David Kindy is lifelong lover of history. He has read, studied, researched, and written about a wide range of historical topics, including the American Revolution, Civil War, World War I, World War II and the Pilgrims. Currently, he is writing a book about an event that happened in Plymouth, Massachusetts, during the American Revolution. He is a former vice president of the Pilgrim Society, which operates Pilgrim Hall Museum, the oldest continuously operating public museum in the country. He lives a stone’s throw from Plymouth Rock in, of course, Plymouth with his wife Elynor and black Lab Harry.
In 1902, the new owner of a furnished house in Medford, Massachusetts, was rummaging through the accoutrements and amenities of his recent acquisition. John O’Callaghan then noticed a box with an unusual inscription: “Here’s our family flag from the war.” Intrigued, O’Callaghan opened the container and found a frayed flag. As he unfolded the red, […]
Smugglers, Pirates, and Patriots: Free Trade in the Age of Revolution by Tyson Reeder. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019 America’s struggle for liberty ushered in an era of tumult across the Western Hemisphere. Known as the Age of Revolution, a cadre of colonies on this side of the Atlantic Ocean looked to overthrow their European […]
Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy by Benjamin Armstrong (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019) In the seventy-foot sloop of war Providence, John Paul Jones began his illustrious military career in 1776 with a series of littoral raids in Canadian waters. The bold commander, sailing with a contingent […]
If not for a series of devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea in 1780, George Washington might not have met Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown and America may never have gained her independence. This serendipitous scenario comes to the fore in Nathaniel Philbrick’s fascinating new book In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of […]
Few sea captains could claim they crossed bowsprits with Lord Nelson and sailed away – ship and cargo intact – but Nathaniel Carver of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was one who did. Not only did he survive the encounter, the American received a letter of commendation from the man who would later be remembered as the “Hero […]
