250 and Counting

Category: US History

  • February 18, 1775

    Cover art for February 18, 1775: the grave of William Henry Winder, in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore MD.

    Maryland has a peculiar place in most of America’s major events. During the Revolution, the Continental Congress hid out there for a while. During the Civil War, the state mostly sat out the war because it was a “Southern” state occupied by the Union throughout.

    But the War of 1812? Well, that was Maryland’s time to shine, and today we meet one of the military men who fought in that war, though he wasn’t especially successful in the Battle of Bladensburg.

    We did have a portrait of Winder we were going to use in the cover art until we realized that Winder is buried in Greenmount Cemetery, in Baltimore, a short distance from Claude’s home. So he ran out and snapped a photo. Several famous historic figures are buried there, including John Wilkes Booth (it’s probably the best-known unmarked grave in America), so there may have to be a few more trips over there.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 17, 1775

    Cover art for February 17, 1775: a map of Albany and the surrounding area in the late 1700s.

    We’ve mentioned in the past that the intent of most of the Intolerable Acts and the Coercive Acts were designed to punish the Massachusetts Province, but it had some effect on the other colonies as well. What’s more, there was a growing worry that, if Parliament could do things like this to Massachusetts, what’s going to stop them from doing it to us?

    To that end, the city of Albany, NY, began making plans just in case war broke out. It was against the law, but their reasoning was that it was better to have a militia and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 16, 1775

    Cover art for February 17, 1775: Portrait of David Barclay

    David Barclay was a British merchant who frequently plied his trade with other merchants in the Colonies. Such trade was quite lucrative for him, so when the Stamp Act was enacted, he stood to lose a lot of money because the Colonists would simply look elsewhere for the goods he sold.

    Likewise, when the Intolerable Acts, and the Coercive Acts were enacted, Barclay stood to suffer even more.

    So Barclay came up with a plan that would allow everyone to save face and bring these acts to an end.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 15, 1775

    Cover art for February 15, 1775: Portrait of Lord Horace Walpole

    Only a few people had figured it out, and it’s not clear whether they were just guessing, but by this point in time both England and the Colonies were locked into a path that would lead inevitably to a shooting war.

    To that end, Parliament approved sending over four thousand soldiers and sailors to the Colonies to help keep them in line. But it wasn’t as simple as that; there were still some people protesting the action, not that anyone listened to them.

    Today we also peek in on someone who’s watching the action and has some thoughts.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 14, 1775

    Cover art for February 14, 1775: Depiction by Percy Moran circa 1909 of British Grenadiers and Light Infantry scaling today's "Breed's Hill."

    When it comes to Black people and their role in the American Revolution, the one name that most people appear to remember is that of Crispus Attucks, largely because he was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre, and that event is thought of as the beginning of the Revolutionary War, therefore it’s significant that the first person to die in the name of American freedom was a person of color.

    Other people, more fussy about events, would say that Lexington & Concord was the beginning of the war. The reasoning behind that is that it’s the first event in a series of hostile actions that took place close to one another. But the real argument is that most historical events of this nature don’t have definitive “beginning” and “ending” points; it’s much like a roll of paper towels. Sure, there are perforations marking each sheet, but you know for a fact that when you pull one off, it’s going to tear at an oddball angle and those perfectly rectangular sheets are a rarity.

    The fact is, however, that over 100 Black men fought as part of the militia in the opening battles of the Revolution. Here’s the story of one of the first.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 13, 1775

    Cover art for February 13, 1775: historical marker outside the Phipps Street Burying Ground in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

    Here’s a peek behind the curtain: Mike and Claude do their own research for the individual shows, though Mike did the initial setups for the dates. So he’s the one who figured out what happened when, and then they each do the deeper research for the episodes they record.

    So Mike probably had no idea that there was a familial connection to this episode for Claude. For what it’s worth, neither did Claude, until he started looking into the story of Nathaniel Gorham. So if Mike had been recording this episode, it’s likely that he wouldn’t have had anything to say about it other than “Oh, fun coincidence.”

    We’re only sad that we couldn’t find a portrait of Nathaniel; we have no idea whether there’s a family resemblance.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 12, 1775

    We realize that this is going to come as a huge surprise to you, but when the future Louisa Catherine Adams met her future mother-in-law, it was not an auspicious occasion.

    This delayed—but did not prevent—Louisa from marrying John Quincy Adams, but Abigail Adams didn’t have a lot of respect for Catherine for many years.

    In the meantime, she and John Quincy had some ups and downs in their marriage, but in the end it appears that they were able to reconcile all the rough patches until the very end.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 11, 1775

    Cover art for February 11, 1775: portrait of Governor William Hall of Tennessee, by Washington B. Cooper.

    There are many events in the life of William Hall that could be ascribed to just plain luck on his part, and others which could conceivably tied to some shrewd timing on his part. But in the end, we think we’re going with luck.

    If he hadn’t survived two Cherokee ambushes, if he hadn’t been an officeholder previously, if he hadn’t been the Speaker of the Senate when a scandal broke out…things could have turned out very differently for our friend William.

    But William was also smart enough to walk away when the walking was good, and he lived to a ripe old age (81).

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 10, 1775

    Cover Art for February 10, 1775: A historical marker for Fincastle County, Virginia.

    (N.B. We apologize that we initally uploaded this episode in the wrong format. We have no idea whether it made your podcast player cry, or anything else. At any rate, that’s fixed. Again, apologies.)

    While Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, were getting a lot of attention from the British, it’s not as though the other colonies sat back and watched everything happening from afar.

    To a certain extent they did do that, but they also had problems of their own to deal with. In some of the more southern states, the biggest problem was dealing with some of the natives, who had this odd insistence that they were there first and were somehow entitled to this land that had been stolen from them. This often led to multiple skirmishes on the western edges of the colonies. Plus, much of the Intolerable Acts didn’t really affect them…yet.

    But Fincastle County in Virginia, while not the first territory outside Massachusetts to take up the cause, was probably one of the more gung-ho territories when it came to spelling out their intent.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • February 9, 1775

    Cover art for February 9, 1775: text of the address to the Joint Session of Parliament declaring the Colonies to be in rebellion

    The first week or two of February 1775 could best be described as a series of misunderstandings and communication breakdowns. Any attempts on both sides to reach out with some form of conciliation managed to fail for various reasons.

    And during all these breakdowns, the situation on the American side of the pond only got worse as time went on, largely because each side thought that the other wasn’t being responsive.

    In the end, however, it didn’t really matter, because as we’ve discussed with the episodes dealing with Massachusettensis and Novanglus debating one another in print, the one thing they agreed upon was that these attempts to reach out were always, at their heart, rooted in some attempt to wrest control from the other party. Both reaching for it, neither attaining it nor caring what the other side’s argument meant at the core.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed