Coronavirus 2020? Nope. The Speckled Monster of 1764
In January 1764, a “speckled monster” struck Boston, forcing businesses to shutter and residents to isolate themselves in their homes or flee the city…
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Smoking the Smallpox Sufferers
At about midnight on September 29, 1792, Ashley Bowen and his young assistant, Tucker Huy, heard a carriage clatter up the Boston Road and…
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Misadventures in the Countryside: Escape from a British Prison Ship
Thomas Painter inhaled sea water. As he struggled to recover from the “draft of Salt Water” that flooded his mouth and throat, he was…
4
Walking Skeletons: Starvation on Board the Jersey Prison Ship
Eighteen-year-old Andrew Sherburne’s younger brother, Samuel, guided Sherburne into a room away from the rest of the family to help wash and dress him….
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Death Had Almost Lost Its Sting: Disease on the Prison Ship Jersey
“There, rebels, there is a cage for you.”[1] Forced to row under guard of British marines, a boatload of captured American sailors approached the…
Join JAR on a Rev War Road Trip!
The JAR 2018 Annual Volume is going on a road trip and you’re invited! If you plan on visiting any Revolutionary War historic sites…
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The Balls Whistled Over Our Heads: Continentals and Cannonballs
The booming roar of cannon shattered the stillness of the warm summer air around Boston. A thirty-two pound cannonball screamed through the sky toward…
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The House at Penny Ferry, Burnt: Skirmishes on the Mystic
In the summer of 1775, American forces had succeeded in bottling up the British army on the Boston peninsula and laying siege to the…
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The Route is by Way of Winnisimmet: Chelsea and the Refugees
It was August 1775 and Belcher Noyes, worried about his son Nathaniel, was writing to him from Boston for a third time. “My dear…
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Displaced: The Donation People of 1775
In late November 1775, just as the bone-chilling New England winter started to settle upon Massachusetts, British General Howe loaded three hundred poor, sick…
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Unfriendly to America? The Two Sides of Jacob Rogers
Jacob Rogers was scared. So scared, in fact, that he—a Loyalist and former lieutenant in the Royal Navy—traveled twelve miles to the Continental Army…
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Before the Bayonetting: The Untold Story of Capt. Samuel Whittemore
Capt. Samuel Whittemore, a seventy-eight year old American farmer, became a legend on April 19, 1775 when he was shot in the face by…