250 and Counting

This day in American History, 250 years ago.

June 2, 1775: Joseph Warren Has A Good Idea

Joseph Warren is definitely one of the unsung heroes of the American Revolution. We last heard from him on March 5, when he did his You Are There routine describing the events of the Boston Massacre at a memorial event (in fact, we used the same cover art).

Today he’s more of the guy with the common sense solution: “Hey, instead of having a whole bunch of little militias fighting this thing…what if we put ’em all together into one big army?”

And the Continental Congress, moving with its usual speed…took no action for about two weeks. It’s possible that there were still delegates not feeling the urgency just yet, though.

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June 2, 2025
June 1, 1775: Hessians Arrive in Quebec

When I was a kid learning about the American Revolution, we somehow got it in our heads that Hessians were some kind of Super Troopers, practically undefeatable and certainly not to be trifled with.

And to a certain extent, that was true. Hessians were professional soldiers, that is, they were mercenaries. What’s more, they were well-trained and well-paid. But still in the long run, they were still just soldiers, and we won the war anyway, against all odds.

Britiain eventually hired over 30,000 Hessians. On this day in 1775, the first batch of them arrived.

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June 1, 2025
May 31, 1775: The Second Letter to Canada

With all the talk of our good relationships with Canada possibly going awry in the light of tariffs being levied [or not] against that country, it’s interesting to recognize that there was, in fact, a genuine relationship established before the Colonies broke away from England.

It started in 1774, and continues on this day in 1775, and there’s one more attempt in the works. But for the time being let’s live for today.

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May 31, 2025
May 30, 1775: Thomas Willing Gets Mail

As we noted a couple of days ago, the Continental Congress had its share of delegates who wanted to take one more crack at reconciliation. To that end they’d begun working on the Olive Branch Petition, though it wouldn’t be ready to send to Britain for several more weeks.

So when a letter came in from Lord North to one of the delegates, and the letter offered its own form of reconciliation…well, attention must be paid.

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May 30, 2025
May 29, 1775: Nathan Cutler

By all accounts, Nathan Cutler was an effective lawyer and legislator, as his frequent returns to the Massachusetts Legislature, and later the Maine House of Representatives, will attest.

And when a governor of the State of Maine died, he was able to step into the role until the term of office expired.

Cutler could have probably remained Governor, but he’d turned down positions before, so it’s entirely possible that he simply chose not to run again.

Listen in, it’s an interesting story.

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May 29, 2025
May 28, 1775: The Battle of Chelsea Creek, pt.2

Some of what you’ll be hearing today will have overlap with yesterday’s episode, but we all have shorter memories, we read in an article…uh, somewhere.

But in the long run, that’s okay, because context is everything, and it’s important to understand what a big deal this particular incident was against the bigger picture.

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May 28, 2025
May 27, 1775: The Battle of Chelsea Creek, pt.1

Not to be confused with Chelsea of Battle Creek, who has worked for a famous cereal company for 28 years. (We may have made that up.)

Lexington and Concord was the first “official” battle of the American Revolution, but at best it was a draw: Patriots took a bunch of losses, soldier-wise, but the British were forced to retreat under fire the entire time, and they wound up mostly sequestered in Boston when the dust settled.

This could be considered the next chapter in that story, in that the Siege of Boston led directly to the events of this day, and the next, in 1775. Claude is setting up the story, and Mike will be finishing it off tomorrow. Enjoy!

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May 27, 2025
May 26, 1775: One More Attempt at Peace

Despite everything that had already happened, there was still a sizeable chunk of the Second Continental Congress who thought that some form of reconciliation with England was possible.

Under their logic, the fact that there had been fighting at Lexington and Concord should have provided King George with ample proof that his policies were unpopular, and maybe he could back off on them a little bit.

In retrospect, we can see that this was rather short-sighted, and that those people truly didn’t understand the motivations that the English leadership had for their actions. Plus, England had history on their side: someone’s acting up? Squash them like bugs and get them all back in line.

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May 26, 2025
May 25, 1775: Reinforcements Arrive From Britain

Sometimes it’s kind of tough to bring an image to life through an audio podcast, but we thought it was important enough that you needed to see it somehow.

It’s oftentimes hard for us to understand just how wild the Thirteen Colonies were back in the day. In 1775, New York City was roughly a square mile of the southern tip of Manhattan. Where today’s Wall Street is was literally a wall, keeping out anything to the north. That’s another 13 miles of island (roughly) to the north which might have some Europeans living there, but not many. So, to that end…

This is a map of modern-day Boston, with a neighborhood breakdown on it, per the city’s Office of Neighborhood Services:

And this is the full map from the cover artwork. They’re slightly rotated to one another (more likely, the 1775 map is pointed toward magnetic north than true north), but the heart of Boston, at center left, is essentially the tip of today’s South Boston. On the map above, the siege line is about where the word “South” is printed.

So it was pretty easy to set up a line of defense to keep the city isolated, especially since the city was surrounded by water on three sides. Supplies and people could get in and out by water, but the city itself was still cut off for anyone approaching by land.

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May 25, 2025
May 24, 1775: Congress Elects Its President

Even though he was President of the Second Continental Congress when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 (whoops…spoiler alert), it’s entirely possible that John Hancock would be just one more guy who signed the document, except for the fact that he signed his name so large.

His signature is so large and so well-known that you can say to someone “Give me your John Hancock” and they know exactly what you mean.

Sure, we know John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, because they became presidents of the US, and Ben Franklin was already a living legend. But how many others can you name?

See what we mean? Even if you’re a fan of 1776, you might only come up with a couple of others, and you’d still be trying to work out the name of the guy from the south with the white outfit on. And Richard Henry Lee doesn’t count because he didn’t sign the thing.

It’s just some late-night thinking on my part.

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Addendum: for the next few nights I’m not in my usual recording space, so apologies in advance if you pick up some stray background noises.

May 24, 2025