Boston 1775

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence , multiple institutions in greater Boston have collaborated to lay ...

Alongside Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw ’s declaration of what he’d said about the first shots of the war, quoted yesterday , Lt. Col. William Walcott...

Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw went out of Boston with his soldiers in the 5th Regiment of Foot on 19 Apr 1775. He came back wounded. The always he...

Sestercentennial talks are starting to come fast. I’ll have some of mine to announce soon, and here are two happening tonight and tomorrow....

Last month Alexander Cain at Historical Nerdery announced a resource for people researching the Battle of Lexington and Concord ahead of ...

Ezra Lunt and Henry-Walter Tinges printed the Essex Journal in Newburyport with the financial backing of Isaiah Thomas , who made a hasty...

Bostonians gathered on short notice in Faneuil Hall for a town meeting on 5 Nov 1773. Their first act was to choose John Hancock as moder...

As related in yesterday’s posting , a storm in September 1767 pushed a schooner packed with whale oil onto Cape Cod . But that ship was...

Earlier this month the Newport Historical Society shared Amelia Yeager’s essay on a question about the career of Phillis Wheatley : Why did...

The Wonderful Appearance of an Angel, Devil and Ghost described the experiences of an unnamed “Gentleman of Boston” over the course of thre...

On 8 Dec 1774, with the Massachusetts government riven, the port of Boston closed , and more redcoat soldiers arriving in town from other p...

On Monday, 14 September, I’ll deliver an online presentation through Historic Beverly on “When Washington Went to War at Sea: How Beverly...

On 22 July 1774, more than half a year after the Boston Tea Party , this item appeared in Daniel Fowle ’s New-Hampshire Gazette : Mr. FO...

On 2 Mar 1850 the Boston Evening Transcript published a letter over the signature “Native Bostonian.” The editors described the writer as...

As I reported yesterday , in February 1769 the printer Ezekiel Russell advertised the publication of Pvt. William Clarke ’s play The Mis...

When I read the broadside seeking money to print William Clarke ’s play The Miser: or, The Soldier’s Humour in 1768, I thought the (ver...

As I quoted back here , on 14 Nov 1771 the Massachusetts Spy published an essay signed “Mucius Scævola” that called Gov. Thomas Hutchinso...

When Isaiah Thomas reached Halifax in early 1765, he didn’t have much. That’s what happens when you leave your apprenticeship early. Havin...

Daniel George was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on 16 Dec 1757, son of David and Anne (Cottle) George. He was the second boy named Dan...