But Benedict Arnold was quite loyal to the Independence cause in the early days of the war. In fact, he was often eager to show what he could do. And why he switched sides is quite complicated and can’t really be answered quickly.

There were times when he felt that injustices were suffered upon him by other generals and by the Continental Congress. Some of them were real but others, imagined.

He had two painful battlefield wounds in a leg that was already plagued with gout. Was it a psychological issue?

Was it a midlife crisis, during which his politics shifted? Given that he married a very young, very pretty and very Loyalist woman named Peggy Shippen, maybe he just did it for the nookie.

Peggy Shippen is actually the most common explanation.

At any rate, in 1775 Arnold was still on our side and embarked on an expedition to Canada that turned out to be far more complicated than anyone suspected it would be.

The post September 19, 1775: Up the River appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed to seek out support from other nations. They reached out to France, Spain, and a few others to get supplies, food, munitions…pretty much anything they could get. Oftentimes they had to use a third party to give everyone plausible deniability.

And fortunately, their tactics were mostly successful.

The post September 18, 1775: A Secret Committee appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Except Parker wasn’t a minuteman.

He also probably didn’t look like the man in the statue, given his age and what other small details we know about him.

But as usual, nobody lets the facts get in the way of a good story, so just roll with it, hm?

(We’re guessing he probably wasn’t green, either. )

The post September 17, 1775: Death of a Militiaman appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Anyway, Josiah Bartlett and John Langdon both arrived in Philadelphia from New Hampshire as delegates to the Continental Congress, and they both fought in the war, plus they were around for the Constitutional Convention—so there’s a lot of history between them.

The post September 16, 1775: New Delegates to Congress appeared first on 250 and Counting.

But the first two? Who knows.

Today’s episode focuses on the second version of the fort, which still has a few vestiges of the old walls around. But it’s much like visiting Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where the location of the barracks are marked off by the presence of some bricks in the ground rather than some actual walls.

The fort was taken on this day in 1775 and remained occupied until 1780, when the British came back for it and found it abandoned.

Today the island hosts a marine research center operated by the state in partnership with several federal and state agencies, all of which have already stood longer than any fort (though the powder magazine from its third incarnation–see the photo–still remains).

The post September 15, 1775: The Occupation of Fort Johnson appeared first on 250 and Counting.

We read once that, statistically, men tend to die before “big” dates, e.g. birthdays and major holidays, while women tend to die afterwards. In Claude’s family anyway, it does have a ring of general truth to it.

Go figure.

Although Hobart was an Episcopalian minister (and later Bishop), he was the pastor to Elizabeth Ann Seton, our first American saint. (Seton converted to Catholicism in 1805.)

While Hobart was quite active in the New York City area, he also felt the need for higher education in the western reaches of the state, and established Geneva College (later Hobart College) in the Finger Lakes region. By the time he died, he’d established a church in most major towns in New York and begun missionary work among the Oneida Indians.

It’s not 100% clear what caused his death, but it was likely a chronic intestinal infection that affected his health in later years.

The post September 14, 1775: John Henry Hobart appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Believe it or not, there are people who are very passionate about state flags. (Not me, he said, about to go into a mini-rant.)

Most states have a very utilitarian purpose. They kind of lean in, announce themselves, and lean out again.

Some flags are weirdly cluttered (New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Delaware).

Some flags are rather boring (Alabama, Minnesota).

Some have heavy symbolism but it’s lost on most viewers (Arkansas, Utah)

I’ve lived in Maryland almost 25 years and I don’t think I’ve seen a people more obsessed with their state flag:

Colorado’s flag is all over that state so they must be kind of obsessed, too:

South Carolina’s flag has symbolism and simplicity going for it, and I have to agree with people who put it in the top tier of state flags.

Here’s the story of the South Carolina flag and how it got that way.

The post September 13, 1775: A Flag Makes Its Debut appeared first on 250 and Counting.

William Washington essentially won a bet with his brothers, and his prize was the ability to join the militia in Virginia to fight for independence. From this day in 1775 until 1781 he was engaged in multiple battles against the British in Virginia and the Carolinas. It was in 1781 that his horse was shot out from under him. The fallen animal pinned him down. He was bayoneted and captured, and spent the rest of the war under house arrest in Charleston, SC.

After the war he remained in South Carolina where he spent some time in the state legislature, but declined to run for governor because, as the story goes, he wasn’t a native Carolinian.

The post September 12, 1775: Another Washington Enters the Fray appeared first on 250 and Counting.

So Washington convened his War Council to discuss the possibility of breaking the siege by attacking the city from a different direction.

Meanwhile up in Canada, General Philip Schuyler takes another run at Fort St. Jean.

The post September 11, 1775: One Siege Begins, Another Continues appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The downside to this is, they knew it and they took advantage of it. So when one rifleman got himself in trouble, word got out and suddenly a relatively small problem turns into a relatively big one.

And while George Washington kinda-sorta recognized this stratification of soldiers, he didn’t do much to discourage it. He did, however, demonstrate more patience with the infantrymen than most people would give him credit for.

The post September 10, 1775: A Mutiny in Cambridge appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The devastation was immense, and perhaps would have been worse had it happened in modern times (we get it, there are satellites and stuff now). It remains Canada’s worst natural disaster and it’s still in the Top Ten chart for North Atlantic hurricanes.

The post September 9, 1775: Landfall in Newfoundland appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Sometimes it gets tough to determine what’s fiction and what isn’t, since they tend to embellish things that may have actually happened for the sake of a story. (Not a knock on Disney, so don’t sue us; that’s a typical practice when it comes to stuff like this.)

So these folks became larger than life for a while, and it’s not to say that they didn’t hold any importance in American history, but sometimes we have to temper those stories with the fact that these men were, after all, just men with real-life concerns, such as “how am I going to feed my family?” which was pretty much the calculus for the event we discuss today.

(P.S. the story about Washington and the cherry tree was written long after he died, so don’t count on that one either.)

The post September 8, 1775: Daniel Boone Moves to Kentucky appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Turtle was a brilliant idea in concept, if not in execution. There were just too many things that had to go exactly right for the turtle to successfully execute its design purpose, and when it was first tried in genuine combat on this day in 1775, unfortunately it was not successful.

But every failure is one step closer to success, right?

The post September 7, 1775: Submarine Warfare is Revolutionary appeared first on 250 and Counting.

So George Washington tried a different tack: write to the Canadian people themselves. He reasoned that the folks in charge were mostly wealthy landowners who were doing all right financially under British rule. Maybe, he thought, the ordinary Canadian folks weren’t quite so happy with the King.

He was not, unfortunately, correct in that assessment and nobody was swayed by his argument.

The post September 6, 1775: Washington Appeals Directly to Canadians appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The post September 5, 1775: Setback in Canada appeared first on 250 and Counting.

After all, Canada was also a few British colonies in the North American continent, but they were a little more obedient to the whims of Parliament and they had Loyalist leanings. So the Patriots had a choice between bringing them over ideologically toward Independence, or ignoring them. Neither of these were likely to work, so they set about on the next best thing.

Invade and then occupy Canada.

But as we’ll learn in upcoming episodes, it’s not as easy as you’d think.

The post September 4, 1775: The Offensive in Canada Grows appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It was the city having that kind of geography that made the Siege of Boston relatively easy for the Patriots. Unfortunately for them, the British were still able to use the surrounding waterways.

This made the siege not the battle of attrition that it could have been, since supplies were able to get in via water. Consequently it was an ongoing battle of wits, as we learn today.

The post September 3, 1775: The British Move To Break the Siege appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Hurricanes would be one of those things. On the east coast of the US, we pretty much take them for granted as a weather phenomenon. They’re definitely scary and destructive, and oftentimes the damage comes after the storm, when all that rain that came down starts looking for somewhere to go.

Now, I (Claude) knew that the west coast doesn’t get hurricanes, though they often get the remnants of tropical storms. That’s because the water is shallower in general. The Atlantic Ocean is very deep, and even near the shore it gets deep quickly. The water warms up a little more near the coast and that gives the storm extra power.

In Europe, hurricanes are a genuine rarity, because the water is both deep and colder (Europe is farther north than you probably think), and I’m sure they came as a big surprise to the first mariners making their way westward to the New World.

But the Independence Hurricane was huge, even for a hurricane, and it did a bunch of damage in the Colonies before weakening, then it picked up strength again and did huge, lasting damage further north in Canada.

The post September 2, 1775: Independence Hurricane appeared first on 250 and Counting.

A few of the stories were quite serious, relating to events in both Virginia and Massachusetts. They closed out with a local story that had a more humorous edge to it…though it’s likely that the people involved had a hard time seeing the humor in it all.

PS Why is there a picture of a fish in today’s cover art? Well…mullet over a little and see if it comes to you.

The post September 1, 1775: Virginia Gazette Headlines appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Lexington and Concord was the first “official” battle of the American Revolution, but at best it was a draw: Patriots took a bunch of losses, soldier-wise, but the British were forced to retreat under fire the entire time, and they wound up mostly sequestered in Boston when the dust settled.

This could be considered the next chapter in that story, in that the Siege of Boston led directly to the events of this day, and the next, in 1775. Claude is setting up the story, and Mike will be finishing it off tomorrow. Enjoy!

The post May 27, 1775: The Battle of Chelsea Creek, pt.1 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Under their logic, the fact that there had been fighting at Lexington and Concord should have provided King George with ample proof that his policies were unpopular, and maybe he could back off on them a little bit.

In retrospect, we can see that this was rather short-sighted, and that those people truly didn’t understand the motivations that the English leadership had for their actions. Plus, England had history on their side: someone’s acting up? Squash them like bugs and get them all back in line.

The post May 26, 1775: One More Attempt at Peace appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It’s oftentimes hard for us to understand just how wild the Thirteen Colonies were back in the day. In 1775, New York City was roughly a square mile of the southern tip of Manhattan. Where today’s Wall Street is was literally a wall, keeping out anything to the north. That’s another 13 miles of island (roughly) to the north which might have some Europeans living there, but not many. So, to that end…

This is a map of modern-day Boston, with a neighborhood breakdown on it, per the city’s Office of Neighborhood Services:

And this is the full map from the cover artwork. They’re slightly rotated to one another (more likely, the 1775 map is pointed toward magnetic north than true north), but the heart of Boston, at center left, is essentially the tip of today’s South Boston. On the map above, the siege line is about where the word “South” is printed.

So it was pretty easy to set up a line of defense to keep the city isolated, especially since the city was surrounded by water on three sides. Supplies and people could get in and out by water, but the city itself was still cut off for anyone approaching by land.

The post May 25, 1775: Reinforcements Arrive From Britain appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

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.

The post May 24, 1775: Congress Elects Its President appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The post May 23, 1775: New Jersey Gets Into the Act appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 22, 1775: New Hampshire Gets Into the Act appeared first on 250 and Counting.

New York was unusual compared to the other colonies in that the overwhelming percentage of the population was immigrants; as a result it became a bit of an enclave for people from the UK and the Netherlands, so Woods blended in well.

As a result, we believe that although he wasn’t a politician for very long, he did a solid job, which doesn’t always stand out from the bigger picture.

The post May 21, 1775: David Woods appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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

The post May 20, 1775: The Mecklenburg Declaration appeared first on 250 and Counting.

During the revolution, a prominent family in the city of Baltimore was the Purviance Family, led by brothers Robert and Samuel Purviance. They were both well-known for their activities to support the Colonists’ side during the Revolution. Where are they memorialized?…Listen in and find out.

P.S. I do have theories about this but I’m hoping to explore those in a later episode.

The post May 19, 1775: From Sam Adams to Samuel Purviance appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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!

The post May 18, 1775: 18th Century Spin Doctors appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Daniel LeRoy was born in upstate New York and started to put together a pretty good settlement, but an unfortunate choice on his part caused him to lose it all.

So he moved west and rebuilt his life and, by most accounts, it’s reasonable to say that he did rather well in the Michigan Territory, and in the State after that area became our nation’s 26th.

The post May 17, 1775: Daniel LeRoy appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 16, 1775: The Hanna’s Town Resolves appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.)

The post May 15, 1775: The Continental Congress Toughens Up appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

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.

The post May 14, 1775: Don’t Mess With Fairhaven appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 13, 1775: Lyman Hall Joins the Continental Congress appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 12, 1775: The Taking of Fort Crown Point appeared first on 250 and Counting.

They then adjourned until the next day, but tabled discussion of the state of America to the following Monday. (May 11 was a Thursday, so this wasn’t terribly out of line.)

The post May 11, 1775: The Second Continental Congress Gets to Business appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 10, 1775: The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga appeared first on 250 and Counting.

But there was a lot of fighting going on elsewhere, particularly in upstate New York, around the Great Lakes area, and General Jacob Brown was in the thick of it. He was a nationally-recognized war hero back in the day, but nowadays he’s largely forgotten. And more’s the pity.

Listen in on a brief review of General Brown’s life.

The post May 9, 1775: Jacob J. Brown appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Listen in and learn about the patriarch of a family of merchants and politicians, and suddenly it’ll come to you that it wasn’t THIS William Weld you’re thinking of…it’s his great-great-great grandson, also named William, who got a bunch of press in recent years.

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The post May 8, 1775: William G. Weld appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 7, 1775: Joseph Wanton is Prevented from Becoming Governor appeared first on 250 and Counting.

And let’s just pretend June Allyson didn’t happen.

Mary Sherwood is one of those authors who, it appears, was fated to fade into obscurity after dying despite the huge popularity they enjoyed in life. It still happens today; ask anyone under 40 about Erma Bombeck or Kurt Vonnegut.

Fortunately you have us to learn a little bit about her and her work.

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The post May 6, 1775: Mary Sherwood appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 5, 1775: Alexander McNair, First Governor of Missouri appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 4, 1775: How the Gunpowder Incident Ended appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 3, 1775: You Can’t Keep a Good Spy Down appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post May 2, 1775: Meet Rachel Revere appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The post May 1, 1775: Invasion of Quebec, and a Fort is Destroyed appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Ain’t that a kick in the head!

The post April 30, 1775: The Fourteenth Colony appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.)

The post April 28, 1775: Jonathan Trumbull Chooses a Side appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post April 27, 1775: Skullduggery and Rebellion Here & There appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The post April 26, 1775: Josiah Quincy II Dies at Sea appeared first on 250 and Counting.

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.

The post April 25, 1775: Benedict Arnold Wasn’t All Bad appeared first on 250 and Counting.

In the case of John Robins’ testimony regarding events at Lexington and Concord, the events were still fresh in his mind, having happened only a few days earlier. And because it derived from an official proceeding, that document was reasonably well-preserved and serves as a fascinating window into one of the most important events of our history.

And as for Robins himself, he was a relatively common man who happened to be part of the militia that day and might have been otherwise forgotten.

The post April 24, 1775: Eyewitness Testimony from Lexington & Concord appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Anyway.

Today, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress takes the time to organize its militiamen into a decent army. Meanwhile in New York, word gets out about Lexington and Concord, and people in that colony have a big decision to make.

The post April 23, 1775: Boston Needs a Few Good Men appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The purpose of the hearings was partially to find out exactly what had happened, but it had another purpose: if it turned out that the British had fired first, then the Assembly could turn to England and say “SEE? It wasn’t us!”

Even 250 years ago, Congressional hearings had a second agenda attached to them. (*sigh*) In the end, despite getting lots of testimony, the answer was still somewhat murky. But the Assembly still had enough information to give reconciliation one last shot.

The post April 22, 1775: Who Shot First? appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Most people were arming themselves and avoiding confiscation of supplies by the British, but in South Carolina they turned the tables and did a little confiscating of their own.

The post April 21, 1775: We Can Confiscate Arms, Too appeared first on 250 and Counting.

So in the middle of the night, they removed the gunpowder from the magazine at Williamsburg. Oddly, as we’ll learn shortly, this wasn’t a popular move on their part.

The post April 20, 1775: The Williamsburg Gunpowder Incident appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Oh sure, there were a few skirmishes here and there, which we’ve already discussed in earlier episodes. But this was the true tipping point from which nobody could recover or walk back.

Looking through social media the past couple of days, it’s heartwarming to see the number of events commemorating the 250th anniversary of things like Paul Revere’s ride, and the sheer number of people who are participating, even if they’re doing something relatively simple such as putting two lights in a high window of their homes.

We don’t recommend that you spend today shooting at British people wearing red, though.

The post April 19, 1775: The War Begins at Lexington and Concord appeared first on 250 and Counting.

That’s how we get the Simpsons joke: “Let’s take a look back at the year 1928- the year when you might have seen Al Capone dancing the Charleston on top of a flagpole!”

To that end, students might place the Boston Massacre, say, as quite close in the timeline to the start of the Revolutionary War, when in fact they happened several years apart. But at this specific period of time, things were in fact moving quickly and closely together: Colonies were lining up behind Massachusetts, various areas began to prepare for all-out war, General Gage was doing his best to control the colonists based on the orders that were sent to him several weeks earlier from London, and Lord North was in fact hoping to provoke the colonists into doing something that would give him a reason to crush them hard.

So when word got out that the British were coming up the Charles river to make a move on Concord and Lexington, Colonist spies were wise to it and they got the word out as fast as they could. Listen, my children, and you will hear.

The post April 18, 1775: Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Then they all went out to a nearby tavern, as you do when planning a revolution.

But nobody could suspect that the time from then to the war was measurable in hours by then, not by weeks.

The post April 17, 1775: Some Prescient Preparations appeared first on 250 and Counting.

And while that sentiment is often so much glurge, it does get me to thinking sometimes about the legacies left behind by tombstones. These were people who wanted to be remembered somehow. That’s not to say that people who choose to be cremated or buried at sea or dispensed with by some other means don’t want to be remembered; they just don’t seem to care whether there’s a marker saying I WAS AND NOW I’M NOT. These are largely the types who feel that you’re forgotten when your name is spoken for the last time, or when the last person who remembers you is, themselves, dead.

Sylvester Maxwell, to me, is in an odd place. We have his name and we know a few things about him, but we don’t have a good handle on who he was. He could be any one of hundreds of stones we pass in any given cemetery.

I’m getting maudlin here; I apologize. And I’m on vacation! In a beach condo! I gotta lighten up!

Okay, then: for all that, Mike has a story for you about Sylvester Maxwell. And there is something rather notable about his life, that he’ll tell you about.

Enjoy. I’m going to see if I can get some Vitamin D the natural way.

Aw, man. It’s night time.

The post April 16, 1775: Sylvester Maxwell appeared first on 250 and Counting.

At any rate, on April 5 we told you about a detachment sent to the fort to disarm the place; today was the day that they arrived and succeeded, because even if spies knew about it (and they almost certainly did), word was not going to get to the fort in time to prevent what was going to happen.

N.B. for those of you who download the episodes as they come out, apparently the audio didn’t attach to this post correctly. Our apologies. It should be in your feed now.

The post April 15, 1775: The Short Life of Fort Pownall appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It might come as a surprise to you that societies dedicated to the elimination of slavery in America came about as early as this, especially inasmuch as we had other things on our mind, such as the largest army in the world putting us in their sights. It might also come as a surprise that the one that came first in America, exists still, but with a different focus. Tune in and learn their story.

The post April 14, 1775: America’s First Abolitionists appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Likewise, the rest of this episode is a throwback to TWO earlier episodes, as the activities are formally recorded in the Virginia Gazette.

The post April 13, 1775: North Carolina Raises the Dragoons appeared first on 250 and Counting.

A lot of people get their American History from the play 1776, and it’s mostly accurate with the facts, if not necessarily with the people involved or the specific dates. And that’s also why it gets cited here as often as it does: we hope that the common cultural touchstone provided by the play demonstrates to you that it wasn’t entirely made up, though the writers did play a little fast and loose to make for a good story.

As a result of this play, most people think that Virginia came up with the whole Independence thing first, and there’s a kernel of truth in it: the activity leading to the Declaration did emerge from the Lee Resolution, but North Carolina was the first to send delegates to the Continental Congress with instructions to call for independence, through something called the “Halifax Resolves.”

The post April 12, 1775: North Carolina Takes the First Step appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Had the lookouts been more alert when the battles of Lexington and Concord first broken out, the outcome could have been quite different.

The post April 11, 1775: Graves Brings in The Big Guns appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Nearly two weeks before Concord, there were small battles going on in Assonet, Massachusetts, near the Rhode Island border.

The post April 10, 1775: Skirmishes in Assonet, MA appeared first on 250 and Counting.

But word got back to the folks in Annapolis, of course, and they countered with a resolution involving a reprinting of that article, plus a refutation of the allegations made. The basic thrust? The guy made it all up, and whatever he didn’t make up still isn’t true; it just happens to be close to the truth.

Who’s the woman in the cover art? Tune in and find out.

The post April 9, 1775: Something’s Happening…Maybe Not appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Provincial Congress in Massachusetts proposed, and adopted, a resolution that provided for a genuine army dedicated to protecting our shores against the British. That was the New England Army, but the name didn’t last long. Tune in to find out their other name.

The post April 8, 1775: The New England Army appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Yet, despite his prominence in the industry, and despite the statue that stands in his name in the town of Lowell, Massachusetts, the silhouette seen in today’s cover art is the only hint that we have regarding what he might have looked like. There are no portraits extant that we know of.

The post April 7, 1775: Francis Cabot Lowell appeared first on 250 and Counting.

By the time April of 1775 rolled around, it wasn’t just the explosive weapons that the British were after; it was the press as well. And the more you hear about the specific things that the British imposed on the Colonies as events moved closer to all-out war, the more obvious their need to appear in the Bill of Rights becomes. (Whatever you think of any specific Amendment, it’s not too tough to see the reasoning that went into its inclusion if you look at it from a contemporary standpoint rather than a modern-day one.)

This it was that on this day, the Colonists heard that the British were going to move in on restricting a free press, so the Massachusetts Spy simply up and left so there would be nothing to seize.

The post April 6, 1775: Stop the Presses! appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The fact is, he like being a light-hearted guy, and when he became the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, he discovered exactly what kind of mess he’d stepped into. At that point, anything he did would only make matters worse.

The post April 5, 1775: The British Gear Up For War appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Elizabeth was dead by the time 1775 rolled around, but her family continued to run the apothecary shop for many years, and they were instrumental in ensuring that the Massachusetts Patriots were equipped with medical supplies should war break out.

Today there is a chain of pharmacies in the midwest called GreenLeaf Apothecary, but there’s no connection we could find between this and the original, except perhaps as homage.

The post April 4, 1775: America’s First Female Pharmacist appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Claude is originally from New York, and he’s of the opinion that most New Yorkers still think of themselves as members of a separate nation. But that’s a different debate.

The post April 3, 1775: The New York General Assembly Hangs It Up appeared first on 250 and Counting.

And today we’ve got Cake and Candles for him, since this day in 1775 was the date of his birth. Jones was a physician before his teenage years ended, and he began to design criteria that would separate good doctors from bad ones. He organized militias even though he was under no orders to do so. And then when the War of 1812 broke out, he became a major general with a reputation for excellence, to the point where nobody really worried about whether North Carolina would fall to the British.

After the war he basically helped shepherd the development of a brand-new field of medicine, and after his death, much of his land became Wake Forest University. What’s more, it was because of Jones that the school has a head-scratcher of a name rather than an incomprehensible one.

The post April 2, 1775: Calvin Jones–Physician, Soldier, Benefactor appeared first on 250 and Counting.

But other times, he was a little on the lazy side, often looking for clues that aren’t there, and letting other peoples’ opinions get the better of him. It’s entirely possible that the best idea Gage ever had was whatever he’d been told most recently. His decisions appear on their surface to be expressions of concern for the Colonists. Do with that what you will.

She was self-educated, and married a man who was both enlightened and politically active himself, and she used her position as her husband’s hostess to develop and maintain connections of her own. She was also able to use what she learned to develop some of the pieces she wrote, whether they were factual or thinly-disguised fiction pieces.

Claude and his wife Shannon did the extra-touristy thing of visiting Plymouth, Massachusetts during Thanksgiving weekend several years ago, and we did see the Mercy Otis Warren statue, but frankly at that time we still had a lot to learn about her. (If you go, be warned that Plymouth Rock is even more disappointing than everyone tells you it is.)

And because it’s an episode celebrating Mercy Warren, we talked Shannon into recording the episode. Enjoy.

To mark that day, Mike takes you through some of the details of the act and its impact on the trade in the Colonies, and the political impact in Britain.

And as a result the Colonists determined that Britain can’t move numbers of men like that again without bumping into a few flintlocks along the way.

And then there’s John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore. History has not been especially kind to Lord Dunmore, not should it be. He often acted rashly and without consulting some of the people he should have consulted, and in the end he wound up getting a lot of people very angry, instead of getting a few people a little annoyed.

Lord North, over in London, is often defined as the Prime Minister who lost the Colonies, but Dunmore clearly did his part to ensure that they stayed lost regardless of the outcome. And today in history, Lord Dunmore issued a proclamation against electing delegates to the Second Continental Congress, but the Second Virginia Convention, by now in its last day or so, ignored him and sent people anyway. (They’d already elected a couple, so Dunmore’s proclamation was a little bit of closing the barn after the horse had escaped.)

Jefferson was part of the Second Virginia Convention, and no doubt he got there honestly, as a man who had lots of property and was well-regarded, even at the tender age of 32. But when Peyton Randolph needed someone to replace him in the Second Continental Congress, he called on Jefferson—who was his cousin.

On the positive side, Jefferson acquitted himself well in both the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he represented Albemarle County, and simultaneously at the Second Continental Congress. So while he probably didn’t need the familial boost, it surely didn’t hurt.

Bayly was a one-term congressman to the US House of Representatives as part of the 13th Congress (as this is written, we’re in the 118th). By most accounts he wasn’t especially distinguished, but only serving for the one term didn’t mean that he was politically finished. A few years after he left Congress, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, and he was part of the Virginia Constitutional Convention.

Bayly was “minor” enough in history that we were only able to find a single image of him—the one in the cover artwork. And it’s actually a black-and-white rendering of a color painting that’s been zoomed in to the point where you can see the texture on the canvas. It’s a detail from a painting of the entire House of Delegates around 1820.

Today we present two letters: one written from the Second Virginia Convention from George to his brother, and another written to George the same day by a merchant he frequently dealt with. The merchant died not long after writing the letter, so it’s not known whether Washington received it before the merchant died. What we do know is that the death resulted in an unexpected expense for Washington.

For the past several weeks, they’d been working on the down-low to make plans in case the British took any action that they might find too intrusive, from simple confiscations to an all-out shooting offense. (Of course that was still on the table; nobody had forgotten the Boston Massacre.)

It wasn’t until this day in history that they made their resolution publicly known. And in the wake of Patrick Henry’s very recent proclamation, nobody would be surprised if things escalated sooner rather than later.

First up is a wedding taking place in Southampton County in Virginia, across the bay from Williamsburg. The bride was an educated woman who carried on that tradition afterward, and the groom was a future mayor of Richmond, the city’s first, in fact.

Meanwhile, up in Pennsylvania, America’s first botanist was celebrating a birthday. Unfortunately it was one of his last.

As we’ve noted in the past, Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke were good friends who worked together to come up with a solution that would get the Colonies and the Crown back into each others’ good graces.

Now that we think about it, Franklin was good friends with many people on both sides of the Atlantic, and now we’re wondering if he was just one of those guys to whom you take an instant liking without knowing quite why.

At any rate, by this point the two men had to concede that it was far too late to prevent further escalation, and they were right. Burke took the time to address Parliament on this day, and let them all know just what a mistake they’d made.

From December 1774 through February 1775, he and some of his British friends tried to put together a map to peace, but unfortunately both sides were too entrenched to even consider compromise. Franklin finally went home on this day in 1775, but he left one final impression that we’ll learn about tomorrow.

The Second Virginia Convention finally met on this day in 1775, and they elected Peyton Randolph as its president. This was no surprise to anyone, as Randolph had been the president of the First Virginia Convention, and of the First Continental Congress.

Randolph was also briefly the president of the Second Continental Congress but had to return to Virginia and was replaced by John Hancock. Shortly thereafter he had a fit of apoplexy (what we now call a hemorrhagic stroke) and died in October 1775.

So even though he didn’t live to learn of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Randolph is frequently considered to be one of our Founding Fathers.

Interestingly, while this territory is sometimes considered by historians to be a self-governing area, the residents actually considered themselves to be British subjects, even after the war began, and to a certain extent even for a short period after the Declaration of Independence was signed. That likely ended when the Cherokees (who were aligned with the British) attacked several settlements, although they were badly beaten in the attempt.

Sigh.

We’ve talked in the past about John Adams and his former friend Daniel Leonard, who sparred in print under pen names and never quite repaired their relationship. Today we talk about Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament who was good friends with Franklin, though perhaps not publicly. Today marks the likely last day that the two men ever saw each other, as Franklin was on the final trip to England of his lifetime. Sadder still, Burke was actually sympathetic to the Colonist cause, though he wasn’t entirely convinced that they’d win a war.

On the other hand, hardly anyone was convinced that Britain would be defeated, so there’s that.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, if you’re the type to celebrate! We have a little Easter Egg (shamrock?) in this episode for you.

Ninian Edwards was an interesting character in that he tried very hard to make the best choices for the people he represented, and while he succeeded in some respects, in others it seems he left a trail of hard feelings and broken plans.

But with a single exception he doesn’t seem to have acted out of malice, or greed. It’s just that most of the things he’s known for didn’t quite work out the way he hoped. And yet, he still remains in the record book for a job he held in his youth, and for being one of Illinois’ first senators.

And today it’s Augusta County which weighed in by publishing their Resolves in the Virginia Gazette. Augusta County is quite close to both Fincastle and Botetourt counties, at what is now the western edge of the state. And we have to think that it’s meaningful that these communities, which were relatively far from where anything meaningful was taking place, was taking notice of those events and acting proactively, when only a few weeks earlier they would have been indifferent to it, because after all, it didn’t really affect them. Not yet, anyway.

What makes this extra remarkable is that most of the residents of New York really had no reason to be loyal to King George III, since they weren’t English-born, nor were they the descendants of Englishmen. Instead, most of them were descended from Dutch settlers from over a hundred years earlier.

But eventually they did come around, and when they did they showed an ability to snap into action quickly.

He might have fared better in New York, but given the events of the Westminster Massacre you learned about yesterday, we’re not sure it would have made much difference. Dunmore wasn’t an especially good politician in general, and he didn’t hold the Colonists in an especially high esteem. And that’s the sort of thing that A) isn’t easily concealed, and B) doesn’t always go over well with your constituents. Not always.

At that time, Vermont was a disputed territory between New York, which was loaded with Loyalists, and New Hampshire, which had many Patriots. So when a group of five dozen New Yorkers showed up to break up a New Hampshire rally, there clearly wasn’t going to be a happy ending to the encounter.

But afterward, many New Yorkers were ejected from the area and nearly two years later, Vermont declared its independence from everybody, calling itself its own country rather than a British colony or an American state. It was a condition that lasted until 1791.

Eckford also dabbled in politics, serving in the state legislature and as a delegate to the Electoral College, before moving to the Ottoman Empire to assist with rebuilding the fleet there. He died quite suddenly there, probably of cholera, and his body was brought back to America, where he was buried in the graveyard at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hempstead, L.I., along with his wife.

Coincidentally, many years ago I attended a wedding in that church. The weird bumps you make with history when you live on the East Coast, I tell you what.

(At right: Eckford’s grave; picture via findagrave.com)

Botetourt doesn’t get a lot of attention nowadays, largely because the Fincastle Resolutions arrived first and laid down nearly identical sentiments. But as we’ll see in the next few days, these two counties weren’t the only ones with the sort of opinions that they expressed.

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.

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?

They’re still not 100% positive.

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.

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.

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.

The Powells were among the first to fight for Virginia during the American Revolution, and as the Thirteen Colonies broke away and became the United States, they found themselves with a sense of noblesse oblige and took to representing their area in the political arena. Today we celebrate one of that family, a man born on this day in 1775.

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.

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.

But Boston was the first, and abusing tea in one way or another became a popular way to demonstrate your patriotism. (Some modern-day Brits would argue that we never quite stopped abusing tea.)

Today we talk about an effort to actually prohibit the import or consumption of tea in the Colonies. It worked about as well as you’d expect.

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.

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

This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, but there was something different about the Colonists’ response—and it almost touched off the war nearly two months before it actually did.

And that’s interesting on its own, but we also wanted to call your attention to the cover art for today’s episode. The person in the picture is Josiah Quincy II, who is discussed in the episode as a “side” character of sorts. The painting is by Gilbert Stuart, who is pretty famous for painting hundreds of American politicians and public figures, and perhaps most famous for the “unfinished” portrait of George Washington that served as the model for the one-dollar bill. There aren’t a lot of portraits of Quincy extant, but this one (which was painted after Quincy’s death in April 1775) gets a lot of attention from Stuart scholars because it provides a very candid representation of Quincy’s strabismus, or misalignment of the eyes. (It’s possible that he simply had amblyopia but we don’t know for sure nowadays.) Most people agree that it actually gives Quincy a little extra dignity and esteem.

We told you not long ago about someone who’d heard about the Minutemen, but had their numbers wrong by a factor of thousands. Fortunately in that case, it was just casual gossip rather than actual spycraft. But today in history, a bit of information about Colonial artillery that was reported to the Provincial Congress in Massachusetts leaked to the British, along with information about the Minutemen’s numbers and level of preparedness. But as we’ll discover in the next couple of days, the British were already taking precautions.

When he joined the Continental Army, he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming Washington’s staff aide and entered politics shortly after the war ended. So while he wasn’t on hand for the initial segment of American statesmanship, he was there when the basic framework of our government was laid down.

But back to his writing: he and the Reverend Samuel Seabury (we first heard from him on January 4) got into the habit of debating each other through pamphlets, written under pen names. They’re quite well-written and easy to understand, and because they’re only pamphlets, they don’t run especially long. They’re worth checking out.

Until, that is, 1968, when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act came along, and many holidays were moved to the Monday of that week. Not every state complied right away, but eventually Lincoln’s Birthday disappeared and Washington’s Birthday moved from the malleable February 22nd to the always-on-Monday Presidents Day.

But here’s the part they don’t always tell you: George Washington wasn’t born on February 22. He was actually born on February 11, 1731 but that was under the old Julian calendar. In 1752, Britain and all its colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar, which changed Washington’s birthday (well, everyone’s, really) by a year and 11 days, to February 22, 1732.

Believe it or not, people did not take the calendar change well. Because it was essentially a Catholic innovation (named after Pope Gregory XIII), Protestants thought it was a Catholic plot to return them to the fold. Other people, especially in the Colonies, thought that time was being stolen from their lives, and they demanded that the “lost” days be returned. It wasn’t until public figures—including George Washington—adopted the new dates and made a big deal about doing so, that people started to calm down.

None of this is relevant to the story you’ll hear in today’s episode, but this whole Washington’s Birthday thing doesn’t get told nearly enough. In the meantime, enjoy Mike’s story of William Seymour.

But Gregg had an interesting approach to demonstrate that it was, in fact, possible. In some portions of the river, there was a confluence with another river, which meant that there were multiple currents in the river for some distance. This is what made it hazardous in the first place.

Gregg made a point of seeking out the currents of a specific river in each confluence, and navigating only that river’s current. So from Brownsville to Pittsburgh, Gregg used the currents of the Monongahela River. From Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, he used the currents of the Ohio River. Then he remained with the current of the Ohio to Louisville. From there he returned to Pittsburgh, running against the current of the Ohio. A few cycles of this had people convinced, and his ship, the Enterprise, became one of the first of that name to go down in history. (Specifically, it was the third in American history.)

Before you think I’ve digressed before I’ve even started, my point here is that today’s episode focuses on a British military figure rather than one of the Founding Fathers or other Colonial figure. We’re taking an all-too-brief look at Lord Horatio Nelson, who did have an important life event take place on this day in 1775.

Also, when you listen to the episode, you’ll see I just have Star Trek on my mind.

But the War of 1812? Well, that was Maryland’s time to shine, and today we meet one of the military men who fought in that war, though he wasn’t especially successful in the Battle of Bladensburg.

We did have a portrait of Winder we were going to use in the cover art until we realized that Winder is buried in Greenmount Cemetery, in Baltimore, a short distance from Claude’s home. So he ran out and snapped a photo. Several famous historic figures are buried there, including John Wilkes Booth (it’s probably the best-known unmarked grave in America), so there may have to be a few more trips over there.

To that end, the city of Albany, NY, began making plans just in case war broke out. It was against the law, but their reasoning was that it was better to have a militia and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Likewise, when the Intolerable Acts, and the Coercive Acts were enacted, Barclay stood to suffer even more.

So Barclay came up with a plan that would allow everyone to save face and bring these acts to an end.

To that end, Parliament approved sending over four thousand soldiers and sailors to the Colonies to help keep them in line. But it wasn’t as simple as that; there were still some people protesting the action, not that anyone listened to them.

Today we also peek in on someone who’s watching the action and has some thoughts.

Other people, more fussy about events, would say that Lexington & Concord was the beginning of the war. The reasoning behind that is that it’s the first event in a series of hostile actions that took place close to one another. But the real argument is that most historical events of this nature don’t have definitive “beginning” and “ending” points; it’s much like a roll of paper towels. Sure, there are perforations marking each sheet, but you know for a fact that when you pull one off, it’s going to tear at an oddball angle and those perfectly rectangular sheets are a rarity.

The fact is, however, that over 100 Black men fought as part of the militia in the opening battles of the Revolution. Here’s the story of one of the first.

So Mike probably had no idea that there was a familial connection to this episode for Claude. For what it’s worth, neither did Claude, until he started looking into the story of Nathaniel Gorham. So if Mike had been recording this episode, it’s likely that he wouldn’t have had anything to say about it other than “Oh, fun coincidence.”

We’re only sad that we couldn’t find a portrait of Nathaniel; we have no idea whether there’s a family resemblance.

This delayed—but did not prevent—Louisa from marrying John Quincy Adams, but Abigail Adams didn’t have a lot of respect for Catherine for many years.

In the meantime, she and John Quincy had some ups and downs in their marriage, but in the end it appears that they were able to reconcile all the rough patches until the very end.

If he hadn’t survived two Cherokee ambushes, if he hadn’t been an officeholder previously, if he hadn’t been the Speaker of the Senate when a scandal broke out…things could have turned out very differently for our friend William.

But William was also smart enough to walk away when the walking was good, and he lived to a ripe old age (81).

While Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, were getting a lot of attention from the British, it’s not as though the other colonies sat back and watched everything happening from afar.

To a certain extent they did do that, but they also had problems of their own to deal with. In some of the more southern states, the biggest problem was dealing with some of the natives, who had this odd insistence that they were there first and were somehow entitled to this land that had been stolen from them. This often led to multiple skirmishes on the western edges of the colonies. Plus, much of the Intolerable Acts didn’t really affect them…yet.

But Fincastle County in Virginia, while not the first territory outside Massachusetts to take up the cause, was probably one of the more gung-ho territories when it came to spelling out their intent.

And during all these breakdowns, the situation on the American side of the pond only got worse as time went on, largely because each side thought that the other wasn’t being responsive.

In the end, however, it didn’t really matter, because as we’ve discussed with the episodes dealing with Massachusettensis and Novanglus debating one another in print, the one thing they agreed upon was that these attempts to reach out were always, at their heart, rooted in some attempt to wrest control from the other party. Both reaching for it, neither attaining it nor caring what the other side’s argument meant at the core.

Over the course of a single year—and beginning with this day in 1775—John Cox experienced what any reasonable person would call a “meteoric rise” in his personal and professional fortunes. He started out adjudicating British laws in the Colonies, but moved quickly into assisting with the Colonial resistance effort and subsequently to assisting with the actual war. He did this both materially (as a Quartermaster) and passively (allowing his land to be used by Patriot troops).

He died in 1793, at the age of 60, and even this week he’s probably still more productive than most of us.

But for a few years, and for reasons unknown to modern-day people, Mary enjoyed a rather peculiar hobby, one that perhaps should have made her a more famous person than she is. It wasn’t so much in the realm of John Adams and George Washington so much as it is in the realm of, say, Frank Abegnale.