Boston 1775

In late 1783, Benjamin Davis, Sr. , and Benjamin Davis, Jr., sailed out of New York harbor, their second evacuation to Canada in the cours...

As the year 1777 began, the Loyalist Benjamin Davis remained in the Boston jail along with his son and an enslaved servant. Davis refus...

In the newspaper reports on the May 1775 fire on Boston’s Town Dock, Benjamin Davis ’s name appears only as the man who used to use (“impr...

Yesterday I wrote about Benjamin and Edward Davis , two brothers who were mercantile partners in Boston until religion and Revolutionary ...

On 27 Apr 1782, Elizabeth Hill died, “greatly lamented by her Family and Neighbours,” the New-York Gazette reported two days later. In t...

We left John Hill , his wife Elizabeth (?), and his daughter in the Boston jail in February 1777, suspected of “being Enemical to the Sta...

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

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 ...

Capt.-Lt. Archibald Robertson , British military engineer, sailed out of Boston harbor on 25 Mar 1776. Robertson’s ship was an army trans...

Even after the destruction of Castle William , described yesterday, Judge Peter Oliver ’s ship Pacific remained in Boston’s outer harbor, ...

Lt. Nahum Ward, son of Gen. Artemas Ward , carried Gen. George Washington ’s letter (quoted yesterday) to Josiah Quincy , Esq. (shown here),...

From yesterday we continue with Robert Woolf ’s reminiscence of being a teen-aged businessman caught in the siege of Boston in the spring ...

Whenever I recount a story at length, I like to add some new sources, connections, or interpretations. I don’t want to just repeat what othe...

As recounted yesterday , in August 1776 the Continental Congress voted to send Basile Boudrot to Massachusetts to be tried for murderin...

According to the New-York Journal article I quoted yesterday , on 10 July 1776 Basile Boudrot was sent from New York to Newburyport to s...

In the April 1776 letter from Capt. Hector McNeill to Col. Benedict Arnold (shown here) that I quoted yesterday is the line, “My William F...

On 29 Aug 1775, Capt. Hector McNeill arrived in Québec on board another captain’s ship from Dominica . He brought false news of a battle ...

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the disappearance of Capt. Thomas Parsons , his ship , and his crew in early 1772. As colon...

Alas, the first newspaper printed in Newburyport , Massachusetts, Henry-Walter Tinges ’s Essex Journal and Merrimack Packet , wasn’t founde...