250 and Counting

Tag: US History

  • May 7, 1775: Joseph Wanton is Prevented from Becoming Governor

    Cover art for May 7, 1775: detail of the document officially preventing Governor Joseph Wanton from taking the oath of office.

    Joseph Wanton was elected governor of Rhode Island in 1769, and every year he was re-elected to the position. By all accounts he did a good job and looked out for his constituents.

    Then came the events at Lexington and Concord.

    Wanton wasn’t a Loyalist, but he did think that a war with England wouldn’t be especially productive, and when the General Assembly thought that it was time to raise an army, Wanton refused to do so. Unfortunately for him, he was in the space between his re-election and his taking the oath of office, and the Assembly used the opportunity to run him out of the office.

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  • May 5, 1775: Alexander McNair, First Governor of Missouri

    Cover art for May 5, 1775: undated portrait of Alexander McNair, artist unknown.

    Alexander McNair wasn’t especially well-educated, but he became a judge and a governor of a territory and then that same area when it became a state, so he must have had something going on besides high-level friends.

    Then again, as governor, he wasn’t able to get a ton of stuff done, and when his term ended he took on a Federal job just for the money. So, for a guy who spent so much time in the “Show-Me State”, he didn’t really have much to show.

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  • May 4, 1775: How the Gunpowder Incident Ended

    Cover art for May 4, 1775: portrait of Patrick Henry by Thomas Sully, circa 1851. There's another version by another artist emulating this one wherein Henry's eyes are rather sunken and dark.

    As we noted a few days ago, both Payton Randolph and George Washington managed to quell a couple of militia-based riots which would have resulted in the torching of the Royal Governor’s mansion. Both of those riots came from Fredericksburg.

    What nobody counted on, however, was that militia from other parts of Virginia had the same idea to march on Williamsburg and wreak a little havoc. They were led by Patrick Henry, who (let’s face it) extorted payment for the missing gunpowder from Lord Dunmore, and then took off for Philadelphia to deliver the money.

    Dunmore called him out on it, declaring Henry an outlaw, and the Virginia citizens acted accordingly. I’ve said too much here; listen in to see what they did.

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  • May 3, 1775: You Can’t Keep a Good Spy Down

    Cover art for May 3, 1775: detail of the Massachusetts Spy from that day.

    More often than not, items that appear in the Bill of Rights derive directly from actions that the British took at one time or another in the past. Ban guns, will you? Here’s a nice Second Amendment. Ban free speech? Here’s your First Amendment.

    And so on.

    Today’s edition could be considered a Part Two to the events of April 16, when the Massachusetts Spy had to pack up shop and hightail it out of Boston down the road some forth miles to Worcester specifically so it could keep publishing. On this day, the Spy sprang back to life.

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  • May 2, 1775: Meet Rachel Revere

    Cover art for May 2, 1775: portrait of Rachel Walker Revere by Gilbert Stuart, 1812.

    Rachel Walker Revere was Paul Revere’s second wife. When he married her, he’d only been a widower for a few months, so clearly she made a big impression on him, especially since they remained together until her death in 1813 (one year after the portrait in today’s artwork was painted), and he didn’t remarry after that.

    Rachel was a very supportive wife to Paul, by most accounts, but she was also willing to give him grief when he deserved it, as you’ll learn in today’s episode.

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  • April 30, 1775: The Fourteenth Colony

    Cover art for April 30, 1775: Detail of a map of the Nova Scotia area c. 1775

    Nova Scotia could have been the fourteenth state, except we ruined it for them over the whole fishing rights thing. And then when push came to shove, they decided that rebellion wasn’t for them, and they sent troops down to Boston to help the British there.

    Ain’t that a kick in the head!

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  • April 28, 1775: Jonathan Trumbull Chooses a Side

    Cover art for April 28, 1775: portrait of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, artist unknown but could be his son John Trumbull.

    Jonathan Trumbull was one of only two men to serve as governor of a Colony and of a State. (Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island was the other.) This, to us, gives him a kind of air that perhaps he could be trusted by all parties to act appropriately.

    And when push came to shove, Trumbull found himself in the position of having to support the Colony rather than the crown, as you’ll see in today’s episode. And as things further deteriorated, he became more focal about supporting the Colony, since the British no longer appeared to view the Colonists as subjects of the Crown but as a genuine enemy to be crushed. (Which is exactly how many in Parliament felt, so.)

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  • April 27, 1775: Skullduggery and Rebellion Here & There

    Cover art for April 27, 1775: Robert Eden, by Florence Mackubin after Charles Willson Peale (1914)

    The war was hot in Massachusetts, but it was still cold elsewhere. But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t rebellious activity going on, since by this point everyone knew what was going on up north.

    It manifested itself in different ways. In Maryland, it appeared that Patriots were straight-up lying to the Royal Governor in order to deprive the British troops of some of their arms and gunpowder stores.

    And in North Carolina, the Royal Governor loudly declaimed his disdain for anyone who didn’t agree with him. Unfortunately for him, that included the entire North Carolina Assembly. Their response was to do exactly the opposite of everything he asked.

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  • April 26, 1775: Josiah Quincy II Dies at Sea

    Cover art for April 26, 1775: posthumous portrait of Josiah Quincy II by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1825

    Josiah Quincy—who we’ve talked about before; remember that portrait?—would have been one of the more prominent men we speak of when we use venerated tones about the Founding Fathers, had it not been for the fact that he died just as the war was getting started.

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  • April 25, 1775: Benedict Arnold Wasn’t All Bad

    Cover art for April 25, 1775: Benedict Arnold engraving by Henry Bryan Hall after John Trumbull, published 1879.

    Benedict Arnold was a pretty smart guy who chose the wrong friends…and, as we’ll discover later on, the wrong enemies as well.

    But for the time being, here’s a peek into some of Arnold’s activities when he was still on our side in both body and spirit.

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