In researching the little-known Battle of Cricket Hill/Gwynn’s Island that took place on July 9-10, 1776, in what was then Gloucester County and today Matthews County, Virginia, available surviving records document only one Patriot casualty. While this is not unusual for many of the smaller, lesser known and infrequently studied engagements, the details of this […]
The Royal Navy was designed not just protect the island of Britain and its commerce, but to project Great Britain’s power across the seas. Britain’s success as a sea power led to the creation of a large overseas empire and, by the latter half of the eighteenth century, naval dominance of the Atlantic world. One […]
On December 5, 2018, the State of Delaware announced that it had acquired the historic property at Cooch’s Bridge, site of the only Revolutionary War battle to take place in the First State. The acquisition included ten acres, several outbuildings, and the Cooch family’s ancestral home, a three-story structure built circa 1760.[1] The house was […]
Those who write “local history” without documenting or citing their sources may as well be writing historical fiction. There may be some truth in what they write, but it is hard to sort out fact from fiction in local and family stories. Even experienced historians who ordinarily provide citations to primary sources—documents, letters and first […]
