250 and Counting

Tag: American Revolution

  • May 24, 1775: Congress Elects Its President

    Cover art for May 24, 1775: Portrait of John Hancock in 1770 (Crop) by By John Singleton Copley - Massachusetts Historical Society, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons,

    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 23, 1775: New Jersey Gets Into the Act

    Cover art for May 23, 1775: colonial banknote signed by John Hart.

    New Jersey has been pretty quiet since the Lexington and Concord fighting took place. But no more: today they came back…with a vengeance!

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  • May 22, 1775: New Hampshire Gets Into the Act

    Cover art for May 22, 1775: "Private of the 2nd New Hampshire Continental Infantry" by Charles M. Lefferts, 1910.

    Up until now, New Hampshire has been rather quiet when it came to resisting British rule. But today was the day that “Live Free or Die” was more than a motto for their license plates, which had yet to be invented.

    New Hampshire already had militias, of course, but they had a much broader range of available men from whom to choose. In addition, they organized themselves into a tight fighting force quicker than anyone imagined they would.

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  • May 20, 1775: The Mecklenburg Declaration

    Cover art for May 20, 1775: Detail of the Mecklenburg Declaration.

    When the folks in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, heard about the events at Lexington and Concord a month earlier, they were quite incensed. So much so that they decided they were going to declare independence from Britain.

    Maybe. Maybe not. Tune in as Mike explains the controversy.

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  • May 18, 1775: 18th Century Spin Doctors

    Cover art for May 18, 1775: Fort Ticonderoga in 2009.

    People seem to have an inherent need to excuse their own unfortunate behaviors. One of the most common is to point to someone else breaking a rule and making it about them.

    Or, in the case of most of the battles of the early American Revolution, the colonists seemed always to be the aggressor, making their actions strictly an act of self-preservation.

    But what happens when you’ve captured all their horses? Tune in!

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  • 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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