250 and Counting

This day in American History, 250 years ago.

A New Mission Is Re-established–November 1, 1776

Every day you learn something new if you pay attention, and today I learned that there is more than one Mission San Juan Capistrano.

I went looking for a photo of the mission on Wikipedia, since most images there are in the public domain, and I found one in an article about the mission but the map was all wrong. This mission was in Texas; mine is supposed to be in California!

It took me a second to notice the line at the top of the article: “For the mission of the same name in California, click here.”

I bet the swallows never had that kind of navigational difficulty when they went looking for the Mission San Juan Capistrano.

So what’s the story with the Swallows of Capistrano? It turns out that as part of their migratory pattern, a species of bird called cliff swallows arrive at the mission on or around St. Joseph’s Day, which is March 19. They’ve been using the mission to build or re-establish their nests almost as long as the mission has been there. Originally they were using whatever perch they could find, because the mission is near two rivers and there’s plenty of muddy marshland, which is good for the nests (they’re made of mud) and for the baby birds (lots of insects in the marsh). But once the mission went up, they started using the overhangs and the arches there.

Development in the area has meant that the marshland isn’t quite as marshy as it used to be, so the swallow population has gone down some. The story goes that the sky could practically turn black with birds as they arrived on St. Joseph’s Day, and again on October 23, the Day of San Juan, when they leave Capistrano and head back to Argentina to spend the winter.

The things you learn.

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November 1, 2026
Retreating North–October 31, 1776

When George Washington retreated his men under cover of darkness from White Plains to North Castle, he expected General Howe to follow.

Howe didn’t take the bait.

So the two men sat there for a couple of days, each hoping to draw the other one out. The fact was, Howe wasn’t all that interested in pursuing Washington’s army, so he turned his attention elsewhere in the end. Stay tuned; we’ll get there in a couple of days.

This was a good news/bad news situation for the Continental Army. Good, because they coulld take a breather from near-constant fighting since mid-August; bad because Howe’s troops weren’t stretching themselves thin with occupying territory they’d won.

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October 31, 2026
George M. Bibb–October 30, 1776

What can I tell you about George Bibb that Mike hasn’t already shared with you?

(Also: wait—Mike has a research staff? I don’ t have a research staff and this show was my idea! I think he’s getting his students to do his homework for him.)

(For the record, that’s a joke. Mike and I each do our own research on these shows.)

George Bibb was a generally wealthy guy, but in 1837 there was a financial crisis that led to several years of economic depression. It was a lot of different things coming together: land speculation in the West, cotton prices crashing, restrictive rules regarding lending money to Great Britain—a holdover from the War of 1812—and a few other things both related and not to one another, plus the fact that the US didn’t have a central bank at the time to calm things down. Today it’s referred to as the Panic of 1837, because of the resulting bank run that took place on May 10 of that year.

This led to some serious financial difficulties for Bibb, and one can only imagine that this is why he agreed to be the Secretary of the Treasury in 1844, as things managed to begin righting themselves. Unfortunately, President John Tyler was not receptive to Bibb’s recommendation of a “sinking fund,” which would help to pay down government debt through any surplus revenue. To use a totally-made-up example, if the government expected to receive a million dollars in revenue and instead got $1.1 million, the extra hundred thousand would go to the fund. Similarly, if a department expected to spend a million dollars in a given year but only spent $900,000, that money could also go to the fund. This wasn’t his idea, though: the nation had a sinking fund from 1739 to 1835 but Bibb couldn’t get it revived.

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October 30, 2026
The Morning After–October 29, 1776

The Battle of White Plains was long, and it was complicated, and once things settled down, both armies needed a little time to regroup and figure out what happened.

It was clear that, despite the relative gains for the British, the casualties were comparable (at worst) to those of the Americans. General Howe’s aim in not pursuing matters further was to await the arrival of reinforcements. Could he have have gotten the job done without them? Maybe; the Americans were outnumbered but they were still formidable fighters despite their relative lack of training.

George Washington, on the other hand, was trying to re-organize in order to safely retreat and fight another day. But things in Downstate New York aren’t quite over yet, and we’ll be returning here in a couple of days. Stay tuned.

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October 29, 2026
Battle of White Plains–October 28, 1776

The Battle of White Plains, like so many others we’ve described, was technically a victory for the British, but the overall cost and/or final result leaves everyone wondering whether the win was worth it.

As we’ve noted repeatedly, the objective of all this activity in New York was for the British to take control of the Hudson Valley and the river all the way up to Canada, thus cutting New England off from the rest of the colonies and, in theory, making it impossible for Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to get any supplies without Britain’s permission. (Remember, Vermont and Maine weren’t states yet.)

And while the British won in Brooklyn, and then Manhattan, and again today at the Battle of White Plains, George Washington’s movements just kept moving the goalposts just a little further away. Washington probably should ahve moved west to get away from the British and regroup, but he chose instead to move north, essentially forcing the British to chase him again rather than just move in and do whatever they wanted to do.

As we move into the last couple of months of this podcast, we will return to this activity a few times before we’re done. So, stick around!

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October 28, 2026
New Command for John Paul Jones–October 27, 1776

John Paul Jones (Mike would have me note it’s not the guy from Led Zeppelin) led a relatively short life, but it was certainly eventful.

Jones was born in Scotland and became a sailor at age 13, where he served on multiple merchantmen, including a few slave ships. Jones fled to the Virginia colony to avoid arrest after killing a mutinous subordinate and joined the Continental Navy in 1775. Less than a year later he was the captain of the USS Alfred, which is the subject of today’s episode.

After Jones’ successes in France, he harassed British merchant ships in the Irish Sea, and he made a couple of attempts to deeply sabotage the ships in Whitehaven, but his efforts weren’t successful.

In 1779, while still in Europe, Jones took command of the Bonhomme Richard and continued to give the British a hard time in their own waters, sometimes with mixed results. This was the ship he was commanding when he was said to have uttered the phrase “I have not yet begun to fight!”, which is pretty gung-ho, but unfortunately apocryphal.

Jones was left without a command in 1787, so he entered in o the service of Empress Catherine of Russia. He experienced some successes, but was undercut by an ambitious underling who deliberately mis-translated his letters to the Empress. Two years later, Tadeusz Kościuszko, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, suggested that he leave Russia and serve another nation. Not long thereafter he was accused of raping a young girl and left the country despite the evidence being rather thin. He returned to Paris but couldn’t get a foothold in society.

In 1792 Jones was appointed the US Consul to negotiate with Algiers for the release of American captives. Unfortunately before he could do this, he was found deat at home. The cause of his death was interstitial nephritis, an inflammation of part of the kidney which is sometimes symptomless. Nowadays it’s most often caused by reactions to certain medications but is easily treated. Jones was 45 when he died and in significant debt, largely because he hadn’t been paid for some of his endeavors. He was buried in a cemetery specifically for Protestants who weren’t native Frenchmen, but the grave was either unmarked or the marker stone was taken. It took until 1905 to locate his coffin. Today his remains are interred in a sarcophagus at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

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October 27, 2026
Ben Franklin Heads To France–October 26, 1776

While Benjamin Franklin departed for France on this day, actually having Franklin in France wouldn’t happen until early December. Remember, he was traveling by ship and it took a few weeks to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

What’s more, as Mike mentions, it would take him over a year to secure the support that we needed. In fact, I cheated a little on the artwork, which depicts Franklin presenting himself before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the Palace of Versailles. This didn’t happen until March of 1778, after formal diplomatic relations had been established, and Franklin named our ambassador. But the truth is, I didn’t think I was going to find a contemporary image of Franklin embarking on a ship, and there’s something about the use of line and color that has me loving this art style, so an image of Franklin in France already is where we all are now.

Side note: there’s a very similar art style from about 100 years ago, maybe more like 80-90 years, that has a lithographic/woodcut feel and similar use of colors—though just a hair more vivid—and it just speaks to me somehow. I know that there were a few picture books from my childhood that employed that art style, and maybe that’s what I’m responding to. (There’s a sample here and I have no idea what story it’s telling, but you get the general picture [heh] of what I’m talking about, visually.)

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October 26, 2026
Uncle George Wants You–October 25, 1776

King George III offered up some naval incentives throughout 1776. Seamen who enlisted would get bonuses depending on their level of experience, but the Royal Navy wasn’t above impressing sailors into service, either.

However, it’s also worth noting that King George also put some disincentives out there as well. For instance, in November of 1776 he forbade British mariners and seafaring men from working on foreign vessels, or working for a foreign government or prince without a special license. He also demanded that all natural-born British subjects who were working abroad return home so they can servc the Crown. Violations of these rules would be met with the “utmost severities of the Law”, though those punishments weren’t always clear. And don’t get George started on privateers.

These warnings came after news got out about a thousand men being impressed into service about a week earlier.

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October 25, 2026
How White Plains Got There–October 24, 1776

White Plains today is the county seat of Westchester County, the county that directly abuts New York City to the north and connects it to the mainland.

But back when the Dutch started settling in the area, starting at the south end of Manhattan, the region was being used for farming by the Weckquaeskeck tribe of the Wappingers, and was called “Quarropas” by those people. (And I knew Mike would chicken out on saying “Weckquaeskeck”.)

Incidentally, in the first US Census, in 1790, the population of White Plains was 505, including 46 slaves. In 2020 it was 59,599, presumably none of them slaves. However, during a given weekday it’s estimated that nearly a quarter-million people are in the city.

White Plains has a park marking the battle (oops, spoiler alert) and lots of opportunities for luxury shopping, plus a Performing Arts Center. If you’re passing through the area, it might be worthwhile to stop for a bit.

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October 24, 2026
Jefferson’s New Laws–October 23, 1776

Holding the show to two minutes exactly (because we also have a few radio listeners) sometimes makes it tough to tell the whole story of the rules behind en taille, or entail.

Because, you see, en taille doesn’t just refer to land in Virginia; it refers to all property. And that includes slaves. And Jefferson, who was absolutely a slave owner (he inherited a little over 50 slaves when he was 21, and inherited another 135 slaves when his father-in-law died—this made him the second-largest slave owner in Albemarle County), was a complicated man in this particular respect. Because although he was a slave owner, he also fought in various courts to have people freed. In one case the man who was freed was so grateful that he worked for Jefferson for wages the rest of his life. And he argued more than once that people should not be imported to the US for slavery purposes. He finally got this law passed in Virginia in 1778, making that state the first to ban international slave trade.

Jefferson proposed legislation that would have outlawed slavery in all of the territories should they become states, but it fell short by a single vote.

Similarly, Jefferson wrote about gradual emancipation for slaves while simultaneously writing about Blacks being mentally inferior to Whites. As I said: complicated.

Jefferson did manage to get international trade to/from the US banned altogether while he was President, but this still did nothing for people born in captivity.

After he died, he still owned 135 slaves. 130 of them were sold off to pay debts; five of them were freed. All of them were males from the Hemmings family. However, in one case the slave was freed but his wife and eight children were sold. That slave, Joe Fossett, managed to earn enough money to buy back his wife and two children in a relatively short period of time, but it took them 23 years to eventually free all of the children.

Complicated.

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October 23, 2026