250 and Counting

Oof, that’s a mouthful of title. Oh well, what’s done is done. As noted in today’s episode, James Warren was not related to Joseph Warren. On the other hand, he is related to Mercy Otis Warren, because he’s her husband. James and John Adams had a few ideas in common; the hard part was convincing a few others that they were in the right. Meanwhile, did you know there’s...

Hey! We have a Navy now! Okay, it’s only one ship, but it’s a start. And to be clear, it’s Georgia’s navy, not the navy of the Continental forces. But we’re getting somewhere. And what’s more, on its first day it took on a British ship, with amazing results. Listen in and learn the story. The post July 10, 1775: The Georgian Navy appeared first on 250 and Counti...

Day Four of this thing and I’m still sounding kinda sexy. Or not, I have no idea. A look through George Washington’s orders of each day gives us an interesting peek into his mind. This was a guy who definitely had his finger on the pulse of what was going on with his troops. But if there was something he didn’t know about, he also recognized that there were things he didn’t...

N.B. While it’s Mike recording today, I write this part and I’m still a little under the weather, so I’ll be brief again. It’s Cake and Candles today for William Davies, born in Savannah on this day in 1775. Davies enjoyed careers in both the legal and political fields, and appeared to do well in both of them. Also, my brain might be addled by the drugs the doctor gave me,...

As you’ll hear today, I have a huge sinus infection and it took a lot of effort to get today’s episode recorded, so I hope you’ll excuse this part being rather brief. John and Abigail Adams was probably one of the best documented relationships of the Colonial Era, and it’s a ridiculously touching love story. It’s clear that they hated being apart, and you’d do w...

Note: I realized belatedly that the episode that dropped yesterday was titled July 7, as was the audio file itself, but if you’ve listened, you know that it was in fact the July 5 file and what we’ve got here are a couple of typos that have mostly been fixed. My apologies for the error and thanks for your forbearance. While the Olive Branch Petition was a step toward reconciliation, an...

When the Second Continental Congress convened in May, there was a large faction of delegates who thought that peace with England was still possible, and made a specific effort to draft a message of reconciliation with King George III. They finished their document and presented it to the whole body of Congress on this day in 1775, which approved it and it was subsequently prepared and sent to Great...

As mentioned yesterday, when George Washington came to Cambridge, he found a bit of a mess there: several disorganized groups of men, with more on the way, along with supplies still in transit. The first thing he needed to do was to get the fighting force organized, so he began a log book of his official orders. His first set, which came out on this day in 1775, took up about five pages of manuscr...

On June 15, 1775, George Washington was appointed Commander of the newly-formed Continental Army. On July 2, Washington finally arrived in Cambridge after a few stops in Trenton, New York and presumably a couple of other places. What he found was a huge mess. So on July 3, he officially took command and started the work of turning this ragtag crew into some kind of organized fighting force. The po...

As you listen to today’s episode, it’ll become clear that Mike had way too much fun writing and recording this one. But then again, I wrote the title, so. There are plenty of jobs out there that are kind of obscure, in the sense that it’s a job that somebody has, but you never really thought about. For instance, did you know that with some high-end perfumes, the labels are put on...

Fun Fact: I say “Cephas Thompson” several times during this podcast, mostly because it’s fun to say. He wasn’t a formally-trained painter, but he had a good eye and some natural talent, and during his career he painted over 600 portraits, with roughly a fourth of those made entirely in Bristol, Rhode Island. Even after retiring from the itinerant artist life, he continued t...

With the army being literally only a few weeks old, it was necessary to put together some regulations for this group, to ensure consistency throughout the Colonies. Interestingly enough, as the rules were revised over the next several years, a pattern of using another army’s regulations as a template began to emerge. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: take what works and build on it,...

Thomas Boyle wasn’t born in Baltimore, Maryland, but when he was a young man he made it his home and became quite successful there, as a merchant marine and an overall businessman. And, of course, given Baltimore’s penchant for naming streets after historic people and events, there is a Boyle Street. It’s not very long; in fact you see the entire road in the photo below. In this...

It feels like we’re selling the day a little short, but not every day has to be Bunker Hill. Also, we’re discovering (and we hope you are, too) that sometimes it’s the smaller moments between the bigger ones that give us better insight into the hearts and minds of the people who lived during that time. Today’s artwork is a portrait of Jonathan Trumbull (brother of John Trum...

“Schuyler” is one of those names in New York history that pops up quite frequently, partly because they were a prominent family. But it’s also one of those names that you may suddenly realize you’ve heard many times. “Schermerhorn” is another one (no kidding). So is “Burr,” for that matter, as in Aaron and family. Several Burrs are buried very close...

In 1775, New York didn’t have a Times Square, nor a Statue of Liberty, nor even a Brooklyn Bridge. Bagels hadn’t made it to the new world, and pizza wasn’t a thing yet. So why did George Washington feel it necessary to stop in New York City on his way to Boston? Short answer: he knew that some of the locals were nervous about his taking command of the army. Longer answer: oh no,...

There are lots of times when historians have to pull a lot of small pieces together to get a decent picture of events. They use oddball clues such as artifacts in paintings to determine someone’s state of health, for instance. They have to take into account that published reports could be propaganda in nature. But once in a while, something turns up that was written more or less at the time...

With the war in full swing and a Commander-in-Chief on his way to Boston, the Continental Congress took the next step of finding a way to organize the troops. So naturally they formed a committee. The Committee of Seven (maybe all the good names were taken?) worked diligently for about three weeks to put together a plan that would indicate just who could fight and how they would be organized. Ther...

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...

Here’s a hard economic reality: if you want to break away from a parent nation, you need to stop using their currency. Here’s another one: if you’re going to issue currency, you certainly need to have the capital to back it up. And you also don’t want to make it easy to counterfeit. The post June 22, 1775: Continental Cash appeared first on 250 and Counting .

New Jersey’s Provincial Congress first convened in May, but by now they’d gotten a bunch of stuff done. They’d already made arrangements to remove the Royal Governor from power, and resolved to do it like gentlemen (it didn’t work out that way, unfortunately). At this point the colony had only one delegate to the Continental Congress: a couple had resigned, one never showed...

Mike has already mentioned the location of the historical marker in today’s art. It’s tough to read even when you’re standing there, so here’s the text: At or near this place ever since known as “Liberty Point” was promulgated in June 1775, by patriots of the Cape Fear A Declaration of Independence of the British Crown. This was an extremely historic neighborhood, should yo...

Sometimes when you’re watching a movie or listening to music, you find yourself in the awkward position of separating the artist from the work, because it turns out that the artist has some shady stuff going on in the past, or even in the present. But the song/movie/book is just so good that you need to temporarily overlook that. Such is the case, we think, with Vardry Echols McBee, an entre...

It’s Cake and Candles today for a future State Representative of a future state. Orsamus Cook Merrill was born in Connecticut but moved to Vermont coincidentally the same year that the Vermont Republic was admitted to the Union as our fourteenth state. He spent the rest of his life in the Bennington area, working in jobs as diverse as newspaper editor or publisher, postmaster, attorney and E...

In the long run, the Battle at Bunker Hill Breed’s Hill was a tactical win for the British, but they incurred heavy losses and it took three tries to get that win. So why is it one of the battles that so many Americans seem to remember all these years later? We’re speculating here, but it’s possible that, between this battle and the ones at Lexington and Concord, the Colonial for...