250 and Counting

Philip Schuyler was part of a prominent New York family, enough that if you have any familiarity with that state’s history, you realize that the Schuyler name keeps popping up, especially during and shortly after the Revolution. (Similarly, the names Schermerhorn and Burr also manage to crop up a lot; Burr is probably the most […] The post The Schuyler Is Falling–July 24, 1776 appeared first on 25...

Huntington, New York, is coincidentally quite close to where I grew up. And frankly, I had no idea that they could celebrate the way they did on this day in history. In addition to being its own little town, Huntington was determined not to let the British take any more of Long Island than they […] The post Ain’t No Party Like A Long Island Party–July 23, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

That Charles Lee turned out to be giving information to the British is one of those things that feels obvious in retrospect. As Mike notes during the episode, Lee was passed over for command of the Continental Army, and even though he was still in a position of importance and command, things like that can […] The post When Accusation Is A Confession–July 22, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting...

David Bushnell came up with the idea for the Turtle submersible only days after Lexington and Concord. He’d been working on several different experiments he’d conducted at Yale College, and found a way to integrate them into a single device to use against the British. The Turtle was revolutionary (heh) in a couple of ways: […] The post Testing A Turtle–July 21, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Count...

The Battle of Island Flats was yet another step in the Chickamauga War, or the Cherokee-American War (call it what you like). We first talked about this on July 1, when the first attacks began in earnest. And then again just under a week ago at the Battle of Fort Lindley. The thing about these […] The post The Battle of Island Flats–July 20, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

As I explained during the episode, “engrossing” was the practice of having a formal document written out in a larger hand for public presentation. This often had different purposes: some were engrossed to make them more attractive; this was typically called illuminating, and the most typical examples are the ornate Bible pages you see from […] The post Engrossing–July 19, 1776 appeared first on 25...

Coming up with a model treaty wasn’t John Adams’ idea, but it turned out to be a very good idea that he was responsible for implementing. Once Adams had it in his head, he began to work on the model treaty along with the committee, and while it was intended to be used for commercial […] The post Adams’ Model Treaty–July 18, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

That George Washington agreed to meet with Colonel James Patterson was a bit of a surprise. He’d turned down the opportunity to meet with his British counterparts on multiple occasions, but when asked if he’d meet with one of those men’s officers, Washington accepted the offer. Once the meeting was set, Washington was more gracious […] The post No Way, No Howe–July 17, 1776 appeared first on 250 a...

John Alsop was born in 1724 in New Windsor, Orange County, in the British Province of New York. He was the son of John Alsop, Sr. and Abigail Sackett. His father was a lawyer in New Windsor and later New York City, where he was largely interested in real estate. As a young man he […] The post John Alsop Steps Out–July 16, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

The raids along the Catawba River in North Carolina we talked about on July 1 were just the beginning of the Cherokee-American Wars; the next major effort was an attack on Fort Lindley, not far from modern-day Greenville, South Carolina. It’s not entirely clear when Fort Lindley was first constructed; there are indications here and […] The post The Battle of Fort Lindley–July 15, 1776 appeared fir...

One of the most common things written about George Washington is that he always behaved like a gentleman, and expected others to behave the same way; following protocol was very, very important to him. When he was sixteen years old, he copied out by hand 110 rules of Civility & Decent Behavior inCompany and Conversation, […] The post You Don’t Mess Around With George–July 14, 1776 appeared first o...

That the Southwick Broadside version of the Declaration of Independence isn’t as famous as the Dunlap Broadside shouldn’t be a surprise, since the Dunlap is the first one, and the one on which all the others are based. The the Southwick has the wrong date on it is an interesting nugget of information. It’s worth […] The post Rhode Island Gets The Declaration–July 13, 1776 appeared first on 250 and...

In the play/film 1776, John Dickinson is portrayed as a Loyalist from the Pennsylvania Colony whose goal is to obstruct any efforts at achieving Independence. When his efforts fail, he resigns from the Congress and leaves, though John Adams publicly admires his integrity before Dickinson departs. (Leave us alone; 1776 is a delightful film and […] The post The Constitution’s First Draft–July 12, 17...

White Plains, New York, calls itself the birthplace of the State of New York , and this day in 1776 is the reason why. The provincial congress, having fled New York City to White Plains, received a copy of the Declaration of Independence and immediately approved it, then resolved to change their name from “The Provincial Congress of the Colony of New York” to “The Convention of R...

Samuel Powell is another one of those early Representatives in our government about whom little is known from a legislative standpoint. We have odd details noting that he became a lawyer “prior to 1800” because we don’t really know how he got there. And another detail that we have about Samuel Powell is that, after his one and only term, he was not a candidate to be renominated i...

When a statue of King George III was pulled down in New York, it was a good sign for the city, since there were times that it felt that the spirit of Independence was rather squashed by the sight of the British fleet, which was still arriving. A brief digression: several years ago (ugh, longer ago than I care to remember) I took the opportunity to visit the City of the Museum of New York. It&#8217...

The Battle of Gwynn’s Island doesn’t seem to get much attention these days, which is a shame because it was rather important at the time. First, Lord Dunmore, the former Royal Governor of Virginia, had been there since May, having retreated there after the bombardment of Norfolk in January. The Patriots made their lives very difficult, so after a few weeks the British bailed out of Nor...

William Howe had already been in New York for a little over a week when he wrote to George Germain from his Staten Island headquarters. Not everyone had yet arrived from Halifax , of course; it was a long trip and the ships moved at different speeds. Howe took the time to detail what troops and ships had already arrived in New York, and what was still enroute, and that he was awaiting some more re...

The Pennsylvania Evening Post is an interesting study in media relations and what a publication sometimes has to do in order to survive. The Post was America’s first daily newspaper, but early on it published three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. They were generally supportive of the Revolution and published pro-Patriot articles. As Mike explains, it was through a quirk o...

In the biography of Bernard Smith in today’s episode, it was noted that he spent a couple of years as the Collector of Customs in 1809 and 1810. Which set up the question for me: what does a Collector of Customs do? My guess wasn’t too far off, tell the truth. The Collector of Customs assesses import duties and tariffs, enforces trade laws and regulates goods moving across internationa...

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect...

Happy Independence Day! I don’t know if we ever mentioned this, but People of a Certain Age may remember that back in the Bicentennial Days, on our television every night during the 8:00 PM hour there was a one-minute (two, if you count the commercial) which offered up some snippet of history from that day 200 years previous, told to us by a famous person (whose identity changed every day)....

In the play/film 1776, with nearly every vote cast throughout the show, a delegate from New York (Lewis Morris) steps up to announce New York’s abstention from the vote, “courteously.” It’s played for comedy, and at one point even the explanation is rendered comedic, when Morris tells the assembled delegates that the members of the legislature in New York “speak very...

It’s been twenty-five days since the Lee Resolution was introduced , asking the delegates of the Continental Congress to vote for Independence from Great Britain. Some of the delegates returned to their homes to get the formal instructions in the affirmative, others stayed behind and worked on drafting a Declaration. Finally all the stars have aligned, and the votes come in: twelve in favor,...

The Chickamauga Wars, also known as the Cherokee-American Wars, was really just an escalation of the hostile relationship between Americans and the Cherokee tribe. The problem really started during the French and Indian War, which ran from 1758-1761. During that war, British forces simply destroyed many Cherokee towns, which were never reoccupied. Some treaties were signed after the war, and then...