Boston 1775

In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap , Paul Revere recalled a dramatic moment on 21 Apr 1775: The Friday evening after [the Battle o...

First in Boston 1775 postings and then in this article for the Journal of the American Revolution (also printed in this volume ), I posite...

Registration is open for the third Pursuit of History Weekend that I’ve helped to program, this one on “The Siege and Liberation of Bosto...

Here are more upcoming talks that look ahead to the Sestercentennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill . Tuesday, 10 June, 6:00 P.M. Courage ...

On Thursday, 5 June, Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown will host a panel discussion on the topic “Two Nations, One Battle: Bunke...

Earlier this week the president of Yale , Marie McInnis, offered inspiration to the graduating class from a work by much earlier graduate. ...

The printer Isaiah Thomas ’s family understood him to have been very active on the first day of the Revolutionary War. As stated in the p...

Back in 2011 , I quoted Isaiah Thomas ’s own account from October 1775 of how he’d slipped his printing press out of Boston just a couple o...

In his 1788 history of the American Revolution, the Rev. William Gordon shared this anecdote about what led up to the British army march o...

Yesterday I quoted the New York Post reporting that I think one of Dr. Joseph Warren ’s informants about the British operation on 18 Apr 1...

Next week I have two afternoon speaking engagements that will also be available online to people in the know. Monday, 14 April, 1:15 P.M...

This Thursday, 6 February, at 8:00 P.M. Samuel A. Forman and I will appear live on the History Camp Author Discussion feed , talking about t...

In June 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress commissioned its president, Dr. Joseph Warren , as a major general in the provincial ar...

On Saturday, 7 December, the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation will present a symposium in Williamsburg, Virginia, on the theme of “Illuminating...

Aside from rhetoric, the Suffolk County resolutions of 9 Sept 1774 differ from the Middlesex County resolutions of 31 August in some signi...

Yesterday I quoted the opening paragraphs of the Middlesex County Convention’s resolutions , adopted 31 Aug 1774. I was struck hard by on...

On 6 July 1774, sixty men from towns in Berkshire County met in Stockbridge as a county convention. On the colony’s western end, that gat...

On 17 June 1774, as Samuel Adams was orchestrating what would be the last session of the Massachusetts General Court under royal rule, hi...

Friday, 17 June 1774, turned out to be the last day the Massachusetts assembly met under the Crown. Before Gov. Thomas Gage shut them do...

June 1774 was a tense time in Boston. At the start of the month the harbor was closed to trade , with Royal Navy warships enforcing that ru...