On October 10, 1774, the brigantine Charlotte arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, from London. On board was a sailor named Samuel Dyer, and he told a shocking story, soon reported in the local newspapers. Three months earlier, on July 6, soldiers of the 4th or King’s Own Regiment had grabbed him off the streets of Boston and […]
In the 1760s and through 1775 John J. Zubly was the leading Whig in Georgia. He wrote a number of sermons and political tracts strongly opposing any right of the British Parliament to tax Americans and especially objecting to its declared right to legislate for America “in all cases whatsoever.” In spite of that stance, […]
Horses have been used for transportation for thousands of years, but have caused countless injuries and deaths. There is a saying that the only men who have never fallen off a horse, are the ones who never rode one. Wikipedia lists scores of famous and not-so-famous individuals who have died in or, more often, out […]
Major General Charles Lee visited Newport, Rhode Island, in late December 1775, where he—controversially—insisted that local Loyalists take an oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress. This approach, and a similar one he took in New York City shortly thereafter, created concern in Congress on how best to handle Loyalists. But by mid-1778, Lee had changed […]
In 1793, a widely circulated American editorial observed, “A few years ago, to say of any man that he was ‘a friend to toleration,’ was to place his temper in the fairest point of view.” By the 1790s, people knew better. “Now every friend to the rights of man perceives that toleration was founded on […]
