250 and Counting

Tag: US History

  • March 10, 2025: Daniel Boone Paves the Way for Kentucky

    Cover art for March 10, 1775: portrait of Daniel Boone by Chester Harding, from 1820. It's the only known portrait of Boone made during his lifetime.

    Because of popular culture in the 1950s and 1960s, Daniel Boone is probably one of the more colorful figures in American history. He was born in Pennsylvania, but it was in the frontier territory. He had little formal education, but he could read and write, even if his spelling was unorthodox. (In fact, oftentimes when he went on hunting or exploring expeditions, he was the only literate man in the group.) He was court-martialed at one point, but found Not Guilty and received a promotion afterwards.

    He was a businessman, a politician, and an explorer, and it’s this last one that we’re going to look at today in 1775.

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  • March 9, 1775: The Restraining Act Moves Forward

    Cover art for March 9, 1775: Portrait of Joseph Hewes, artist unknown

    We’ve talked about the New England Restraining Acts in the past, but now they’re being put to actual votes by Parliament. And on this day in 1775, they take another step forward when the House of Commons passes the measure.

    With still more economic pressure placed on the Colonies (and the Act itself, by the way, not yet in full force), is it any wonder that the tensions escalated into actual war?

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  • March 8, 1775

    Cover art for March 8, 1775: the front page of the March 8, 1775 Pennsylvania Journal.

    It was on this day that an essay appeared in the Pennsylvania Journal advocating for the abolition of slavery. The content wasn’t a huge surprise for Pennsylvania, but the interesting thing is: the essay is known for being written under a pen name, and for a long time, people were pretty sure they knew who that person was.

    They’re still not 100% positive.

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  • March 7, 1775

    Cover art for March 7, 1775: detail of a map of New England prepared by Braddock Mead (alias John Green), 1774

    [NOTE: our apologies for those who came early and got the wrong file. We hope at least that you enjoyed the re-run. The correct file is now in place. –CC]

    Topsfield, Massachusetts wanted to be prepared when the British came. What’s more, they wanted to ensure that their militiamen were drilled and fully outfitted should the need arise. To that end, they offered some of the best wages for their Minutemen.

    But they had some trouble recruiting at first, until the town’s selectmen decided that their initial force wasn’t nearly formidable enough.

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  • March 6, 1775

    Cover art for March 6, 1775: Undated and unattributed portrait of Prince Hall

    Prince Hall, who appears in today’s artwork in an undated and unattributed picture, became interested in becoming a Mason but was turned down because of his race. The British Masons, however, were perfectly willing to accept Blacks into their ranks…so long as they fought on the British side of the Revolution.

    It wasn’t long before the Americans caught on to the scheme and reversed their decision. But Hall wasn’t done with simply joining the Freemasons. He had additional ambitions for himself, and others who looked like him.

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  • March 5, 1775

    Cover art for March 5, 1775: Portrait of Joseph Warren by John Singleton Copley, 1765

    Joseph Warren’s life as a Patriot was rather brief (in fact his life overall was relatively short), but it was quite important to the cause. Warren was part of the committee that investigated the Boston Massacre, he sent Paul Revere on his midnight ride (just go with it for now), he wrote a song called “Free America,” which was based on a British melody called “The British Grenadiers”, he fought at Lexington and Concord, and he died at Bunker Hill.

    And he was one of only two men who was asked to speak more than once on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. And this second time was the one that really sold the crowd.

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  • March 3, 1775

    Cover art for March 3, 1775: A schooner said to be very similar to the Magdalen.

    The Gunpowder Incident was an event that took place on April 21, 1775, so there won’t be much about it today. But that was the event that pushed Virginia deeply into the movement toward independence, and allowed the Continental Congress to finally consider seriously the idea of formally breaking away from England.

    But it was an event that took place on this day— that barely got any notice at the time—which ultimately led to the Gunpowder Incident.

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  • March 2, 1775

    Cover art for March 2, 1775: a historical marker commemmorating the destruction of tea in Providence, RI

    As we noted yesterday, there were all kinds of abuses of tea going on in the Colonies. It (mostly) started with the Boston Tea Party, but also spread to other areas as well. The Boston Tea Party was notable for being a literal destruction of unsold tea, removing it from the market.

    Other tea parties and actions largely involved tea that had already been purchased in the Colonies, either in the form of boycotts (as in the Edenton Tea Party), or in the form of destroying tea from one’s own pantry as a form of protest, as was the case in today’s episode. As noted during yesterday’s show, the Thirteen Colonies didn’t have enough economic clout to make a meaningful impact; they were meant to be symbolic in nature. But the British took these things seriously enough that their actions demonstrated they were looking for a fight rather than trying to avoid it.

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  • February 28, 1775

    Cover art for February 28, 1775: Drawing of Joseph Galloway.

    Today we meet yet another prominent citizen who thought he had the solution for putting an end to the tension between the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain.

    It’s important to note at this point, we think, that these people weren’t delusional; they were genuinely interested in maintaining a good relationship and therefore invested in repairing the damage that had been done. They liked being British citizens, even though a minority percentage of them had emigrated from England (many were born here; others came from different nations). And it’s also worth noting that when it came to separating from the British Empire…well, that sort of thing had never been done before. Never. So creating an entirely new nation was practically inconceivable for some people.

    Unfortunately in the end, while Joseph Galloway’s plan was seriously considered by the Continental Congress, it was turned down, and there was an unfortunate series of events that forced him to leave America forever.

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  • February 27, 1775

    Cover art for February 27, 1775: Portrait of Frederick North, Lord North, by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, ca. 1773-4

    And once again, we have someone (two someones, really) who manage to come up with a plan that will put all this unpleasantness between the Thirteen Colonies and the British Empire to rest, and once again the physical distance between the two threatens the success of those plans.

    What’s more, it turns out that the more popular of the two plans has an almost-hidden ulterior motive…

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