“Now resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress”

The ninety men assembled in Salem on Wednesday, 5 Oct 1774, as described yesterday, waited for Gen. Thomas Gage or another royal official to appear.

No one did.

So the next day they met under their own authority, and the day after that they approved their first resolves. These said, in part:

The members aforesaid so attending, having considered the measures which his excellency [the governor] has been pleased to take by his said proclamation, and finding them to be unconstitutional, unjust, and disrespectful to the province, think it their duty to pass the following resolves: . . .

2dly. That the constitutional government of the inhabitants of this province, being, by a considerable military force at this time attempted to be superseded and annulled: and the people, under the most alarming and just apprehensions of slavery, having, in their laudable endeavors to preserve themselves therefrom, discovered, upon all occasions, the greatest aversion to disorder and tumult, it must be evident to all attending to his excellency’s said proclamation, that his representations of the province as being in a tumultuous and disordered state, are reflections the inhabitants have by no means merited; and, therefore, that they are highly injurious and unkind. . . .

4thly. That some of the causes assigned as aforesaid for this unconstitutional and wanton prevention of the general court, have, in all good governments, been considered among the greatest reasons for convening a parliament or assembly; and, therefore, the proclamation is considered as a further proof, not only of his excellency’s disaffection towards the province, but of the necessity of its most vigorous and immediate exertions for preserving the freedom and constitution thereof.

Upon a motion made and seconded,

Voted, That the members aforesaid do now resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress, to be joined by such other persons as have been or shall be chosen for that purpose, to take into consideration the dangerous and alarming situation of public affairs in this province, and to consult and determine on such measures as they shall judge will tend to promote the true interest of his majesty, and the peace, welfare and prosperity of the province.

Back at the start of August, Virginian politicians had gathered as an unofficial legislature in defiance of Gov. Dunmore, who was conveniently off prosecuting his war in the west. They called that gathering the Virginia Convention.

In North Carolina, the royal governor, Josiah Martin, and his appointed Council had made clear they wouldn’t convene the legislature until the spring of 1775. Therefore, towns sent delegates to New Bern to meet on 25–27 August. This was the first body to call itself a provincial congress. That gathering sent delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, condemned the Coercive Acts on Massachusetts, promised a boycott, and asserted loyalty to the king.

The new Massachusetts Provincial Congress delegates did two official things on Friday, 7 October:

• Elected John Hancock of Boston as chairman and Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham as clerk. Massachusetts’s legislative leaders Thomas Cushing and Samuel Adams were in Philadelphia, leaving Hancock as the most prominent member of Boston’s delegation in Salem.
• Decided to meet in Concord, out of reach of the Royal Navy, on 11 October.

TOMORROW: Commemorating the legislating.

“My intention not to meet the said general court”

On 17 June 1774, as I recounted back here, Gen. Thomas Gage dissolved the Massachusetts General Court.

Gage acted under his authority as the royal governor. The Massachusetts charter of 1691 let him decide when the legislature would meet besides “upon every last Wednesday in the month of May,” which it had already done.

On 1 September, Gov. Gage sent out messages to the towns to elect representatives to a new General Court, to convene in Salem on 5 October.

By that time, the Massachusetts Government Act had arrived, and the governor had started to swear in his new appointed Council.

However, resistance to that law was also heating up. Western counties were closing their courts. Towns were demanding that Council members resign or driving them away. Even Salem defied the governor by holding a town meeting and choosing delegates to an Essex County convention despite troops camped nearby.

Gage apparently felt that reconvening the legislature would mollify enough of the population while that morning’s operation to remove gunpowder from the Charlestown storehouse would limit the potential for insurrection by the rest.

Instead, his soldiers’ action prompted the “Powder Alarm” mobilization. The general finally realized the opposition was widespread, not just a layer of troublemakers in the ports. Within a couple of days he was fortifying Boston against the countryside.

It therefore couldn’t have surprised anyone in the colony that on 28 September Gen. Gage issued this proclamation:

Whereas, on the first day of September instant, I thought fit to issue writs for calling a great and general court, or assembly, to be convened and held at Salem, in the county of Essex, on the fifth day of October next; and whereas, from the many tumults and disorders which have since taken place, the extraordinary resolves which have been passed in many of the counties, the instructions given by the town of Boston, and some other towns, to their representatives, and the present disordered and unhappy state of the province, it appears to me highly inexpedient that a great and general court should be convened at the time aforesaid; but that a session at some more distant day will best tend to promote his majesty’s service and the good of the province; I have, therefore, thought fit to declare my intention not to meet the said general court, at Salem, on the said fifth day of October next.

And I do hereby excuse and discharge all such persons as have been, or may be elected and deputed representatives to serve at the same, from giving their attendance: any thing in the aforesaid writs contained to the contrary notwithstanding: whereof all concerned are to take notice and govern themselves accordingly.

By then, however, lots of towns had already met to elect representatives. (Given the new law, it made sense to grab every excuse for a town meeting, after all.)

Furthermore, many of those towns also authorized men to represent them at a provincial congress. Some chose different delegates for the official legislature and this unofficial body. Others, foreseeing Gage’s about-face, told their General Court representatives to attend such a congress if necessary.

On 5 October, ninety men gathered in Salem. This was a small number compared to the usual legislative opening session. But then no one expected there to be a real legislative session.

Instead, the men waited out that Wednesday. By the end of the day, neither Gov. Gage nor an official representative, such as Lt. Gov. Thomas Oliver, had appeared. So they felt free to act on their own.

TOMORROW: Thursday and Friday.

“Revolutionary Views” on View in Lexington

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library in Lexington has an exhibition up now titled “Revolutionary Views: The American War for Independence in Print.”

The prints come from British, American, and European publishers, reflecting a range of views on the subjects.

As a posting on the museum’s blog says about one British print:

Published in 1780, the year after the clash occurred, The Memorable Engagement of Capt. Pearson of the Serapis illustrates the Battle of Flamborough Head in vivid detail. The engagement was an American naval victory that made John Paul Jones a household name. The inscription on this print expresses the English perspective, which put a positive spin on the conflict, praising Captain Richard Pearson, “whose bravery & conduct saved the Baltic Fleet under his Convoy though obliged to submit to a much superior force . . .”

The images also reflect the times in which they appeared. There was a flurry of pictures of ordinary patriotic Americans at the start of the Civil War, evoking the spirit that produced the union in the first place. The Centennnial period, in contrast, inspired heroic depictions of particular Revolutionary events and heroes.

Yet sometimes these pieces of popular art were meant to be decorative and light. The picture above shows soldiers, women, and barefoot children romping through an encampment in London’s Hyde Park. It was published in 1780. You’d hardly guess there was a war on.

The museum is open Monday through Friday, and on select Saturdays, from 9:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Admission and parking are free. The prints exhibit will be up until September 2025.

“Coffin then took to ‘posting’ Campbell in public places”

I recommend Todd Braisted’s article “Damn’d Good Shots: A Matter of Honor on the Streets of New York, 1783,” shared on the Gotham Center website.

One of the central figures in this story is John Coffin, born in Boston around 1751. His father, Nathaniel Coffin, held a high rank in the local Customs office, and other members of the family were merchants. They were also Anglicans, giving them two reasons to support the Crown.

Coffin is said to have fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, but exactly how is unclear. The record shows him joining a Loyalist regiment in January 1777. Braisted picks up the story:

The New Englander started his military career somewhat oddly in a regiment raised in the Hudson Valley, Lt. Col. John Bayard’s King’s Orange Rangers.

After a series of run-ins with a fellow officer, Lt. John Cummings, Coffin found he could no longer stay, at least comfortably, in the Rangers. In July 1778 he exchanged units with Captain John Howard, an officer in similar circumstances in his own corps, thereafter serving in the New York Volunteers. The New York Volunteers, one of the first Provincial units raised in the war, would serve with distinction for the following four years in the south.

Coffin, at the head of the regiment’s light infantry company, fought at the taking and defense of Savannah, Brier Creek, Purysburg, Siege of Charleston, Rocky Mount, Hobkirk’s Hill, Eutaw Springs and numerous other skirmishes. . . .

While with his new corps in Charleston and later back in New York after the British evacuated the south, Coffin had many conversations and observations concerning Lt. [George] Col. Campbell’s conduct as a commanding officer. . . .

Virtually every one of the officers under his command stepped forward and detailed the tension in the regiment and the terrible fatigues it had undergone, and how Lt. Col. Campbell had contributed negatively to everything. The court agreed. They found him guilty of falsely accusing Captain [Abraham] DePeyster, not accounting for large sums of the regiment’s money and acting in a tyrannical and oppressive manner. For all of these, he was sentenced to be suspended without pay for six months.

But the tension was not over. Major Coffin had not served long in the regiment, but what he had seen and experienced led him to an instant dislike of Campbell. After the sentence of the court a “fracas” occurred in the street between the two officers, which led to a serious verbal exchange. Coffin then took to “posting” Campbell in public places; that is to say, he wrote extremely inflammatory pieces about him and put them up in public places to draw Campbell into a duel, or send him away in disgrace.

Read the article to learn what happened next, who got seriously hurt, and what happened after that.

“Others destined to inhabit the lower rungs of society as servants”

An extract from Daniel N. Gullotta’s review for Providence magazine of Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield by Sean McGever.

McGever highlights:

…the deeply hierarchical view of the world held by [Jonathan] Edwards, [John] Wesley, [George] Whitefield, and their evangelical contemporaries. From their perspective, just as God ordains some to be princes and governors, so too are others destined to inhabit the lower rungs of society as servants, laborers, and even slaves.

Slavery, therefore, was believed to be ordained by God and, in the words of Puritan clergyman William Gouge, such an understanding was “clearly and plentifully noted in the Scripture, that any one who is any whit acquainted therewith may know them to be so.”

While such views seem counterintuitive to our modern-day egalitarian norms, McGever adeptly explains why 18th-century evangelicals would have perceived our anti-hierarchical tendencies as nothing but a “hellish confusion” to borrow a description from the Puritan theologian John Owen.

Despite their divinely ordered view of the world, 18th-century evangelicals, following their theological ancestors, acknowledged that slavery was a sinful product of the fall. The question for most Christian thinkers was not whether slavery was biblical, but rather how it could be practiced biblically.

The book discusses how Whitefield promoted importing enslaved Africans as a solution for Georgia’s labor problems. Edwards wrote little on slavery for public consumption but defended and practiced it privately. As for the last of these prominent evangelists: 

Later in life, Wesley felt compelled to speak out as the abolitionist movement, driven primarily by Quakers in the 1770s, gained momentum. Readers might be surprised at how little Scripture he used in his shift to opposing slavery, favoring instead ideas drawn from natural law and reasoning. McGever…theorizes that Wesley would never have adopted his abolitionist stance had he been raised in America or even just spent more time there, arguing for the essential contingency of many deeply held beliefs.

Studying the Military Side of the Declaration

The Center for the Study of Tennesseans and War and the University of Tennessee Department of History have announced a one-day symposium on “the military history of the Declaration of Independence” to be held at the university on 1 March 2025.

Here is the call for papers:

As the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence approaches, it is important to remember that this foundational document was written during a war. The Seven Years’ War, the Proclamation of 1763, settlers’ westward expansion, and Native American resistance shaped the contours of the Declaration specifically in this line item pertaining to George III’s tyranny: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”

British naval impressment, an early modern cold war between Great Britain and France, nearby naval bases, and naval manning problems all influenced the writing of this additional reference to George III’s despotism: “He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.”

Hessian auxiliaries, British military occupation, naval bombardments, civilian casualties, “Quartering large bodies of armed troops,” and standing armies were all cited in the Declaration as evidence of “the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

The Declaration was, in large part, a Congressional war measure. It was meant to convince potential allies overseas and fence-sitters at home that the British government had devolved into a tyranny.

The conference organizers want proposals to fill eight 20-minute sessions and plan to publish the proceedings in an edited collection. Chosen speakers have their registration fee waived, but the event cannot cover travel and accommodation costs.

Scholars are invited to submit a 200-word abstract and a c.v. by email by 1 Oct 2024 to Dr. Chris Magra, director of the Center for the Study of Tennesseans and War. (Here’s the full call as a Google Doc.)

The Triumph of the Barnstable Crowd

As recounted yesterday, on 27 Sept 1774 a reported 1,500 people surrounded the courthouse in Barnstable, refusing to let the county court session begin.

The local justices kept assuring the crowd that they, too, were concerned about the Massachusetts Government Act and other Coercive Acts, but they felt they should sit to hear local cases.

The committee chosen by the crowd, led by Dr. Nathaniel Freeman, told the justices that wasn’t satisfactory. That day apparently ended in a stalemate with the courthouse still closed.

The committee drafted a promise for each justice to sign, promising not to act under the new laws, even if that meant losing their governmental appointment. Then the crowd decided that sheriffs, deputies, and anyone else holding a royal commission do the same.

Feeling even more expansive, the crowd went on to demand that a local who had threatened (jokingly, he said) to cut down Barnstable’s Liberty Pole promise never to do that. That man made himself scarce.

Finally, the crowd voted to ask James Otis, Sr., a longtime member of the Massachusetts Council under the previous constitution, to go to Salem in case Gov. Thomas Gage went through with his initial plan to convene the Massachusetts General Court there.

On 28 September, 250 years ago today, several justices and other royal appointees signed the crowd’s promises. Otis promised to go to Salem. The crowd marched back to the courthouse, drums sounding. There they resolved to provide arms for their defense, not to buy any imported goods, and “endeavor to suppress mobs and riots” (as well as “common peddlers”).

In 1830, Barnstable County built a new, larger courthouse. The 1763 building was eventually sold to a Baptist church that expanded and remodeled it, as shown above. Then in 1972 it became the headquarters of Tales of Cape Cod. But somewhere within that building is the courthouse at the center of a political protest in 1774. 

Around Barnstable County’s Courthouse

In 1763 Barnstable County commissioned a new courthouse. The sketch here shows one man’s memory of how it looked in the early 1800s.

The building wasn’t large. There was no separate jury room, for instance; juries deliberated in a nearby tavern.

The court records were stored in another building nearby, which burned down in 1827, leaving us records of only a handful of cases from colonial Barnstable County.

On 27 Sept 1774, 250 years ago today, there was supposed to be a court session in this building. 

However, back in August the men of Berkshire County had created a new meme for Massachusetts’s Patriot resistance: closing the courts as a protest against the Massachusetts Government Act. That law changed the constitution of the colony and the way juries were chosen.

Over the following weeks crowds shut down court sessions in one Massachusetts county after another, either by entering the building and refusing to let any judges enter, or by surrounding the building so no one dared to try.

On 26 September, men from the counties of Barnstable, Plymouth, and Bristol gathered in Rochester to plan the closing of the Barnstable Courthouse. 

On the morning of 27 September about 1,500 people assembled around that small building. They chose a committee to speak for them with Dr. Nathaniel Freeman of Sandwich as the leader.

Deputy sheriff Job Howland moved to ring the bell atop the building to signal the start of the court session. The crowd told him to stop.

Justices arrived to work. The crowd asked them to wait outside while they finished writing an address about the unconstitutionality of Parliament’s latest laws. After that document was read, some of the justices insisted that their own, older commissions were valid and that canceling the session would cause hardships.

Both sides spoke of adhering to whatever the upcoming Provincial Congress or the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia advised. But that didn’t resolve the question of what to do that day, 27 September.

TOMORROW: Signatures and James Otis. 

Copy of the Proposed New Constitution for Sale in North Carolina

Document dealer Seth Kaller alerted me to an unusual artifact up for sale through Brunk Auctions on Saturday, 28 September.

At the end of the Constitutional Convention, that body sent its report to the Confederation Congress, then meeting in New York. That report took the form of the draft constitution.

The Congress accepted that report and had 100 copies printed on 28 Sept 1787. Charles Thomson, the Congress’s secretary, sent official copies to the states with the invitation to convene ratification conventions.

In North Carolina, Gov. Samuel Johnston presided over a convention in Hillsborough from 21 July to 4 August 1788. In the end they voted 184 to 84 to…reach no decision. The Anti-Federalist contingent insisted on a Bill of Rights, among other things. But they weren’t ready to reject the document outright.

All of the other states but Rhode Island did approve the new Constitution, however—some linking that approval to a Bill of Rights (saying “yes as long as…” rather than “no unless…”). The new federal government formed with only eleven states participating.

On 10 May 1789, Gov. Johnston and the North Carolina Council approved an address to George Washington, congratulating him on becoming President. That letter expressed hope that Congress would start the process of adding to the Constitution to “remove the apprehensions of many of the good Citizens of this State for those liberties for which they have fought and suffered in common with others.”

Washington was too ill to reply right away, but on 19 June he wrote back that he was “impressed with an idea that the Citizens of your State are sincerely attached to the Interest, the Prosperity and the Glory of America.”

In a letter to Rep. James Madison, Johnston responded, “Every one is very much pleased with the President’s answer to our Address. I have agreeably to your Wishes published them…” The exchange appeared in the State Gazette of North Carolina and in a broadside.

On 25 September, Congress approved twelve amendments to the Constitution. In November, North Carolinians gathered for another discussion of ratification, once again under Gov. Johnston. Public opinion had swung in favor of the new form of government, or at least not being left out of it. This time the vote was 194 to 77 for the Constitution.

Johnston then resigned as governor to become one of North Carolina’s first two U.S. Senators. On leaving Congress in 1793, he moved to another plantation, leaving his Hayes Farm in the hands of his son, James Cathcart Johnston. While having children with an emancipated mistress, Johnston never married, and in 1865 he bequeathed the property to his friend Edward Wood.

In recent years the Wood descendants started the process of turning that estate into a public historic site. In 2022, people cleaning the house looked through a file cabinet and found:

• A copy of the printed Constitution signed by Thomson and evidently sent to North Carolina. This is one of only seven such copies known and the only one in private hands. The last time a copy was sold was in 1891.
• A 1776 printing of the proposed Articles of Confederation.
• A printing of the proceedings of the Hillsborough Convention, the one that rejected the Constitution. 
• A copy of the broadside promulgating North Carolina’s letter to Washington and the new President’s reply.

I happen to be in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, as I type this, so I could conceivably attend this auction on Saturday. But since I’m here for another event, and since the opening bid for the printed and signed Constitution is $1,000,000, I won’t be in the bidding.

Three Events on Saturday, 28 Sept.

This Saturday, 28 September, will see a number of local events linked to Revolutionary history.

10:00 to 11:00 A.M.
How We Remember
Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington

The Arlington Historical Society, Arlington 250, and Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area host a walking tour of Revolutionary sites in central Arlington, including a newly installed monument.

Historical references point to a mass grave of 40 British regulars who died on April 19, 1775 in the retreat from Lexington and Concord. A recent Ground Penetrating Radar study revealed disturbed soil in this location consistent with a mass grave. A permanent monument, dedicated September 7, 2024, now marks this historic site.

Our program will begin with a brief tour of the Jason Russell House where British bullet holes from April 19th, 1775 can still be seen. We will then walk a flat and easy 0.3 miles to the Old Burying Ground, passing Robbins Memorial Town Hall, a statue by Cyrus Dallin, the Winfield Robbins Memorial Gardens and the Whittemore-Robbins House.

Arriving at the Old Burying Ground, we will see the recently dedicated Monument to the Fallen Crown Soldiers who Died on April 19, 1775 and the 2023 Monument to Enslaved and Free Persons of Color in Menotomy who are buried in the same area. Before returning to the Jason Russell House, we will visit the 1848 Revolutionary War Monument that marks the burial site of Jason Russell and 11 of his fellow Patriots who fell on April 19th, 1775.

Space is limited to twelve people, so register in advance. 

10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Sudbury Ancient Colonial Faire and Fife & Drum Muster
Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, Sudbury

The annual fair in Sudbury includes a colonial encampment, militia and crafts demonstrations, contradancing, and dozens of food and craft vendors. Twenty-five fife and drum corps from across the Northeast are scheduled to perform.

The Grand Parade of fifes and drums will begin at noon; this year there is a new route that starts in front of the camping area. After the groups reach the fair grounds, each performs in turn, providing music through the afternoon.

Admission is $3 cash at the gate. Nearby parking is free.

4:00 to 5:30 P.M.
Battle of Menotomy: Myth, Lore & History
Rebecca Nurse Homestead, Danvers

Prof. Donald Hayes, a longtime member of the Danvers Alarm List Company, will present his recent research on the role that the Danvers militias played in the fighting at Menotomy during the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Danvers lost seven men that day, second only to Lexington itself. He will highlight what is lore and what is documented fact. Reserve free tickets here.

“Brushes with the law reshaped rural time consciousness”

The topic of this seminar at the David Center for the American Revolution in Philadelphia caught my eye: “The Triumph of Bank Time in the Early Republic.”

The scholar sharing that paper, Dr. Justin Clark, is Senior Lecturer in the History Department at Cornell University and formerly an Associate Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His current projects include the anthology A Cultural History of Time in the Age of Empire and Industry (1789–1914) and his own book A Clockwork Republic.

Here’s the abstract that Clark probably wrote for the seminar series, probably months back, so it may or may not reflect his work as it’s coming out:

Historians have long believed that Americans relinquished more “natural” forms of time consciousness only with the industrial developments of the antebellum period: mass-produced clocks and watches, railroad timetables, and growing reliance on factory wage labor. Yet as this paper argues, rural republicans had already developed a more modern and abstract understanding of time by the 1790s.

Throughout the eighteenth century, an intermediate network of coastal merchants, wholesalers, and village shopkeepers connected manufacturers in the British Isles with rural producers in the colonies. By quietly pricing interest—the time value of money—into the cost of goods, inland shopkeepers protected the rural customer who paid by the harvest with the Liverpool merchant who charged interest by the day. The accommodation between these two financial cultures collapsed with the Revolution, as an examination of account books, commercial correspondence, newspapers, and other sources shows.

After 1783, as a condition for renewing commerce with their newly independent American counterparts, British merchants demanded the swift repayment of old debts with interest. These demands quickly travelled down the chain of debt from coastal importer to villager, such that rural debtors found themselves dragged not only into court, learning in the process what Franklin’s urban artisans already knew: “Time is money.” As one agricultural journal urged in 1799, “every minute thou hast ever spent in consulting Almanacks for the weather, has been entirely lost, or very foolishly employed”; time was better spent watching the financial calendar.

Long before the appearance of the steamboat, train, village clock or factory, these brushes with the law reshaped rural time consciousness. Ultimately, this paper argues, impersonal and inflexible demands for punctuality played an overlooked but significant role in contemporary episodes of agrarian resistance such as Shays’ Rebellion.

Time working as it does, I won’t be able to log into this seminar because I’ll be traveling. And since this seminar is a discussion of a work in progress, it won’t be recorded. We’ll have to wait until Clark publishes. But already the concepts are giving me something to think about on the plane.

For folks interested in the history of Boston, Justin Clark’s previous book is City of Second Sight: Nineteenth-Century Boston and the Making of American Visual Culture.

Duane on “The Hidden History of America’s Children,” 25 Sept.

On Wednesday, 25 September, Old North Illuminated will host an online talk by Anna Mae Duane titled “Cradle to Revolution: The Hidden History of America's Children.”

The event description says:

When we think about Americans who changed the course of history, we rarely think about children. In the popular imagination, young people usually stand on the sidelines of history, sheltered and coddled by the adults who really make things happen. In reality, however, children have played a vital part in American politics and culture since the colonial era.

In this online talk, Dr. Anna Mae Duane of the University of Connecticut will explore the often-overlooked role of children in shaping the course of early American history. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Revolutionary War and the fight against slavery, Dr. Duane will reveal how young voices and actions influenced pivotal moments in our nation's past, including revolutionary changes in social and political structures.

Duane is a professor of English and director of the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute. She is particularly interested in “how definitions of youth and childhood shape culture and policy in ways that require the abdication of rights in order to claim care.” Duane has written and edited six books, including Suffering Childhood in Early America.

To register for this virtual event, go to this page, press the Get Tickets button, and make a donation of any amount to Old North Illuminated. You’ll receive a Zoom link by email. Prof. Duane’s talk is scheduled to start at 7:00 P.M.

“Winning Independence” with General Washington

Here’s yet another video that’s interesting as a representation of the Revolution for modern Americans.

The modern Americans of 1932, that is.

That year, the U.S. of A. celebrated the 200th anniversary of George Washington’s birth, a division of Kodak called Eastman Classroom produced four fifteen-minute movies about him with the blanket title George Washington: His Life and Times.

The screenshots in this posting are from the installment “Winning Independence,” as put on YouTube by Periscope Films.

Though talking pictures had become standard entertainment by that time, schools still weren’t wired for sound, so these films were made as silent movies, with an emphasis on visuals.

Judging by the number of men shown, the battlefield scenes must have had high budgets. The image above shows grenadiers marching up Bunker Hill, looking very much like Howard Pyle’s painting of that scene. There are also animated maps.

The narrative is standard: Washington provides discipline for the army, loses New York, wins at Trenton and Princeton, loses Philadelphia the next year, learns enough at Valley Forge to win at Monmouth, and then there’s a jump over several years with just a quick mention of Charleston and Gen. Nathanael Greene before we arrive at Yorktown.

The credits thank William Randolph Hearst for the impressive scenes of Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River on the night of 25–26 Dec 1776. Some of those shots match the 1924 feature Janice Meredith, starring Hearst’s inamorata Marion Davies.

The other movies in the series are “Conquering the Wilderness,” “United the Colonies,” and “Building the Nation.” 

Some Recent Videos

Here are some videos you might like.

From the American Battlefield Trust, footage from the 249th-anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Lexington and Concord at Minute Man National Historical Park in April.


From Fort Ticonderoga, here’s a link scenes from the site’s reenactment of the capture of British cannons atop Mount Defiance during Col. John Brown’s raid on the area in 1777.

Finally, from History Camp, with the help of Phil Lupsiewicz, here’s a link to my talk from last month’s gathering on “Beyond the Thirteen: The American Colonies that Stayed with Britain.”