250 and Counting

Category: Second Continental Congress

Deane Gets Busy–October 6, 1776

We’ve talked so much about Silas Deane that I don’t have much new to share in this space, so I’ll tell you a little about his house.

The house in today’s cover art was completed in 1769. It’s located in Wethersfield, Connecticut. The facade is asymmetrical because there was a porch at one time.

Deane designed the house specifically to impress people and to project an image of power. It has two parlors: one for entertaining and one for family dining, and the kitchen is oversized specifically to allow for preparation of larger meals when there were guests.

Elizabeth Deane entertained important people when Silas was away for one reason or another, whether it was performing his Congressional duties or engaging in diplomatic missions overseas, as he was during this episode. Among those VIPs would be John Adams and George Washington, on separate occasions. Elizabeth died in 1777, while Silas was still in Paris.

After Deane’s death overseas in 1789, house and possessions were sold to satisfy his creditors. It passed through many different owners until 1874, when the Fenn family took it over. Then in 1938 they bequeathed the house to the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, and it’s been a historic site for visitors since then.

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October 6, 2026
Brother, Can You Spare $5 Million?–October 4, 1776

War bonds have been a thing since literally the beginning of the country.

In this particular case, Britain had spent a few years taking as much hard currency (that is, gold and silver) from America as they could, which left us in a pretty bad state when it came to having something to back our money.

The coin used for today’s cover art was actually a Continental Dollar, which was designed by Ben Franklin. Coin dies at that time were hand-punched, which means that because the dies only had so much lifespan to them, a limited number (a few thousand) could be made but the next run would be slightly different from the previous one. There are records of some coins being misspelled, such as this one. Another die has “currency” misspelled as “currencey”.

The Continental Dollar coin also had a little bit of a rebus pun on it. The word “FUGIO” is Latin for “I fly”, referring to the sun and the sundial. Then underneath the sundial is the English phrase “MIND YOUR BUSINESS”. Put it all together and you get, “Time flies, so mind your business.”

Most coins at that time were made of pewter; only about a hundred survive to this day, even though thousands were made. The prevailing theory for this is that most of them were melted down because of wartime demands for the metal.

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October 4, 2026
Jefferson Goes Home–October 2, 1776

Thomas Jefferson, after many months in Philadelphia, finally got to return home today.

One of the things that puzzled me early on in this podcasting project was the relative fluidity of the membership of the Continental Congress. People came in, people went out, and nobody seemed to have a problem with it. There didn’t appear to be a set schedule to it, and there were often periods in which a colony had nine delegates and other times when it had none. (Or that time when Georgia had only one delegate, and he wouldn’t vote because his views didn’t necessarily reflect those of his constituents. Or that other time when New York’s delegates abstained from anything involving Independence because they’d been directed not to vote in favor.)

But as time went on it began to dawn on me that these weren’t elected officials in the sense that we think of them; they were appointed by their governments to serve, and at heart they were citizens who were performing a duty, and then returned to whatever they ordinarily did. In fact, this is one of the reasons why many states today impose term limits: politics wasn’t a career for these people; they’d go in, do their thing and then go home and do something else, and let another person take their place.

And yes, many of the members of Congress, such as Thomas Jefferson, moved on to other political positions but many others returned to their previous profession (e.g., law) but perhaps at a higher level because they’d been in Congress.

In retrospect, it wasn’t a terrible system, nor was it a bad philosophy.

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October 2, 2026
Re-Mastering the Army–October 1, 1776

Thomas Mifflin was the Continental Army’s first Quartermaster General, and he was replaced by someone who just couldn’t get the job done, so he was asked to return to the position. He was good at the Quartermaster duties, but he really preferred to be on the front lines.

Oddly enough, though, when the soldiers at Valley Forge went through all their hardships, it was Mifflin who got the blame for it, and Congress had to appropriate a lot of money to settle the complaints. He still managed to keep the position, but the writing was on the wall and he resigned his commission a few months later.

Mifflin wasn’t done with public service, though. He became a delegate to the Congress and even spent some time as its President. And once Pennsylvania revamped its Constitution to include a genuine Governor position, as the last President of Pennsylvania he became the state’s first Governor, from 1790 to December 1799. He returned to the State Legislature but died a few weeks later.

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October 1, 2026
Busy Day For Mr. Rutledge–September 27, 1776

In putting this episode together, I realized that I used this same image of Edward Rutledge back in the September 9 episode. However, I neglected to put the information for the image in the alt text. And that’s something I do try not to overlook. On the other hand, I was still hopped up on cold medication, so there’s that.

And before I forget, I mentioned the censure of Esek Hopkins during the episode, so I wanted to ensure that I linked back to that as well.

In addition to being the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence, at the tender age of 26, Edward Rutledge was also a governor of South Carolina. By my count he was their ninth governor, from 1798 to 1800, but that’s if you count his brother John Rutledge twice, since John served twice, non-consecutively. Also, he was the ninth governor of the state of South Carolina; if you count the colonial governors, he’d be thirty-ninth.

After leaving the Continental Congress, Rutledge did fight in the Continental Army. He was captured during the Siege of Charleston in 1780 and released in a prisoner exchange the following year.

I should note that while Rutledge was governor he suffered from an attack of gout and went home to Charleston to recuperate. Not long afterwards, he heard the news of George Washington’s death and was so upset by this that he had an attack of apoplexy and died. (Modern-day medical types would probably say that he had a cerebral stroke.) Rutledge had been the Governor for 401 days.

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September 27, 2026
The French Commission

The Continental Congress, in the wake of Washington’s recent letter, finally realized that they weren’t going to be able to defeat the British on their own. Some outside assistance would be needed.

So on this day in 1776, they appointed a three-man commission to undertake a diplomatic mission to France, seeking money, arms and other materials.

France, as we’ve mentioned before, was a good country to hit up. They were still salty about the way the French and Indian War ended up, and they’d already been assisting America through gray and black markets, in order to give themselves plausible deniability should someone get caught. Should this mission succeed, the activity would be much more overt, and could be perceived as France’s official recognition of the United States as a sovereign nation.

It ultimately didn’t work out that way; that particular distinction went to Morocco and France became the second nation to officially recognize the US.

As Mike notes, the trip itself wouldn’t get underway for another few months, but there’s no doubt that the meeting with French authorities marked a critical turning point for the American Revolution.

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September 26, 2026
John Adams Wants To Go Home–September 25, 1776

Back in April, Mike and I had the opportunity to visit the Massachusetts Historical Society, and we were able to spend some time with the man whose job it is to curate, analyze and organize the papers of the Adams family. Not just John and Abigail, but their descendants and maybe a few ancillary branches of the family. At one point in the conversation I said to him, “It seems like John and Abigail were really hot for each other.”

He was a little taken aback by this but he didn’t disagree with me, either.

And I stand by my statement; it was clear by both the content and the tone of their writing that they were deeply in love with one another, and it was positively killing him that he had to spend so much time in Philadelphia, away from her.

Which is why the letter discussed in today’s episode may come as a surprise.

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September 25, 2026
Washington’s Desperate Letter–September 24, 1776

George Washington was a practical man, and he realized that without a standing army, he wouldn’t stand a chance against the British.

Sure, it’s good to have motivated people who are passionate about the cause, but when they have setbacks, they’re more likely to bail out, and that’s exactly what he was facing once the dust began to settle from his losses in New York. Many of the recruits that he had weren’t finishing out the enlistment period they’d agreed on when they first joined up, and the fact that their supplies and their pay were sporadic didn’t help matters.

It was with this in mind that Washington wrote to Congress, strongly recommending that they make some changes to the way that the Continental Army was being administered. Improving pay would be great, but simply ensuring that pay happened on a regular basis would be even better. And, of course, if a standing army could be established, then the men would be locked in for longer periods of time, and his officers wouldn’t spend so much time training new recruits.

Whether Congress agrees to this change…stay tuned.

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September 24, 2026
The Staten Island Peace Conference–September 11, 1776

The Staten Island Peace Conference was a bust almost from the beginning. Not because the sides were so opposed, but because one side didn’t have the authority to do any real negotiation.

John Adams, Edward Rutledge and Benjamin Franklin had to row over from Perth Amboy, New Jersey to get to the Totten House, which is near the southernmost tip of New York State, on Staten Island. At the narrowest point I could find from the vicinity of the house, that’s nearly a half-mile across the mouth of the Arthur Kill River where it opens into Raritan Bay and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean.

Unfortunately, Admiral Howe was so limited from a diplomatic standpoint that there wasn’t a lot he could do at that point, so after a few hours they broke up and the delegation was allowed to return to New Jersey. The war would continue for another severn years before concluding.

In retrospect, we have multiple attempts for Admiral Howe to meet with George Washington, which failed on the basis of protocol (Howe wouldn’t refer to Washington as a General), so now we have to wonder what direction negotiations would have gone had one of those attempts succeeded. Would things be different, or would it wind up the same, and the events of today be obviated? If a meeting in July had ended in no agreement, would John Sullivan even have been paroled to go to Philadelphia and present the plan?

I’ll leave that for you to chew on. In the meantime I’m still sounding pretty sultry, so enjoy that.

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September 11, 2026
The Peace Delegation–September 9, 1776

First off, my apologies to you, and to Mike (because it was his episode), for not double-checking that yesterday’s episode was actually loaded into the feed. I’ve been fighting off a ridiculous sinus infection and I think my medication had me woozy.

On the bright side, I’m probably sounding extra sexy in today’s episode because my head still feels like a brick.

Yesterday’s show should be in your podcast feed now, though, along with this one.

Today we have a trio of delegates headed to New York to attempt peace talks with the British. Meanwhile back in Philadelphia, the Congress officially declares that our country’s name is the United States of America. Check out the story behind that.

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September 9, 2026