250 and Counting

Before the shooting started, Boston appeared to be the place which gave King George III the most hassles. But to be fair, Boston is the place that the British seemed to provoke more than the other Colonies, so it kind of evened out in the end. When the Intolerable Acts dissolved the existing government in … Continue reading 250 and Counting: February 1, 1775

John Rowe was one of those guys who always seemed to be nearby when something happened, but he also manged to let it be known that he was nowhere nearby when that thing happened. For instance, he was the guy who owned the tea that got dumped into Boston Harbor, but he was “sick” that … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 31, 1775

By this time in 1775, tensions between the British and the Colonists in Boston were especially high. The Boston Tea Party resulted in several thousand troops being sent in to restore and maintain order, and Americans being Americans, even before there was an America, nearly every home had plenty of arms and ammunition, or at … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 30, 1775

Benjamin Franklin, like many of our Founding Fathers, was interested in repairing the relationship between the Colonies and England, at least early on. What’s more, he thought that others in similar positions would be of a similar mind, so he was rather dismayed to learn that this wasn’t the case; in fact, when a sheaf … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 29, 1775

It’s Cake and Candles today for James Brown Mason, a doctor in South Carolina and then his home state of Rhode Island. Later on he began a career in politics as one of the last of his political party to take office in Congress. We think Mike had too much fun making this episode.

William Legge was the second Lord Dartmouth and the Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1772 to the end of 1775. He was also step-brother to Lord North, who gets a mention in this episode. While he was a supporter of the constitutional supremacy that Parliament maintained they held over the Colonies, Lord Dartmouth … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 27, 1775

With all the things we know about germ theory and diseases and the importance of vaccinations, it’s kind of a surprise when people take a stance against such things in the face of the hard data. Before the invention of the smallpox vaccine, the disease could have a brutal effect on people who caught it, … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 26, 1775

In this episode you’re going to learn a bunch of things about the general geography of the Bronx, and how some places got their names. It’s actually interesting enough that may have to take some cameras up there and show you just how much the area has changed, and not just in a “what was … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 25, 1775

The Minutemen are among the more romantic images that many people have of the Revolution. Around this time in 1975, the comic strip Doonesbury did a couple of series that were set in the Revolutionary War days. They focused on an ancestor of Zonker’s named Nate Harris, who was a Minuteman. In one strip, Paul … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 24, 1775

Awhile back we talked about a Loyalist who wrote an opinion piece under the pen name “Massachusettensis” (which we may have mocked a little bit but it’s just the Latin word for the Colony/State). His rhetoric angered John Adams to the point where he felt compelled to respond in kind, and he did so using … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 23, 1775

It’s Cake and Candles today for Abraham Henry Schenck, State Assemblyman and then Congressman from New York State. But despite being from New York, and being a member of Congress, during his tenure as State Assemblyman he had something going on back at home. It wasn’t common in New York, but it wasn’t unheard of—nor … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 22, 1775

As we’ve noted a few times, the Colonists in general didn’t want war with Britain; in fact most of them were pretty sure they were going to get wiped out should it come to that. Even our most famous Patriots of the time, such as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others, spent enormous … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 21, 1775

Note: we inadvertently posted the January 20 episode yesterday. That episode has been replaced with the correct one, so if you want to hear the real January 19th episode, scroll down to the previous post and listen “again.” Apologies for the error and any confusion. It’s Cake and Candles today for André-Marie Ampère. He was … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 20, 1775

Most people (we think) have this popular notion of American history involving the British imposing taxes and massacreing people in Boston and the Colonists responding with an indignant “Oh, we need to dump some tea and write a Declaration of Independence and take up arms and shoot those red-coated monsters right now!” But if you’ve … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 19, 1775

When the Provincial Congress of Georgia met in the city of Savannah, the natural place for them to meet was a place called Tondee’s Tavern. Georgians were no fans of British activities such as the Intolerable Acts, but they otherwise prospered under British rule and remained largely indifferent to the mother country. However, while the … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 18, 1775

In the early 1770s, the American colonies began feeling the need to defend themselves against British pressures. In some cases the activity was political, but there were plenty of people who saw that there could conceivably be a need to take up arms at some point, especially given the way they interpreted the Intolerable Acts. … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 17, 1775

We suppose there’s something kind of heroic and–dare we say it, romantic–about the idea of a bunch of men dressing up as Native Americans, sneaking onto a boat and throwing 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. And as an overt act of rebellion, it certainly made a splash (you should excuse the expression). But … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 16, 1775

Chances are, if you do your basic Google search for “first Mountain Man,” among the top results you’ll get would be a man named John Colter. We’d argue that he was ONE OF the first, but the real anser, as youll hear today, is Joseph Harrison Dixon. Dixon and Colter did, in fact, spend some … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 15, 1775

William Legge was the Second Earl of Dartmouth and, just before the hostilities between the Colonists and the British started in earnest, was also the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the First Lord of Trade. Lord Dartmouth noticed that people throughout the Colonies appeared to be preparing for all-out war, so he sent … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 14, 1775

At one time there were rumors that Benjamin Franklin had lots and lots of children born out of wedlock. (Insert your favorite “lightning rod” joke here.) As usual, the real story is more complicated than that. Franklin courted a woman named Deborah Reed. At the time, he was 17 and she was 15, so her … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 13, 1775

Joseph Gist wasn’t an especially distinguished person, but you don’t have to be distinguised to get noticed on 250 and Counting. Gist was born in Union County, SC and while he moved to Charleston in his teen and college years, he moved to Pinckneyville to practice law. Pinckneyville was part of the Ninety-Six District, which … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 12, 1775

Francis Salvador was a man who is in the history books for two notable things: the day he was elected to public office, and the day he died in the Revoluationary War. That doesn’t ordinarily make a person notable, but Salvador had the distinction of being the first person of his faith to achieve these … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 11, 1775

James Sewall Morsell was a lawyer and then a judge in Maryland and Washington DC for the better part of his career. Perhaps most notable about his long tenure is that he handled freedom petitions for many Black Americans during the slavery era as the families’ representative, something that many other attorneys were not willing … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 10, 1775

Daniel Leonard was the son of a prominent family in the ironworks industry. He lived in Taunton, Massachusetts until shortly after he accepted a position working for the Royal Governor of the state, at which point he became unpopular enough that he was forced to move to Boston, which was under British occupation at the … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 9, 1775

It’s Cake and Candles today for Brigadier General John Harrison, born this day in 1775 in Pennsylvania. Harrison became a local official in his home county until the War of 1812, when he enlisted and his company was sent to defend Baltimore against the British in one of the war’s biggest victories for the American … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 8, 1775