Revolution 250 Podcast

The Boston Town Watch  kept order on the streets of Boston, particularly at night. When soldiers of the Crown arrived in 1768 their overlapping authorities came into conflict, which deepened as Crown and colony careened towards war.  We talk with Nicole Breault of the University of Texas, El Paso, who is writing a book on the Boston Town Watch. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Few things shocked American patriots as the betrayal of General Benedict Arnold.  After attempting to surrender West Point to the British, Arnold led a series of raids, first in Virginia, and then in his native state of Connecticut.  Matthew E. Reardon has written a new account of Arnold's raid on New London and attack on Fort Griswold,  The Traitor's Homecoming; Benedict Arnold's R...

The first engagement against the Crown forces that involved soldiers from multiple provinces operating under a unified command.  The first use of field artillery by the Provincial forces. The destruction of the HMS Diana , whose mainmast was to be used to hoist the "Grand Union Flag" atop Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776.  Few engagements can boast so much, and yet the engagement that ha...

Few men were as highly esteemed and just a decade later despised beyond measure as Timothy Ruggles.  Ruggles was a hero of the French & Indian War, a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress from Massachusetts, a land owner, legislator and  community leader who had a large and prosperous family.  His daughter Bathsheba married a Boston man, Joshua Spooner, and their marriage was once described as &q...

Founded in 1923 through the gift of  William Lawrence Clements, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan is a fount of historical manuscripts, maps and rare books, particularly on the American Revolution .  Their collections include the papers of General Thomas Gage , and General Henry Clinton , two of the leading British military leaders during the American Revolution, as wel...

We are now deep into the Semiquincentennial commemoration of the events that led to American Independence.  2025 represents a watershed year as we commemorate the Battles of Lexington & Concord, Chelsea Creek and Bunker Hill.  Just in time to help us remember  these events, and why we are commemorating the 250th,  Professor Abby Chandler of UMass Lowell, has launched a new journal, Remembering...

After a stint in the Navy and forty years teaching history, Larry Kidder was curios about the lives of ordinary people in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.  He could not find a good book on the subject, so he started writing , and how he has told stories of the Revolution from the vantage point of New Jersey's militia. On Christmas Eve he joins us to share the epic story of General Washington cro...

John Dickinson burst onto the scene with his "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1767 and 1768.  He wrote "The Liberty Song,"  sung all over America, including at the 1769  Sons of Liberty dinner in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and the Continental Congress's Olive Branch Petition and with Jefferson  the "Declaration on the Ca...

In the place of Professor Cornelia Dayton who could not join us today, Professor Robert Allison presents a lecture on the military career of Benjamin Lincoln, who, with General George Washington and General Nathanael Greene were to only General officers to serve from the Siege of Boston to Yorktown.  Lincoln came from a distinguished family in Hingham, Massachusetts where the family held various t...

Today, the Revolution 250 Podcast revisits an episode from 2021.  Next May will be the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Chelsea Creek and plans are in preparation for the commemoration of this important event. The first time the patriots use artillery, the first time they sink a British ship, and the first time officers and men from different colonies stage a joint operation--the battle of Chels...

Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” remains one of the defining rebukes to the work of the Founders.  While Douglass admired the ideals of the Founders, their inability to extend their precepts of liberty to people of color Douglass considered a breach of the promise of America.  Frederick Douglass scholar and performer Nathan Richardson talks with us about D...

Lexington, Massachusetts has long been a tourist destination.  The Marquis de Lafayette famously made a visit during his tour of 1824 and the crowds have only grown since then.  The Inn at Hastings Park , established by Cordon Bleu-trained chef Tricia Perez Kennealy is where Revolutionary history and revolutionary hospitality have come together, just in time for the 250th Anniversary of the Americ...

He was born the year before the Revolution began.  His mother died before his 7th birthday.  His father ended up in debtor's prison and provided material aid to men involved in Shays's Rebellion. Yet his story is known to many and has been portrayed in song, story and animated movies across the world.  This is the story of John Chapman, aka "Johnny Appleseed" who left his impov...

For the last 250 years Americans remain conflicted over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution—including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. All of the social and political movements of the last two centuries have been shaped by the work of the founders and they in turn shape the way the next generations view the founding of the nation. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversa...

On July 4, 1776, two hundred miles northwest of Philadelphia, on Indigenous land along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, a group of colonial squatters declared their independence. They were not alone in their efforts. This bold symbolic gesture was just a small part of a much broader and longer struggle in the Northern Susquehanna River Valley, where diverse peoples, especially Indigenous...

Congregationalists--clergy and congregations—were the driving force in New England's Revolution.  Interpreting liberty  through their own religious framework, which included principles of autonomy, fellowship, and consensus, Congregationalists had much to say about  liberty in church records, letters, and sermon literature.  Kyle Roberts, Executive Director of the Congregational Library and A...

In between the abortive call from Governor Thomas Gage for the legislature to convene in Salem on the 5th of October 1774, and the formation by those same legislators of a Provincial Congress on the 7th October 1774, a terrible fire took place in Salem.  The fire destroyed more than a dozen buildings and numerous homes and caused more than £20,000 in damage.  Join Professor Robert Allison in conve...

Was it the embattled farmers and Sons of Liberty, or the indebted planters shouting "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" that brought on the Revolution? Who held the first Provincial Convention or Congress? Who was first to resist the Crown's troops?  Join us for a debate between Robert A. Gross , author of The Minutemen and their World , and Woody Holton , author of Forced Founders...

June 14, 2025 will be the 250th anniversary of the formation of the US Army by the 2nd Continental Congress.  In preparation to celebrate the Army's birthday and to comemmorate the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution, the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir will debut a new exhibit on April 19, 2025.  Bringing together more than 200 artifacts from around the nat...

A conversation with award-winning author Ray Anthony Shepard , who is introducing young readers to stories from American history focused on race.  He has written on the the vaunted 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Infantry, as well as a book about Ona Judge , a seamstress who escaped from the Washington household, and is has just finished The Forgotten: Patriots of Color at Lexington & Concord ,...

The Sons of Liberty exulted over the Boston Tea Party, but they also would have been familiar with the proverb "he who dances must pay the piper."  The "piper" in this case turned out to be General Thomas Gage who arrived in Boston in May of 1774 to replace Thomas Hutchinson as Royal Governor of Massachusetts.  With Gage arrived several regiments of British soldiers and several...

Few images of the Battle of Bunker Hill are as evocative as Colonell William Prescott striding up and down the walls of the redoubt, his sword drawn, his banyan fluttering in the breeze as the British regiments marched up the hill.  The stalwart defense of Prescott and his troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill established the American army as a formidable foe for the British army.  For all this, the...

Thomas Jefferson contained multitudes.  Like the nation he helped to create, Jefferson was a fascinating man of contradictions:  a party leader who did not believe in political parties, an apostle of liberty who owned others, and a "man of the people" who lived atop a mountain.  His mountaintop home, Monticello , since 1923 has been maintained by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which pr...

The Mullica River in southern New Jersey was a haven for American privateers, who in the fall of 1778 had eighteen captured British vessels at anchor, their cargoes delivered to Washington's army.  Sir Henry Clinton sent a raiding party from New York, which burned the ships and the town of Chestnut Neck.  The town rebuilt quickly, but the wrecks lay undisturbed on the river bottom until archa...

 Ruthanne Paulson and Deborah Potee have created a musical, "Oh, That Dreadful Tea," designed to allow kids to experience the thrill of performing and telling the story of the Boston Tea Party through song and drama.  Their musical is designed to make this pivotal event more memorable and impactful for elementary and middle school students. Find out more in our conversation!  Tell us wha...