While the Green Mountain Boys were very successful so far in their military exploits, they were still just some unaffiliated militia group. At best they were considered Patriot-sympathetic, but not much else.
After the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Crown Point, two of their leaders decided that it was time to get official recognition. So they headed down to Philadelphia to bring their case to the Continental Congress.
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Mike has done a pretty good job of covering the basic story in today’s episode, so I thought I’d spend a minute with you on the cover art.
This image, which had to be cropped to fit the parameters of podcast art, is called a “conjectural work”, because it was created many years later based on accounts of people who were there. I’ve also seen the phrase “idealized depiction,” but I think “conjectural work” is more value-neutral.
The original artist was named Alonzo Chappel, and he created this image in 1858, 78 years after the original event. It was converted to an engraving by Thomas Philbrown. And I know all this because it’s part of the New York Public Library’s Digital Collection.
How accurate is it to actual events? It may be pretty close, since there are several different images available, each depicting all the same people in similar poses (though one appears to be flipped from the others, so that everyone is facing the other way). So I think there’s a pretty high degree of confidence that it looked a lot like this.
Enjoy.
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