250 and Counting

Category: American Revolution

  • May 16, 1775: The Hanna’s Town Resolves

    Cover art for May 16, 1775: One of several re-created houses on the former Hanna's Town site. (via Wikimedia Commons)

    While the Declaration of Independence was still about 15 months away, a small community in the far western reaches of Pennsylvania decided not to wait around for it to happen, and they took matters into their own hands.

    The Hanna’s Town Resolves was probably the most direct challenge to British rule to date, if you don’t count the stuff that involved shooting.

    Unfortunately, in the end the entire town paid the price and it was destroyed. However, on the same site you can visit reproductions of several of the structures that originally stood.

    Likewise, the original document of the Hanna’s Town Reserves was never recovered (and was probably destroyed in the fires that took out the town), but the text was reproduced in the Pennsylvania Gazette in August of that year, which is the only reason we know about it today.

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  • May 15, 1775: The Continental Congress Toughens Up

    Cover Art for May 15, 1775 Official Presidential Portrait of John Adams, by John Trumbull, ca. 1792 (via WIkimedia Commons)

    The Second Continental Congress has only been convened for about five days and things are already heating up for them.

    Delegates are still arriving. Lexington and Concord has upset their original plans so they’re making alternate plans. And even the alternate plans they made five days ago are being amended.

    And then Virginia comes in with some crazy idea about Independence? Will the madness never end?

    (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t, but we’ll tell you if it ever does.)

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  • May 14, 1775: Don’t Mess With Fairhaven

    Cover art for May 14, 1775: HMS Falcon, accompanied by a smaller ship. Painting by William Nowland Van Powell.

    The Thirteen Colonies didn’t have a lot in the way of a navy to help them with their battles, especially not against perhaps the biggest and best navy ever up until then.

    What they did have was people who were willing to act in lieu of a navy. Some of them did it out of sheer patriotism, and others were a little more mercenary about it. Specifically, privateers.

    Now, “privateers” sounds a little like “pirates” and people often use the words interchangeably. You should stop being friends with those people. Privateers are a specific breed of sailor. They’re government-sanctioned to act as a kind of ad-hoc navy, authorized to take action in times of war. Typically, their job was to disrupt merchant vessels (hence the confusion with pirates).

    It wasn’t long after the Revolution began that Fairhaven, Massachusetts, became a place known for privateer activity.

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    Extra credit activity: check out the West Wing, Season 4, Episode 18. You’ll learn more about privateers, and as a bonus, you’ll never think of Francis Scott Key the same way ever again.

  • May 13, 1775: Lyman Hall Joins the Continental Congress

    Cover art for May 13, 1775: portrait of Lyman Hall, created ca. 1871

    Dr. Lyman Hall gets a little name recognition because he was a strong supporting character in the play/film 1776, but he was more involved in the Revolution than that.

    While Georgia (eventually) sent five delegates to the Continental Congress, Hall was one of the three who regularly attended and signed the Declaration of Independence.

    For instance, he ensured that food and medicine got to Colonial soldiers, and it was he who convinced the Georgia congress to send official delegates to the Second Continental Congress, himself among them.

    He also became the state’s first Governor and spent that single year establishing the state university.

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  • May 12, 1775: The Taking of Fort Crown Point

    Cover art for May 12, 1775: Photo of the ruins of Fort Crown Point, taken by Daniel Horowitz in 2020, via WIkimedia Commons.

    A fort was built at Crown Point in 1730 by the French. The British attacked it twice before the French finally destroyed it in 1759.

    That same year the British began building a new fort for defending against the French.

    In 1773 it was partially destroyed in a fire. Since nobody had seriously threatened the area in thirteen years, the British didn’t really care and chose to keep a skeleton staff of nine soldiers there.

    So what made it such an important target to the Green Mountain Boys? Mike’s got the answer to that question.

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  • May 11, 1775: The Second Continental Congress Gets to Business

    Cover art for May 11, 1775: The Second Continental Congress in July 1775. Unknown artist, printed by Currier & Ives in 1876.

    When the Second Continental Congress convened, they spent a little time with the formalities of going over credentials and establishing some ground rules. But right after that, they got right down to business. They knew that they were going to move into a wartime footing immediately. They also knew that they wanted to operate in an “official” capacity, so they took the time to review, on the record, the events leading up to and including the battle at Lexington and Concord.

    They then adjourned until the next day, but tabled discussion of the state of America to the following Monday. (May 11 was a Thursday, so this wasn’t terribly out of line.)

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  • May 10, 1775: The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga

    Cover art for May 10, 1775: "Capture of Fort Ticonderoga" by Alonzo Chappel, 1858

    Mike has done a pretty good job of covering the basic story in today’s episode, so I thought I’d spend a minute with you on the cover art.

    This image, which had to be cropped to fit the parameters of podcast art, is called a “conjectural work”, because it was created many years later based on accounts of people who were there. I’ve also seen the phrase “idealized depiction,” but I think “conjectural work” is more value-neutral.

    The original artist was named Alonzo Chappel, and he created this image in 1858, 78 years after the original event. It was converted to an engraving by Thomas Philbrown. And I know all this because it’s part of the New York Public Library’s Digital Collection.

    How accurate is it to actual events? It may be pretty close, since there are several different images available, each depicting all the same people in similar poses (though one appears to be flipped from the others, so that everyone is facing the other way). So I think there’s a pretty high degree of confidence that it looked a lot like this.

    Enjoy.

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  • May 7, 1775: Joseph Wanton is Prevented from Becoming Governor

    Cover art for May 7, 1775: detail of the document officially preventing Governor Joseph Wanton from taking the oath of office.

    Joseph Wanton was elected governor of Rhode Island in 1769, and every year he was re-elected to the position. By all accounts he did a good job and looked out for his constituents.

    Then came the events at Lexington and Concord.

    Wanton wasn’t a Loyalist, but he did think that a war with England wouldn’t be especially productive, and when the General Assembly thought that it was time to raise an army, Wanton refused to do so. Unfortunately for him, he was in the space between his re-election and his taking the oath of office, and the Assembly used the opportunity to run him out of the office.

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  • May 4, 1775: How the Gunpowder Incident Ended

    Cover art for May 4, 1775: portrait of Patrick Henry by Thomas Sully, circa 1851. There's another version by another artist emulating this one wherein Henry's eyes are rather sunken and dark.

    As we noted a few days ago, both Payton Randolph and George Washington managed to quell a couple of militia-based riots which would have resulted in the torching of the Royal Governor’s mansion. Both of those riots came from Fredericksburg.

    What nobody counted on, however, was that militia from other parts of Virginia had the same idea to march on Williamsburg and wreak a little havoc. They were led by Patrick Henry, who (let’s face it) extorted payment for the missing gunpowder from Lord Dunmore, and then took off for Philadelphia to deliver the money.

    Dunmore called him out on it, declaring Henry an outlaw, and the Virginia citizens acted accordingly. I’ve said too much here; listen in to see what they did.

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  • May 3, 1775: You Can’t Keep a Good Spy Down

    Cover art for May 3, 1775: detail of the Massachusetts Spy from that day.

    More often than not, items that appear in the Bill of Rights derive directly from actions that the British took at one time or another in the past. Ban guns, will you? Here’s a nice Second Amendment. Ban free speech? Here’s your First Amendment.

    And so on.

    Today’s edition could be considered a Part Two to the events of April 16, when the Massachusetts Spy had to pack up shop and hightail it out of Boston down the road some forth miles to Worcester specifically so it could keep publishing. On this day, the Spy sprang back to life.

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