most famous member Nathaniel Greene enlisted as a private and went on to fame as the Major General who commanded the campaign that drove the British from the Carolinas and Georgia. The Second Independent Company for the County of Kent County was based in Pawtuxet and was called the “Pawtuxet Rangers.” It was commanded by Captain Samuel Aborn, with Benjamin Arnold as its First Lieutenant, both of whom would go on to become militia Colonels in the War.
Also on this day in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress adjourned until November 23. But its final day of the session was busy. The Provincial Congress approved a letter to Royal Governor Gage expressing alarm about the Governor’s “unusual and warlike preparations” in fortifying Boston Neck and asserting that “the unjust cause, on which you are engaged, . . . will never produce submission from the people of this province”. The Congress also: named Henry Gardner Sr. as Receiver General and ordered all counties to pay their taxes to Gardner rather than to the Royal Treasurer; ordered the county militias to reorganize into companies, choose officers and procure arms for militiamen who were unarmed because “the security of the lives, liberties, and properties of the inhabitants of this province depends, under Providence, on their knowledge and skill in the art military, and on their being properly and effectually armed and equipped”; and elected Captain William Heath and John Pigeon as additional members of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety that would govern the Colony until the Provincial Congress reconvened. Gardner served as the Treasurer of Massachusetts throughout the Revolutionary War, Pigeon became Commissary General of the Massachusetts Provincial Army that laid siege to Boston, and Heath became a Major General in the Continental Army.
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. The Rights asserted by the First Continental Congress included:
Resolved, N.C.D. 1. That they are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.
. . .
Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, . . .
Resolved, N.C.D. 5. That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law.
. . .
Resolved, N.C.D. 8. That they have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king; and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, and commitments for the same, are illegal.
. . .
Resolved, N.C.D. 10. It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative power in several colonies, by a council appointed, during pleasure, by the crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous and destructive to the freedom of American legislation
The abbreviation “N.C.D.” stands for the Latin phrase “nemine contradicente” and translates as “without anyone speaking against it.” It indicates the resolution was adopted by unanimous agreement.
These Rights claimed by the First Continental Congress on behalf of all Americans should be familiar to Americans today. This Declaration of Rights also shows that the Patriots found these Rights to be self-evident. They were not bestowed on the American people subsequently in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Instead in those documents the Founding Fathers laid out the Rights that Americans and all people are entitled to claim.
On October 10, 1774 at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which was then claimed by Virginia and also claimed by the Shawnee who called the place “Chinoudaista”, Virginia militia commanded by Col. Andrew Lewis fought Shawnee and allied warriors commanded by Chief Hokoleskwa, also known as Chief Cornstalk, at the Battle of Point Pleasant. The Virginians won the battle but lost about 80 men killed and 140 wounded. The Indian losses were not recorded but were probably similar. This battle was the largest engagement of Dunmore’s War and soon led to a treaty in which the Shawnee led by Hokoleska ceded to Virginia all their claimed lands east and south of the Ohio River.
Although the Virginia militia fought under the orders of Royal Governor Dunmore at Point Pleasant, almost all would fight for Virginia and America against Dunmore and the British Army the next year. Andrew Lewis, who immigrated to America from Ireland, became a General in the Continental Army and commanded the Virginia militia in 1776 that defeated Dunmore at the battle that drove Dunmore from Virginia. His subordinate commander Col. William Fleming, an immigrant from Scotland, was badly wounded in the battle and had to resign from the militia, but he continued to serve Virginia as an elected official throughout the War, including briefly as Virginia’s Governor. Lewis’s second division ended up under the command of Capt. Evan Shelby, who emigrated from Wales, and who would end up serving throughout the Revolution as the Colonel in command of Virginia’s frontier militia. Captain George Mathews would rise to rank of Brigadier General in the Continental Army at the end of the War, and would serve as Governor of Georgia after the War. Lt. Isaac Shelby would rise to be a Colonel and one of the commanders at Kings Mountain and other American victories in the War and then Governor of Kentucky after the War. The rank and file militia who survived the Battle of Point Pleasant would, almost to the man, continue defending Virginia from attack by both the Indians and the British throughout the Revolution.
Some historians consider the Battle of Point Pleasant to be the first battle of the Revolutionary War. You can visit a small portion of the battlefield that has been preserved by the State of West Virginia as Tu-Endi-Wei State Park in Point Pleasant. https://wvstateparks.com/park/tu-endie-wei-state-park/
This night 250 years, Patriots thinly disguised as “Pickwacket Indians” boarded a sloop named the Cynthia moored in the harbor of York, Massachusetts (now York, Maine). They removed around 150 pounds of tea, but instead of dumping it in the harbor, they carried it ashore and it reportedly was never seen again.
On this day 250 years ago “a number of inhabitants of that Town [of Easton, Massachusetts] assembled together and erected a Tree of Liberty ninety-six Feet high, as a Monument to be had in everlasting remembrance of a united Agreement to maintain LIBERTY AND PROPERTY.”
Source: Boston Evening Post, Sep. 26, 1774
Also on this day 250 years ago, Willard Buttrick of Concord, Massachusetts made his powder horn from the horn of a cow. A few weeks later Buttrick joined the the company of Concord Minutemen commanded by his brother Captain John Buttrick. In April 1775 Willard Buttrick carried his powder horn at the Battle of Concord Bridge, the first American victory of the Revolutionary War. You can see Willard Buttrick’s powder horn on display at the North Bridge Visitor Center of Minute Man National Historic Park today.
On this date 250 years ago in Winchester, Virginia, a large crowd gathered at the Frederick County Courthouse but had to move to the larger Church of England in town to adopt resolutions in support of the Patriots in Boston. The Frederick Resolves read:
Voted 1st. That we will always cheerfully pay due submission to such acts of government as his majesty has a right, by law, to exercise over his subjects, as sovereign to the British dominions, and to such only.
2nd. That it is the inherent right of British subjects to be governed and taxed by representatives chosen by themselves only, and that every act of the British parliament respecting the internal policy of North America is a dangerous and unconstitutional invasion of our rights and privileges.
3rd. That the act of parliament above mentioned is not only itself repugnant to the fundamental laws of natural justice in condemning persons for a supposed crime unheard, but also a despotic exertion of unconstitutional power, calculated to enslave a free and loyal people.
4th. That the enforcing the execution of the said act of parliament by a military power will have a necessary tendency to raise a civil war, thereby dissolving that union which has so long happily subsisted between the mother country and her colonies, and that we will most heartily and unanimously concur with our suffering brethren of Boston, and every other port of North America, that may be the immediate victims of tyranny, in promoting all proper measures to avert such dreadful calamities, to procure a redress of our grievances, and to secure our common liberties.
5th.It is the unanimous opinion of this meeting, that a joint resolution of all the colonies to stop all importations from Great Britain, and exportations to it, till the said act be repealed, will prove the salvation of North America and her liberties; on the other hand, if they continue their imports and exports, there is the greatest reason to fear that power and the most odious oppression will rise triumphant over right, justice, social happiness, and freedom.
6th. That the East India Company, those servile tools of arbitrary power, have justly forfeited the esteem and regard of all honest men, and that the better to manifest our abhorrence of such abject compliances with the will of a venal ministry, in ministering all in their power an encrease of the fund of peculation, we will not purchase tea, or any other kind of East India commodities, either imported now, or hereafter to be imported, except saltpetre, spices, and medicinal drugs.
7th. That it is the opinion of this meeting, that committees ought to be appointed for the purpose of effecting a general association, that the same measures may be pursued through the whole continent, that committees ought to correspond with each other, and to meet at places and times as shall be agreed on, in order to form such association, and that when the same shall be formed and agreed to by the several committees, we will strictly adhere to, and till the general sense of the continent shall be known, we do pledge ourselves to each other, and to our country, that will inviolably adhere to the votes of this day.
8th. That Charles M Thurston, Isaac Zane, Angus McDonald, Samuel Beall, 3d, Alexander White, and George Rootes, be appointed a Committee for the purposes aforesaid; and that they, or any three of them are hereby fully empowered to act. Which being read, were unaminously assented to and ascribed.
I emphasized the threat of war in the 4th Resolve.
Also on this date in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Royal Governor John Wentworth dissolved the New Hampshire Assembly. Wentworth was attempting to prevent the Assembly from sending delegates to a continental congress but was unsuccessful.
On this day 250 years ago, the Prince William Resolves were adopted in “a Meeting of the Freeholders, Merchants, and other Inhabit-ants of the County of Prince William, and town of Dumfries, . . . at the Court House” in Dumfries, Virginia. George Mason drafted the Resolves which declared:
Resolved, And it is the unanimous opinion of this meeting, that no person ought to be taxed but by his own consent, expressed either by himself or his Representatives; and that, therefore, any Act of Parliament levying a tax to be collected in America, depriving the people of their property or prohibiting them from trading with one another, is subversive of our natural rights, and contrary to the first principles of the Constitution.
Resolved, That the city of Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay, is now suffering in the common cause of American liberty, and on account of its opposition to an Act of the British Legislature, for imposing a duty upon tea, to be collected in America.
Resolved, That as our late Representatives have not fallen upon means sufficiently efficacious to secure to us the enjoyment of our civil rights and liberties, that it is the undoubted privilege of each respective county, (as the fountain of power from whence their delegation arises,) to take such proper and salutary measures as will essentially conduce to a repeal of those Acts, which the general sense of mankind, and the greatest characters in the nation, have pronounced to be unjust.
Resolved, And it is the opinion of this meeting, that until the said Acts are repealed, all importation to, and exportation from, this Colony ought to be stopped, except with such Colonies or Islands in North America as shall adopt this measure.
Resolved, And it is the opinion of this meeting, that the courts of justice in this Colony ought to decline trying any civil causes until said Acts are repealed.
Resolved, That the Clerk of this Committee transmit copies of these Resolves to both the printers in Annapolis and Philadelphia, to be published in their Gazettes.
On this day 250 years ago in London, Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act and the ironically named (from the Patriot perspective) Act for the Impartial Administration of Justice. King George III approved both Acts on this same day. The Massachusetts Government Act suspended elected offices in the colony and allowed the Crown to appoint their replacements. The “Administration of Justice” Act suspended trial by jury in Massachusetts and allowed British soldiers and officials to be returned to Britain for trial. These are the second and third of the Intolerable Acts that drove America to Revolution and probably did more to spark the Revolutionary War than any other acts of the British government before the first shots were fired at Lexington.
Also on this day at a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania became the thirteenth and final colony to form a Committee of Correspondence. That original committee of 19 members would grow to 43, then to 66, and finally to to 200 members during its two years of existence. Hundreds of Pennsylvania Patriots participated in one or more of the committees, but only four were in all of them: Thomas Barclay, John Cox, Jr., John Dickinson, and Joseph Reed.
On This Day In The Revolution 