John L. Smith, Jr. is a retired corporate communications manager for a Florida energy company. He is the author of The Unexpected Abigail Adams: A Woman "Not Apt to Be Intimidated." He is a state certified social sciences instructor and a former board member of the Tampa Bay History Center. His family lineage holds membership numbers with Sons of the American Revolution. Smith is a Vietnam-era veteran and holds honorable discharges from the U.S. Air Force Reserve and the U.S. Army Reserve. He graduated with a BS degree from the University of South Florida in 1989 and received an MBA from the University of Tampa. Listed in the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Smith is an active SAG-AFTRA member, having appeared in many films, television shows, commercials, and corporate training videos. He is currently writing a book about the American Revolution and his historical work has been featured by Knowledge Quest, National Review and Smithsonian Magazine.
Thomas Jefferson and Julia Child. Not two people you’d expect to be linked in history. But yet, indeed they are—as two gourmets who loved fine French cuisine. Frequently today in books, magazines, and online articles, Thomas Jefferson is “credited” with “introducing” such French foods as crème brûlée to the American appetite, as well as . […]
1785 was a rare year in Paris—it was safely nestled between revolutions. The American Revolution had come to an official end right there in Paris one and a half years before, while the French Revolution was still four years off. And for the past 440 years—since the 1345 opening of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris […]
As a young country lawyer, John Adams thought he seemed to lack focus. “Ballast is what I want, I totter, with every Breeze. My motions are unsteady.”[1] History has shown that he eventually would find his “Ballast” in the steady personage of Abigail (Smith) Adams, his almost-equally-famous better half. Over the course of their fifty-four-year-long […]
“Diplomacy is seduction in guise …”, whispered Benjamin Franklin to his fellow commissioner John Adams. “One improves with practice.” Although the quote isn’t real and was written into the script of the HBO/Playtone miniseries John Adams, the spirit of the words rang very true when it came to the infant “United American-States”[1] trying to find […]
During the hot, humid Philadelphia summer of 1776, the writing of the Declaration of Independence was just another Congressional housekeeping chore which the delegates decided would have to be done to explain to people everywhere why the vote for American independence had just happened. As Thomas Jefferson later described it: “an appeal to the tribunal […]
To British aristocracy, John Paul Jones was a thieving rebel and a Scotch-borne traitor to the Empire. To seacoast citizens of the British Isles, Jones was portrayed as Blackbeard the pirate, a renegade rogue cutthroat. “Chap-books depicted Paul Jones as a buccaneer, armed to the teeth, in highly colored pictures, bloody and terrifying. Mothers frightened […]
The ship carrying John Adams was sinking in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! The awful thought must have been crippling for Adams, chosen almost unanimously by Congress to travel to France for this second time. It was November 1779 and Adams was being sent as minister to negotiate treaties of commerce, and most importantly […]
Gen. George Washington, from the point of view of Americans being trapped at “York,”[1] wrote these prophetic words- These by being upon a narrow neck of land, would be in danger of being cut off. The enemy might very easily throw up a few ships into York and James’ river, as far as Queens Creek; […]
Did George Washington grow hemp? Yes. Hemp was a well-known, multi-purpose crop. Did George Washington smoke hemp? There’s absolutely zero evidence that he grew it or used it for recreational purposes. Now that we have the essentials out of the way, we can have a thoughtful look at this subject once and for all. In […]
There’s a legend that in the Continental Army winter camp of Morristown, Martha Washington, who spent many winters with her husband,[1] had a prowling tomcat nearby that she named “Hamilton.”[2] The myth isn’t true, but it’s not too much off the mark of the real Alexander Hamilton. But libido aside, if there was ever a […]
If there was ever a theme song for Benjamin Franklin, it would definitely be the 1970 Steven Stills folk-rock ditty, “If You Can’t Be With the One You Love, Love the One You’re With.” Walter Isaacson summed up Franklin’s personal life: “Throughout his life he had few emotional bonds tying him to any one place, […]
In Hollywood terms, biographies of Daniel Boone might be advertised as, “Based on a true story.” Daniel Boone being known as a legendary Kentucky trailblazer is an undisputed fact in American history. That he was a backcountry militia leader during the Revolutionary War is a fact substantiated primarily by sketchy frontier rosters and pension statements […]
As a young man studying law in Williamsburg, Thomas Jefferson was admittedly shy and tongue tied around members of the opposite sex. One of his first serious girlfriends as a college kid was a Yorktown heiress named Rebecca Lewis Burwell (Tom called her “Belinda” for some reason). Jefferson spent most of 1763 swept off his […]
If there was one tall hunk that nearly all the women of the colonies swooned over (and many in England and Europe, quite likely), it was Gen. George Washington. He was mobbed in the towns he passed through, he never sat out one dance, and even received groupie letters asking for a lock of his […]
They’re everywhere now. On the pages of social media, displayed on bumper stickers, and in the speeches of political candidates, partisan factions claim a Founding Father by virtue of one of their Founding Sound Bites. But how many of those words were actually said, as written, by the person claimed? Very few, if any, one […]
Summering on Long Island in 1776 was no vacation for Gen. George Washington. As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he was attempting to build defenses and ready his raw soldiers to directly confront the best warriors of the British Empire. It was July 1776, and on paper Washington was dividing his fifteen thousand troops into […]
“I have nothing to send you but love. I hope I shall have some money soon.”[1] So wrote Lt. Joseph Hodgkins from his “Camp on Long Island” to his wife, Sarah, back home in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The letter was dated June 10, 1776, so Sarah’s husband had already been away from his wife and family […]
There’s nothing like the murder of a young, innocent woman to get patriotic fervor in an uproar. The death of Jane McCrea in 1777, supposedly at the hands of Indians commissioned by British Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne, outraged Patriots and led to a huge surge of recruiting in New York. The story then went down […]
The next time you’re in a trivia contest and the question comes up, “What was the last battle of the American Revolutionary War?” the judges will probably be looking for the predictable answer of “Yorktown.”[1] That’s the neat and tidy answer, but it’s not true. After the defeat at Yorktown, King George III brushed it […]
In the late summer of 1776, Nathan Hale was a handsome, tall, charismatic twenty-one-year-old school teacher from Coventry, Connecticut with no battle experience but eager to do his duty for his country’s rebellion. “I owe to my country the accomplishment of an object so important…”[1] His accomplishment is well known, but not in the way […]
“For it’s a tall old tree and a strong old tree. And we are the sons, yes, we are the sons… the sons of liberty”[1]. So went the catchy song that the tea-dumping Sons of Liberty sang loudly in the streets that night, all in perfect harmony and accompanied by mysterious instruments that came out […]
It’s one thing to make speeches about declaring independence, or to assemble militias and discuss battle tactics against the enemy. It’s quite another thing to pay for it all. So how do you pay for a war that no one expected to last eight years? Great Britain possessed world-wide colonies, tremendous wealth, the ability to […]
George Washington did not chop down a cherry tree and carve wooden teeth from it. Maybe one of the most enduring myths in American history is that George Washington had wooden teeth. It seems to never go away, generation after generation. Well, not only did the first president not have wooden teeth, you could also […]
Crotchety old John Adams had finally had enough. It was bad enough that after George Washington’s battlefield victories at Trenton and Princeton, the idol worshipping of the general had already started in America. Ironically, John Adams was the delegate who introduced George Washington’s name in Congress to be the commander of the new army. But […]
He may have beaten the British, but by the time George Washington became president, his sweet tooth (singular tooth)[i] for tasty desserts had not yet been conquered. Puddings, jellies and pies had been commonplace dessert offerings when George and Martha entertained at Mount Vernon, which they did before and after the War for Independence. But […]
How many times does someone get the chance to read through the business correspondence files of one of the Founding Era’s most fascinating personalities? I had the distinct privilege of doing just that while researching an angle of Henry Knox’s Boston bookstore. I learned that Henry sold much more than just books – he sold […]
Between his voyages to England and France, Benjamin Franklin logged more transatlantic cruises than any other founder. In fact, in his lifetime, he took a total of eight cruises[i]. On his final 1785 cruise sailing from France to Philadelphia, Ben continued a letter he had started in 1784 in Paris to his friend Julien-David LeRoy. […]
It was January 1776. In a bold plan hatched in London to end this rebellion, General Sir Henry Clinton was to sail from New York with 2,000 British regulars to the Cape Fear coastline of North Carolina. Meeting him in Brunswick, North Carolina with more troops would be naval commander Commodore Sir Peter Parker and […]
Edward Snowden and the NSA documents. Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables. Daniel Elsberg and the Pentagon papers. Benjamin Franklin and the Hutchinson letters? Snowden, Assange, and Elsberg all considered themselves to be self-appointed whistleblowers. Individuals who wanted to open governments by disclosing sensitive government documents. Without a doubt, all three started huge controversies […]
THE TRIAL THAT GRIPPED THE NEW NATION The Grand Jury in Richmond determined that there was ample evidence of George Wythe Sweeney’s guilt. Virginia attorney general Philip Norborne Nicholas would be prosecuting the murder trial against Sweeney. The talented 31-year old prosecutor was the product of a highly influential family in Virginia who helped to […]
George Wythe was about the last person anybody would ever want to murder. At age 80, Wythe was an exceedingly kind and generous man who could be seen ambling down the streets of Richmond, Virginia in that year of 1806. The townspeople loved him, “His countenance was exceedingly benevolent and cheerful …”[1] and “He moved […]
