Boston 1775

We left John Hill , his wife Elizabeth (?), and his daughter in the Boston jail in February 1777, suspected of “being Enemical to the Sta...

The H-Early-America list just ran Grant Kleiser’s review of Colonial Ports, Global Trade, and the Roots of the American Revolution (1700-17...

On 25 Oct 1773, two and half centuries ago , the Newport Mercury reported: Last week Mr. Bates, the famous horseman, arrived in town, from ...

At the Journal of the American Revolution, John Gilbert McCurdy (author of Quarters ) just reviewed Ken Shumate’s new book, The Sugar Act ...

Common-Place just published an article about eighteenth-century marine insurance that, because it comes from Hannah Farber, author of the...

Sara T. Damiano, author of the new book To Her Credit: Women, Finance, and the Law in Eighteenth-Century New England Cities , shared some r...

Except for several months as a Continental Navy lieutenant under Capt. John Manley , which ended badly, Joseph Dobel appears to have spent...

Yesterday’s posting quoted two accounts of the assault on Customs employee Owen Richards on 18 May 1770. Richards and a colleague had c...

On 21 May 1770, Green and Russell ’s  Boston Post-Boy reported: Last Friday Night Owen Richards , one of the Tidesmen belonging to the Cust...

With less than two weeks left in 2020, there are still some significant events in 1770 that I missed discussing on their Sestercentennials ,...

Last month Martin Blatt and David J. Harris wrote an essay in Commonwealth Magazine inviting a public discussion of whether to rename Fan...

Way back in April, Historic Deerfield was going to host a one-day forum on sugar in early New England culture. But then people recognized...

While Nathaniel Shaw, Jr. , of New London, Connecticut , was speculating on the likelihood of war by buying gunpowder in the Caribbean i...

The start of the Revolutionary War changed New London merchant Nathaniel Shaw, Jr. ’s business environment. For one thing, military suppl...

The Connecticut merchant Nathaniel Shaw, Jr. , shipped a lot of molasses to merchants in New York and Philadelphia. Since there was very l...

After her business partner Robert Charles died, Mary Jackson stepped up her advertising from the Sign of the Brazen Head . Her main bu...

Among the essays posted at the blog for Brandeis’s “Rethinking the Age of Revolution” seminar is Cassandra Berman’s analysis of one news...

On 24-27 October, the John Carter Brown Library in Providence will host a conference titled “Beyond Sweetness: New Histories of Sugar in t...

Another periodical on my recent reading list was the Autumn 2012 issue of Colonial Williamsburg , featuring its usual mix of articles . On...