Boston 1775

A few days after Timothy Pickering delivered an Independence Day oration in Salem in 1823, casting doubt on Thomas Jefferson ’s importanc...

In August 1822, Timothy Pickering wrote to John Adams with questions about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence . Pickering...

One of the questions asked after yesterday’s talk on young Benjamin Thompson ’s life in America was whether he interacted with any represen...

At Historic New England, Erica Lome, curator of collections, shared a behind-the-scenes essay about a warming pan with a Revolutionary heri...

Essex County is gearing up to commemorate the Sestercentennial of “Leslie’s Retreat,” the frustrated British army expedition on 26 Feb 177...

The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia has just finished digitizing its collection of Nathanael Greene Papers . All the scans...

Twice in the past few weeks I’ve found myself discussing the question of which towns’ militia companies were actually in the fighting on 19...

During George Washington ’s first term as President, the War Department had primary responsibility for dealing with the Native nations livi...

Earlier this week the Journal of the American Revolution made the first  publication of a 21 Apr 1775 letter by Timothy Pickering , colon...

As described yesterday, in the late 1760s Timothy Pickering , newly appointed an officer in the Essex County militia , took up the cause o...

Yesterday I posted a Boston Evening-Post advertisement from 1768 asking the public to identify the militiaman who “discharge[d] his Mus...

Here are a couple more events this month that caught my eye. On Sunday, 11 February, at 12:30 P.M. the Pickering House in Salem will h...

Amid the controversy over the birthday ball for George Washington in Philadelphia in 1798, Abigail Adams wrote home to a relative: I h...

Here are two anecdotes of Gen. George Washington and an African-American soldier from Massachusetts, as reported by the Rev. Henry F. H...

Last Sunday I announced a quiz on early American politicians with the prize of a Colonial Williamsburg wall calendar. The deadline for ent...

Prof. James R. Fichter of Lingnan University in Hong Kong is speaking at three New England historic sites this month on his book So Great a...

One of the basic questions about the Battle of Lexington and Concord is why it took so long for the major fighting to get started. There w...

Timothy Pickering, later U.S. Secretary of State , was colonel of the Essex County militia at the start of the Revolutionary War. He was als...