Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by imposing on the colony of Massachusetts four laws including the Boston Port Bill. This bill received King George III’s royal assent on March 31, 1774 and would go into effect on June 1, 1774. The first sentence of the Bill made its purpose clear, “An act to […]
The status of Thomas Ditson, Jr., as a minor hero of the American Revolution has more to do with the perception that he was an average, unpretentious farmer caught in the wrong place at the wrong time than with specific displays of courage. A deeper look at his activities reveals years of service first as […]
“It is Hoped that this People will Unitedly Exert Themselves:”[1] In August 1765, crowds gathered on the streets of Boston protesting Parliament’s Stamp Act, which they deemed a tyrannical effort to tax them against their consent. Eventually, protests turned destructive as rioters ransacked the home of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson. The violent outburst posed a […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews writer and podcast host Brooke Barbier about historic sites in Boston that were familiar to Paul Revere. Join Brady and Brooke for a fascinating tour of what remains of colonial Boston. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, […]
Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution by Donald F. Johnson (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) Several cities in Revolutionary America were taken by British forces and the residents found themselves in an unexpected predicament. Many welcomed the return of law and order and a stable economy under British rule; the […]
In January 1764, a “speckled monster” struck Boston, forcing businesses to shutter and residents to isolate themselves in their homes or flee the city for months. Not until summer did the threat lift enough to allow Bostonians to resume some semblance of normalcy. So what was this “monster” that disrupted the lives, work and routines […]
The exceedingly rare mezzotint of His Excellency George Washington Esqr (above) listed by Charles Hart as no. 1 in his Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington, a seminal work published in 1904, has long been considered by collectors as the most prized of all the portraits of Washington. Among other reasons, it is the first engraved […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and expert on terrorism Jeffrey Simon on the Sons of Liberty and the use of propaganda and terrorism in the run-up to the American Revolution. Simon reassesses the role of the Sons of Liberty in light of modern research on political change. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? It was perhaps inevitable that I would end up studying the Revolution as I grew up in the Boston area and my dad started taking me to visit places like Lexington Green, Old North Bridge, and the Freedom Trail when I was three years […]
At about midnight on September 29, 1792, Ashley Bowen and his young assistant, Tucker Huy, heard a carriage clatter up the Boston Road and arrive at the Marblehead gate. Upon learning the “coach-full of men” had come from Boston, Bowen brooked no complaints when he approached the carriage and informed the passengers, “You must be […]
The threat of continued oppression and an encroaching condition of slavery was central to the American colonists’ call for separation from Great Britain and the corresponding shift to direct resistance. While the lack of effective political representation was crucial, importantly the colonists held other more acute concerns than the issue of representation in Parliament. Crucially, […]
The day did not start out well for Andrew Oliver. The recently appointed Stamp Act Distributor for colonial Massachusetts awoke on the morning of August 14, 1765, to learn that his effigy was hanging on an elm tree in Boston by a road that everyone who traveled into town had to pass by. The initials […]
The British approach to its American colony in 1775 offers valuable lessons for historians and military professionals in the synthesis between the levels of wartime leadership and their effect on direct action at the tactical level. As such, it is worthwhile to reflect on the British experience in 1775, and how guidance from strategic and […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews architect and preservationist Frederic C. Detwiller on the enigmatic French engineer, “Monsr Dubuq,” who was one of the first French nationals to assist the American cause. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts […]
Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts Grand Army surrounded Boston and began to lay siege to it. The Massachusetts Committee of Safety quickly recognized that in order to drive the British army from the town, it had to starve them out.[1] The British military had a longstanding practice of acquiring fresh provisions […]
On a late spring afternoon in 1825, the two Bedinger brothers—Henry and Michael, old men now, seventy-four and sixty-nine respectively, proud immigrants from Alsace-Lorraine—commanded attention among “a party of ladies and gentlemen” gathered for an “elegant [midday] dinner” to keep a fifty-year-old pledge to their other “brothers” in arms. They were at Daniel Morgan’s Springs, […]
A newly appointed colonel in the Essex County militia, Timothy Pickering led some 700 men of the Salem and Essex militia toward Boston, Massachusetts, to intercept the British as they retreated from Lexington on April 19, 1775. Pickering had his chance late that day to attack the British troops near Medford, Massachusetts, but, with the […]
In 1782, when the sixteen-gun sloop-of-war HMS Albany was determined to be at the end of her usefulness, nobody seemed truly surprised or sad about it, least of all her commander. The vessel had survived six continuous years of war-time service in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, in addition to a prior life as a merchant vessel. […]
On October 1, 1768, two regiments of British infantry with an artillery detachment—witnesses estimated 700 to 800 men in all—disembarked from transports in Boston Harbor and formed up on Long Wharf. Then, in a procession lasting several hours, they marched “with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, colours flying, drums beating and fifes . . . playing” […]
The year was 1773. On May 10, Parliament had passed the Tea Act allowed the East India Company to sell tea directly to the American colonies without paying any customs or duties in England. This gave the company a monopoly over the production, distribution, and sale of tea. The colonists saw the Act as a […]
The Revolutionary War took a heavy toll on Great Britain. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 left it not just bereft of former colonies but militarily humiliated, politically divided, and financially straightened. The cost of the eight-year war had averaged £12 million per annum and left the Treasury with a national debt of £250 million.[1] […]
On my way to Boston’s Logan Airport a while ago a taxi driver pointed towards Boston Harbor and started telling me about a Revolutionary War monument located behind South Boston High School. As an Irish-American transplant from Chicago, green-colored Red Sox hats and the reputation of the South Boston Irish are very real manifestations of […]
On January 1, 1775, Charles Stockbridge visited his neighbor’s house in Hanover, Massachusetts, twenty five miles south of Boston. He heard a rumor that opponents of the government would visit nearby Marshfield to harass Tories (supporters of the king), who were well known and vulnerable to trouble. His neighbor doubted the rumor was true.[1] Yet […]
In the days following the British pyrrhic victory of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, Gen. George Washington, in his new role as commander-in-chief, assumed the leadership of approximately 14,000 troops. While Washington’s army laid siege to Boston, the town’s British garrison of some 7,000 soldiers, sailors and marines were stretched thin as they attempted […]
In the summer of 1775, American forces had succeeded in bottling up the British army on the Boston peninsula and laying siege to the town. Although virtually surrounded by thousands of Continental soldiers, the British did not remain perfectly contained in Boston for the duration of the siege. Nor did the two forces maintain a […]
It was August 1775 and Belcher Noyes, worried about his son Nathaniel, was writing to him from Boston for a third time. “My dear son: Have received no letter from you since May 27, which I duly answered 3d June … I wrote you May 25, both of which I hope came safe to your […]
Over the years, historians have written countless works on the military and political aspects of the Siege of Boston. Unfortunately, little attention has been given to the impact of the siege upon the residents of the city. As British military and political authorities attempted to recover from the disaster of April 19, 1775, the residents […]
On Saturday, December 17, 1774, the 10th Regiment of Foot marched out of Boston and into the Massachusetts countryside “to give the men a little exercise.”[1] The British government’s response to the Boston Tea Party had included sending ten British army regiments, elements of two others, a contingent of artillery and a battalion of Marines […]
“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 […]
By the time he arrived in Boston with the 44th Regiment of Foot, Martin Hurley was an experienced soldier. He’d joined the army in 1767, and learned the military trade well enough to be put into the regiment’s grenadier company, men distinguished by their martial competence as well as their tall stature.[1] The 44th was […]
The story of the Boston Tea Party has been told and retold endlessly. It has become a part of American mythos. On the evening of December 16, 1773 in Boston a group of 100 to 150 citizens, dressed like Indians, descended on three ships loaded with tea from England. Politely, but firmly, they demanded the […]
On March 9, 1764, George Grenville proposed a stamp tax in a speech to Parliament; its purpose was to reduce the cost of maintaining 10,000 garrisoned soldiers in North America. Grenville claimed it would be similar to the one administered in England in 1694.[1] Eleven months later, on February 17, the Act was passed in […]
On the 5th of March, 1770, Newton Prince heard Boston’s church bells start to ring. He ran to the door of his house and heard “the cry of fire.” Putting on his shoes, Prince went out to help fight the blaze, as town inhabitants were supposed to do. On the streets he asked other men […]
Some twelve years ago, as I was walking along Boston’s Freedom Trail with my family, I noticed an obelisk and monument in the front yard of King’s Chapel. As I peered closer at it, I read the title to the inscription: In Memory of THE CHEVALIER DE SAINT SAUVEUR first Chamberlin of his Royal Highness, […]
Within a decade of the passage of the Stamp Act, England and her colonies would go to war. The Act would have a profound effect on both Parliament and the American colonists. Both sides would be tested and each was unwilling to yield from their position. In the end, both would claim victory. Only George […]
Myth: “The fate of a nation was riding that night,” Longfellow wrote. Fortunately, a heroic rider from Boston woke up the sleepy-eyed farmers just in time. Thanks to Revere, the farmers grabbed their muskets and the American Revolution was underway: “And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, / Kindled the land […]
I’m a scientist by training. I received my master’s degree from MIT, which is incidentally where I fell in love with Boston’s revolutionary history. So, when I first began researching my forthcoming book on Revolutionary Boston, I approached the research very scientifically, considering things like moonlight phases, sunsets,[1] horse gaits and their associated speeds,[2] and […]
With April 19 nearing, marking the anniversary of the start of the American Revolutionary War (the official regional holiday of Patriot’s Day in New England), it seems only fitting to delve into the popular tale of the secret informant of Dr. Joseph Warren. As the story often goes, Dr. Joseph Warren, the de facto revolutionary […]
This article was originally published in Journal of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 (Ertel Publishing, 2013). It was a day of mourning all across America. The Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston as punishment for the Tea Party, took effect on June 1, 1774. Business ceased precisely at noon at the customs […]
