Boston 1775

Yesterday we left William Jackson on the road from Portsmouth, New Hampshire , to Boston, having reached the town of Newburyport on 11 Apr...

When I started to look at the Continental capture of the brig Elizabeth in early April 1776, I didn’t expect to find so much drama and mys...

On 13 Apr 1776, the Massachusetts General Court decided that “ Caleb Wheaton and others [well, other men ], who were taken aboard the brig...

Ashley Bowen was a sailrigger in Marblehead who kept a diary for many years, published in print and online by the Colonial Society of Mass...

In the summer and fall of 1783, Lt. Joseph Wheaton was feuding with another Continental Army officer. Among the issues was the accusation ...

Yesterday I shared part of a letter Joseph Wheaton wrote in 1818 about how men from Machias, Maine , captured H.M.S. Margaretta early in ...

Where were Caleb Wheaton, Sr. ’s sons when the Revolutionary War began in April 1775? Wheaton made his home on a substantial riverside plo...

The story of Joseph Wheaton ’s defection from his Loyalist family to the Continental Army was passed down in both branches of the divided ...

Winthrop Sargent, Sr. ’s list of civilian men captured on the Elizabeth on 2 Apr 1776 and brought into Gloucester included (in his unique ...

In yesterday’s discussion of how the Massachusetts legislature dealt with Loyalists captured on the Elizabeth in April 1776, I left out ...

A lot of the correspondence that followed the Continental capture of the Elizabeth in April 1776 involved money. First, there was the cos...

It didn’t take long for New England Patriots to realize that Cdre. John Manley ’s capture of the Elizabeth on 2 April 1776 was a big deal. ...

As Crean Brush was seizing linen and woolens for the British military in March 1776, some of the wealthy merchants who owned that cloth com...

Samuel Austin , quoted yesterday , wasn’t the only Boston merchant to complain about how Crean Brush had confiscated cloth in March 1776. ...