Boston 1775

Yesterday I quoted the essay published in the 14 Nov 1771 Massachusetts Spy over the signature “Mucius Scævola.” It attacked Thomas Hutch...

You might think that getting through November meant the end of the saga of Gov. Thomas Hutchinson ’s controversial 1771 Thanksgiving procl...

Several recent books and websites quote Penelope Barker (shown here, courtesy of the Edenton Historical Commission ), reputed organizer...

Starting in late 1774, the British publishers Robert Sayer and John Bennett issued a series of five satirical prints about the political ...

James Iredell (1751-1799, shown here) moved from England to America in 1767 in search of better prospects. Through family connections he go...

On 25 Oct 1774, fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina, signed their names to a statement pledging to support the resolves of the colon...

On 4 December 1770, John Adams wound up his speech in defense of the soldiers tried for murder after the Boston Massacre by saying: I wi...

Cortney Skinner alerted me to this item in the New York Public Library’s digital images collection. It’s a leaf from Isaiah Thomas ’s Roy...

Last night I attended a function at the Club of Odd Volumes on Beacon Hill. Between the many bookshelves, the clubhouse has a very impress...

This weekend the Paul Revere House in Boston’s North End is hosting an event titled “Traditions of the Season.” The house invites visi...

On 30 Nov 1767, two and a half centuries ago today, the Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser began to publish the series of es...

The controversy over Gov. Thomas Hutchinson ’s Thanksgiving proclamation in 1771 caused particular trouble in Boston’s largest meetinghou...

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper no doubt had an inside view of the Boston Whigs’ efforts to organize political resistance to Gov. Thomas Hutch...

By law, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson ’s Thanksgiving proclamation for 1771 was supposed to be read out by the ministers of all the meetinghous...

Back in 2009, Ray Raphael contributed a “guest blogger” posting here about his book Founders , which traces the history of the Revolution...

So why were Boston’s Whigs so upset about Gov. Thomas Hutchinson ’s Thanksgiving proclamation for 1771? What was their problem with the ph...

I’ve been considering Gov. Thomas Hutchinson ’s Thanksgiving proclamation in 1771, one of the many bones of contention in Revolutionary B...

In the last, posthumously published volume of his History of Massachusetts , Thomas Hutchinson claimed that “the continuance of civil and...

Yesterday I shared the 1771 Thanksgiving proclamation issued by Gov. Thomas Hutchinson (shown here). It quickly became a source of contr...

By tradition, the royal governor of Massachusetts proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving in the province every autumn, usually in late November ...