Boston 1775

Last month I faced a Boston 1775 emergency. Which was, of course, not really an emergency. No one was in the least danger. I just felt an...

While looking at the diary of Thomas Newell this spring, I was struck by this dramatic entry for 29 May 1773, 252 years ago today: King’s s...

One ciphered line in the diary of Thomas Newell was still mysterious to me, even after being transcribed and published by the Massachusetts...

Thomas Newell ’s diary makes clear that he opposed Parliament ’s tea tax in 1773, as most Bostonians did. On 2 December, for instance, he wr...

Here are all the entries from Thomas Newell ’s 1774–74 diary that pertain to artillery and thus show the coming of war. 4 June 1773: “ Kin...

As discussed yesterday , Thomas Newell wrote several lines in his 1773–74 diary in cipher. Since one of those lines coincides with Newel...

Last month I went to a one-day display of interesting Revolutionary documents from the Boston Public Library’s Archives & Special Collec...

The second Boston Tea Party cemented the “Indian disguises” aspect of the events. On the morning after the Fortune arrived in Boston har...

At three o’clock in the afternoon of Sunday, 6 Mar 1774, Bostonians were jolted by the arrival of the brig Fortune . More specifically, pe...

On Tuesday, 24 September, I’m going to be testifying at the Massachusetts State House about a search for weapons of mass destruction. We...