Boston 1775

I’m sure everyone reading this has sampled several early American history podcasts. There really is a plethora of them, from both individual...

On Thursday, 8 Feb 1770, two and half centuries ago today , the Boston Whigs tried a new tactic in their pressure campaign against shopkee...

At the start of the Revolutionary War, William Eustis (1753-1825) was a medical student of Dr. Joseph Warren . A son of Dr. Benjamin Eus...

The Philadelphia Dancing Assembly planned to honor George Washington ’s birthday with a ball on 22 Feb 1798, but then elections were sched...

There appear to be a lot of changes happening at Colonial Williamsburg now. Some pandering (Halloween celebration, skating rink), some ord...

James Otis ’s 1783 will didn’t exactly brim with love for his oldest child, Elizabeth , who toward the end of the siege of Boston had marri...

Elizabeth Otis was born in Boston on 28 Mar 1757, the oldest child of James Otis, Jr. , and his wife, the former Ruth Cunningham . Betsy was...

On Thursday, 13 June, Historic New England will host a talk by Associate Curator Laura Johnson on “Skirts, Stays, and Skeleton Suits: Cloth...

When we left off with John S. Lillie on Tuesday , he was feeling triumphant about the election of Thomas Jefferson as President in 1800....

Last month Prof. Chris McDonough of the University of the South queried me about how Master John Lovell (shown here) of Boston’s South Lati...

As long as I’m writing about schools in Revolutionary Boston, I must address what’s often the most pressing question for children about to ...

Yesterday I quoted Harrison Gray Otis on his first day at the South Latin School in Boston. Today I quote his memory of his last day under...

Master John Lovell (shown here, in an image from the 1886 Catalogue of the Boston Public Latin School ) didn’t let just any child into Bost...

Pope Night was a—perhaps the —major holiday in colonial Boston, especially for working-class teenaged boys. After 1765 it became an occasio...

With corporal punishment in schools on the front page of today's New York Times , it seems timely to share more of Harrison Gray Otis...

The recent kerfuffle over a book distributed to every kindergartner in Maine, discussed on Oz and Ends , reminded me of the deep roots of th...