250 and Counting

This day in American History, 250 years ago.

  • 250 and Counting: January 20, 1775

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    Note: we inadvertently posted the January 20 episode yesterday. That episode has been replaced with the correct one, so if you want to hear the real January 19th episode, scroll down to the previous post and listen “again.” Apologies for the error and any confusion.

    Cover art for January 20, 1775: A diagram of an electromagnetic compass designed by Ampère..

    It’s Cake and Candles today for André-Marie Ampère. He was an advanced mathematician by the time he turned 12, and when he was 18 he estimated that he’d learned everything there was to learn about electricity and electromagnetism at that time.

    So, as one does, he continued his studies and expanded that branch of science, and beccame a full professor of physics at the Polytechnical school in Paris, even though he had very little formal education to that point. Many of his discoveries led to enormous breakthroughs in the use of electricity and electromagnetism for generations to come.

  • 250 and Counting: January 19, 1775

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    Cover art for January 19, 1775: An image of the Petition to the King.

    Most people (we think) have this popular notion of American history involving the British imposing taxes and massacreing people in Boston and the Colonists responding with an indignant “Oh, we need to dump some tea and write a Declaration of Independence and take up arms and shoot those red-coated monsters right now!”

    But if you’ve been listening to this show for the past couple of weeks, you already know that wasn’t the case. There were many, many attempts to seek out a peaceful solution to the troubles going on. Some of them were rather covert: backchannel people talking to one another, negotiating quietly, Others, of course, were overt. And today we’ll be talking about one of those. It was an attempt by the First Continental Congress to bring up their issues, ask for relief and simultaneously affirm their allegiance to the King.

    (Spoiler Alert: it didn’t work.)

  • 250 and Counting: January 18, 1775

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    Cover art for January 18, 1775: A commemorative plaque for Tondee's Tavern, which burned down during a huge fire in 1796 that destroyed most of Savannah, GA

    When the Provincial Congress of Georgia met in the city of Savannah, the natural place for them to meet was a place called Tondee’s Tavern.

    Georgians were no fans of British activities such as the Intolerable Acts, but they otherwise prospered under British rule and remained largely indifferent to the mother country. However, while the Provincial Congress didn’t want to join the other colonies in their association (which became the First Continental Congress), they were willing to support that association’s ban on trade with Britain, although they didn’t enforce it right away.

    Tondee’s Tavern was ultimately destroyed in 1796, in a fire that took out more than half of Savannah. The next building on that spot was a bank which dealt heavily in the slave trade. As a result, in recent years the building was said to be haunted and appears on most of Savannah’s Ghost Tours.

    The building reopened as a modern-day Tondee’s Tavern in 2013, but unfortunately it appears to have closed down sometime in the past year.

  • 250 and Counting: January 17, 1775

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    Cover art for January 17, 1775: the Second Regiment in South Carolina, late 1775

    In the early 1770s, the American colonies began feeling the need to defend themselves against British pressures. In some cases the activity was political, but there were plenty of people who saw that there could conceivably be a need to take up arms at some point, especially given the way they interpreted the Intolerable Acts. Although in popular culture, Boston was the center of attention for this sort of thing, the fact is that small, informal militias began springing up all the way up and down the Eastern Seaboard. These soon gave way to more formalized groups which were funded by their respective governments. And when hostilities finally broke out, these militias quickly reorganized themselves into official Regiments. Today we’ll learn about the militias in South Carolina.

  • 250 and Counting: January 16, 1775

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    Cover art for January 16, 1775: A closeup of a plaque in Charleston SC, commemorating the Edenton Tea Party

    We suppose there’s something kind of heroic and–dare we say it, romantic–about the idea of a bunch of men dressing up as Native Americans, sneaking onto a boat and throwing 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. And as an overt act of rebellion, it certainly made a splash (you should excuse the expression).

    But Boston wasn’t the only city holding tea parties. Edenton, North Carolina had a tea party of its own, and it’s notable for several reasons:

    First, who was involved in it;

    Second, the fact that it launched an interesting fashion trend (it’s not like everybody was dressing up like Native Americans after the Boston event, right?),

    And Third, that it actually got some attention.

    And while all of these are unusual, what’s more unusual is that it didn’t capture the imagination of people enough to endure in popular culture the way Boston did. Maybe becuase it was done in a more genteel manner, maybe because there was something special about the participants…it’s hard to tell froma modern-day standpoint. But we think you’ll agree that it’s a fascinating story.

    Guest Voice: Lorene Childs

  • 250 and Counting: January 15, 1775

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    Cover art fo Jamuary 15, 1775L A painting of the Yellowstone Valley.

    Chances are, if you do your basic Google search for “first Mountain Man,” among the top results you’ll get would be a man named John Colter. We’d argue that he was ONE OF the first, but the real anser, as youll hear today, is Joseph Harrison Dixon.

    Dixon and Colter did, in fact, spend some time together in the Yellowstone Valley, but what happened next should convince you that Dixon gets the award for this one. It’s just that Colter had better P.R., we guess.

  • 250 and Counting: January 14, 1775

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    Cover art for January 14, 1775: portratt of Lord Dartmouth

    William Legge was the Second Earl of Dartmouth and, just before the hostilities between the Colonists and the British started in earnest, was also the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the First Lord of Trade.

    Lord Dartmouth noticed that people throughout the Colonies appeared to be preparing for all-out war, so he sent a letter to the colonial governors, essentially ordering them to embargo imports of weapons or ammunition. In doing this, he was basically fulfilling his duty to the Crown.

    Simultaneously, however, he was trying to employ backdoor diplomacy tactics to negotiate a peace. Benjamin Franklin was among the people with whom he communicated. But it’s tough to argue for peace when your troops are occupying Boston, and his actions ultimately led to the Gunpowder Plot, and the war heating up for good at Lexington and Concord just a few months later.

  • 250 and Counting: January 13, 1775

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    At one time there were rumors that Benjamin Franklin had lots and lots of children born out of wedlock. (Insert your favorite “lightning rod” joke here.) As usual, the real story is more complicated than that.

    Franklin courted a woman named Deborah Reed. At the time, he was 17 and she was 15, so her mother forbade the marriage. Deborah later married another man who fled the country. Sometime after this, Franklin re-entered the picture, but because the status of her marriage was unclear, they simply lived together as common-law spouses. They had two children together, so technically they were “born out of wedlock.” Francis Folger Franklin died of smallpox at the age of four, and Sarah Folger Franklin was also politically active until her death at the age of 68. Meanwhile, Franklin had another “illegitimate” son whose mother is not known (and was also probably Deborah), but he acknowledged his own parentage and together they raised him. This was William Franklin, the future Royal Governor of New Jersey.

    That’s it. That’s all of Benjamin Franklin’s kids. But we’re focused on William today.

    William was appointed the Royal Governor of New Jersey largely because he was known to have Loyalist leanings. And while he was pretty good at being governor, there did come a point where New Jersey said “Enough of this” and imprisoned him locally for six months before moving him to Connecticut for two years. (This is an event alluded to in the play 1776, but by that point Franklin really had to know that his son had been removed from office. He probably didn’t know yet that William had just been moved to Connecticut, so by early July that would have been news to him.)

    [powerpoint]

  • 250 and Counting: January 12, 1775

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    Cover art for January 12, 1775: the gravestone of Joseph Gist

    Joseph Gist wasn’t an especially distinguished person, but you don’t have to be distinguised to get noticed on 250 and Counting.

    Gist was born in Union County, SC and while he moved to Charleston in his teen and college years, he moved to Pinckneyville to practice law. Pinckneyville was part of the Ninety-Six District, which we discussed in yesterday’s episode.

    Although the district court at Pinckneyville was abolished not long after he settled there, it was still a fabulous place to practice law, and he was in enough demand that he’d be pursued for representation by both parties in many suits. Later on he was elected to Congress and served in the House for six years, leaving of his own accord.

  • 250 and Counting: January 11, 1775

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    Francis Salvador was a man who is in the history books for two notable things: the day he was elected to public office, and the day he died in the Revoluationary War.

    That doesn’t ordinarily make a person notable, but Salvador had the distinction of being the first person of his faith to achieve these two things.

    And for our money, the place where it happened may also be notable.