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The January 6, 2021 assault on the Capital rocked America, but it was by no means the largest, or even the most threatening, armed…
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When John Adams returned to Massachusetts after the session of the First Continental Congress, he was surprised to find that there was growing opposition…
On May 7, 1757, Thomas Pownall sailed from England for Boston to take his post as the governor of Massachusetts. Aboard the ship was…
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The American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the…
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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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The British approach to its American colony in 1775 offers valuable lessons for historians and military professionals in the synthesis between the levels of…
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Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts Grand Army surrounded Boston and began to lay siege to it. The Massachusetts Committee of…
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For much of the Revolutionary War, the relative obscurity and isolation of the three Massachusetts counties of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln along the coast…
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While the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, was on holiday in the summer of 1774, his office continued to receive…
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On July 2, 1778, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts hanged Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner and Continental soldier Ezra Ross, together with British soldiers Sgt. James Buchanan…
Mary Robie, a Massachusetts refugee living in revolutionary Nova Scotia, did not mince words when she criticized her friends for simply “passing thro life”…
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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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“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…
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The winter of 1774-75 had been difficult for the colonists nestled near the falls of the Machias River on the far eastern edge of…
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“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…
On April 24, General Gage sent his account of the confrontations at Lexington and Concord aboard the 200-ton, cargo-ladened Sukey to Lord Barrington, the…
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The story of the Boston Tea Party has been told and retold endlessly. It has become a part of American mythos. On the evening…
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When historians think of Continental generals of the Revolutionary War, many familiar names come to mind. Henry Knox, who rose from a bookseller to…
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Joseph Paugenit, Jonas Obscow, Anthony Jeremiah, Simon Peney, Obadiah Wicket, and Alexander Quapish. These are not household names to the average history enthusiast. But…
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On March 9, 1764, George Grenville proposed a stamp tax in a speech to Parliament; its purpose was to reduce the cost of maintaining…
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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…
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On Tuesday, October 9, 1781, at 5:00 that afternoon, as an American flag unfurled over Grand Battery 13A at Yorktown, George Washington personally set…
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The biggest myth of Paul Revere’s ride may not be that Revere watched for the lantern signal from the North Church spire, as Henry…
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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…
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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….
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In his 1936 biography Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda, John C. Miller wrote this about the leader of Boston’s Whig activists: Sam Adams discovered…
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Richard C. Wiggin is the author of Embattled Farmers: Campaigns and Profiles of Revolutionary Soldiers from Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1775-1783. This book is a very…
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If Ray Raphael had a personal mission statement, it would likely be three sentences from a recent profile story in Reed magazine: Ray wants…
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In mid May 1775, just weeks after the bloody Battle of April Nineteenth had sparked the start of the American Revolution, the perhaps first…
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“Tory Stories” After attending the “No Tax on Tea!” program at the Old South Meeting House, I walked to nearby King’s Chapel, the first…
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My Quest As a historian, I am interested in how people understand and interact with the past. I find the question of how present-day…
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Dear Mr. History: I’m familiar with General John Glover and believe he is an unsung hero (except for Billias’s book over 50 years ago). …
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Yesterday marked the 170th anniversary of the commemoration of the Bunker Hill Monument. It took the Bunker Hill Monument Association, thousands of individual donors,…
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Myth: Americans did not formally resolve for independence until 1776. Busted: On October 4, 1774, the town meeting of Worcester, Massachusetts, declared that British…
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When researching the biography of Revolutionary War hero Dr. Joseph Warren, I had the unexpected pleasure of becoming acquainted with his fiancée Miss Mercy…
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Myth: The American Revolution started at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Busted: All of contiguous Massachusetts – except Boston! – cast off…