250 and Counting

This day in American History, 250 years ago.

  • March 22, 1775: Edmund Burke Gives Parliament His Thoughts

    Cover art for March 22, 1775: Edmund Burke addresses the House of Commons, by CJ Staniland, date unknown

    A quick note on the cover art: this may be the first time I (Claude) happened to match the side banner with the background of the webpage exactly.

    As we’ve noted in the past, Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke were good friends who worked together to come up with a solution that would get the Colonies and the Crown back into each others’ good graces.

    Now that we think about it, Franklin was good friends with many people on both sides of the Atlantic, and now we’re wondering if he was just one of those guys to whom you take an instant liking without knowing quite why.

    At any rate, by this point the two men had to concede that it was far too late to prevent further escalation, and they were right. Burke took the time to address Parliament on this day, and let them all know just what a mistake they’d made.

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  • March 21, 1775: Franklin Departs London Forever

    Cover art for March 21, 1775: The house where Benjamin Franklin stayed while on his final trip to London.

    Benjamin Franklin was pretty good at diplomacy, but even when given several years to try, he was unable to bring about peace between England and the Thirteen Colonies.

    From December 1774 through February 1775, he and some of his British friends tried to put together a map to peace, but unfortunately both sides were too entrenched to even consider compromise. Franklin finally went home on this day in 1775, but he left one final impression that we’ll learn about tomorrow.

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  • March 20, 1775: The Second Virginia Convention

    Cover art for March 20, 1775: portrait of Peyton Randolph by John Wollaston, circa early 1770s

    The people in Virginia were getting pretty upset about what was going on between the Colonies and the British Parliament. They called a convention and, as we’ve noted over the past several days, each county sent delegates with specific instructions, many of which recommended that the colony commit itself to resisting the British and supporting any efforts made by other American entities in that respect.

    The Second Virginia Convention finally met on this day in 1775, and they elected Peyton Randolph as its president. This was no surprise to anyone, as Randolph had been the president of the First Virginia Convention, and of the First Continental Congress.

    Randolph was also briefly the president of the Second Continental Congress but had to return to Virginia and was replaced by John Hancock. Shortly thereafter he had a fit of apoplexy (what we now call a hemorrhagic stroke) and died in October 1775.

    So even though he didn’t live to learn of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Randolph is frequently considered to be one of our Founding Fathers.

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  • March 19, 1775: The Watauga Purchase

    Cover art for March 19, 1775: Historical marker in Elizabethtown, Tennessee, commemorating the Watauga Purchase.

    The Watauga Purchase was one of several land purchases in the area of the Watauga River made around the same time. But this one was first, and we know this because it’s literally on Page One of the deed book, which still exists in the Archives of two different states (one is a copy, of course).

    Interestingly, while this territory is sometimes considered by historians to be a self-governing area, the residents actually considered themselves to be British subjects, even after the war began, and to a certain extent even for a short period after the Declaration of Independence was signed. That likely ended when the Cherokees (who were aligned with the British) attacked several settlements, although they were badly beaten in the attempt.

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  • March 18, 1775: Ben Franklin Confides in Edmund Burke

    Cover art for March 18, 1775: Portrait of Edmund Burke. 1771 by Joshua Reynolds

    Among the casualties of the early days of American History are all the friendships that were damaged by people being on opposite sides of the political fence. Good thing we’re all past that sort of petty nonsense nowadays, amirite?

    Sigh.

    We’ve talked in the past about John Adams and his former friend Daniel Leonard, who sparred in print under pen names and never quite repaired their relationship. Today we talk about Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament who was good friends with Franklin, though perhaps not publicly. Today marks the likely last day that the two men ever saw each other, as Franklin was on the final trip to England of his lifetime. Sadder still, Burke was actually sympathetic to the Colonist cause, though he wasn’t entirely convinced that they’d win a war.

    On the other hand, hardly anyone was convinced that Britain would be defeated, so there’s that.

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  • March 17, 1775: Ninian Edwards and His Illinois Doings

    Cover art for March 17, 1775: Portrait of Ninian Edwards, artist unknown, currently hanging in the Illinois State Capitol's Hall of Governors.

    (Yeah, we couldn’t fit all that on the title card and have the artwork still visible.)

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day, if you’re the type to celebrate! We have a little Easter Egg (shamrock?) in this episode for you.

    Ninian Edwards was an interesting character in that he tried very hard to make the best choices for the people he represented, and while he succeeded in some respects, in others it seems he left a trail of hard feelings and broken plans.

    But with a single exception he doesn’t seem to have acted out of malice, or greed. It’s just that most of the things he’s known for didn’t quite work out the way he hoped. And yet, he still remains in the record book for a job he held in his youth, and for being one of Illinois’ first senators.

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  • March 16, 1775: The Augusta Resolves

    Cover art for March 16, 1775: the original broadside of the Augusta Resolves, on display in the Augusta County courthouse.

    Over the last few days we’ve heard from several counties in Virginia sending delegates and instructions to the Second Virginia Convention, which would meet in another few days. Many of these counties published their instructions, called “Resolves,” in newspapers, so that anyone who was literate would know where the freeholders of those counties stood.

    And today it’s Augusta County which weighed in by publishing their Resolves in the Virginia Gazette. Augusta County is quite close to both Fincastle and Botetourt counties, at what is now the western edge of the state. And we have to think that it’s meaningful that these communities, which were relatively far from where anything meaningful was taking place, was taking notice of those events and acting proactively, when only a few weeks earlier they would have been indifferent to it, because after all, it didn’t really affect them. Not yet, anyway.

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  • March 15, 1775: New York Calls for Delegates

    Cover art for March 15, 1775: A 2012 photo of Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan, site of the Committees' meetings.

    The New York colony gets a bad reputation for not having its act together when it came to American Independence, but the fact is, they were late to the party because they held on to their loyalty to the Crown until there was clearly no more reason to do so. Simply put, they were the last holdout.

    What makes this extra remarkable is that most of the residents of New York really had no reason to be loyal to King George III, since they weren’t English-born, nor were they the descendants of Englishmen. Instead, most of them were descended from Dutch settlers from over a hundred years earlier.

    But eventually they did come around, and when they did they showed an ability to snap into action quickly.

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  • March 14, 1775: Lord Dunmore Calls for Help

    Cover art for March 14, 1775: John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore by Sir Joshua Reynolds, via Google Art Project

    John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore, or more commonly Lord Dunmore, came to the Colonies in 1770 to become the Royal Governor of New York, but fate intervened and he wound up as the Royal Governor of Virginia instead.

    He might have fared better in New York, but given the events of the Westminster Massacre you learned about yesterday, we’re not sure it would have made much difference. Dunmore wasn’t an especially good politician in general, and he didn’t hold the Colonists in an especially high esteem. And that’s the sort of thing that A) isn’t easily concealed, and B) doesn’t always go over well with your constituents. Not always.

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  • March 13, 1775: The Westminster Massacre

    Cover art for March 13, 1775: An etching of the Court House at Westminster, which no longer stands.

    The Westminster Massacre was a seminal event in the history of both the United States and the State of Vermont.

    At that time, Vermont was a disputed territory between New York, which was loaded with Loyalists, and New Hampshire, which had many Patriots. So when a group of five dozen New Yorkers showed up to break up a New Hampshire rally, there clearly wasn’t going to be a happy ending to the encounter.

    But afterward, many New Yorkers were ejected from the area and nearly two years later, Vermont declared its independence from everybody, calling itself its own country rather than a British colony or an American state. It was a condition that lasted until 1791.

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