On December 22, 1773, the Hayley, a merchant ship owned by John Hancock, departed Boston Harbor; on January 19, 1774, the ship arrived at Dover, England. She was carrying news about the destruction of tea in Boston harbor on December 16. By nightfall the news had reached King George III in London. At first it […]
Despite the imperative nature of his unusual name, Remember Baker has garnered significantly less historical attention than fellow Green Mountain Boys Ethan Allen and Seth Warner. Baker seemed destined for an important role in the Revolutionary War, but his life was cut short in an August 22, 1775 incident across the Quebec border. As a result of […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Todd W. Braisted on Israel Putnam and William Tryon trying to influence Hessian forces around Kingsbridge, New York, with dueling proclamations. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
As the year 1777 drew to a close, the region around the city of New York had been under British control for a year. Although the British position was strong, the recent surrender of a British army at Saratoga dramatically changed the prospects of the war ending any time soon. Troops in the New York […]
In 1817, as popular sentiment finally forced Connecticut to adopt a new constitution separating church and state, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams: “I join you therefore in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood [Connecticut] is at length broken up, and that a Protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history […]
Throughout history, changes in political order have often been accompanied by the destruction of the old regime’s images and monuments. The July 9, 1776 destruction of King George III’s New York City statue is the most famous and persistent image of such iconoclasm in the American Revolution. In that particular event, after a public reading of […]
On October 18, 1777, New York provincial assemblyman, and tory, Crean Brush, penned his final will and testament from prison in Boston. After nineteen months of incarceration which included being held in irons, and “in a state of body and mind so debilitated by misfortune,” Brush made provisions for his wife Margaret, stepdaughter Frances, and […]
After his exploits during the French and Indian War, Robert Rogers (1732-1795) was indisputably the most famous military leader born in the thirteen colonies; however, he played only a cameo role in the Revolution because both the British and American commanders-in-chief, Thomas Gage and George Washington, not only scorned him but actually arrested him for […]
Many early histories of the War of Regulation, which culminated in the May 16, 1771 Battle of Alamance, paint a picture of a Regulator named James Few as a man of either a simple or unstable mind who was unjustly executed. Upon deeper examination, many of the claims made in these histories have inconsistencies and […]
A fire fight erupted on the densely wooded Pennsylvania ridge. Caught in a crossfire from three sides, men of the 2nd Connecticut Regiment began falling. Several got off a few shots in response, but the pressure was too great to withstand. In a matter of minutes, before they could form a proper line, one of […]
Fort Tryon Park, sixty-seven acres just north of the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan, is a bucolic refuge among the skyscrapers of New York City. Children climb in the Javits’ playground; teens toss snowballs in the Heather Garden; tourists queue to visit the medieval art on display at the Cloisters museum; a bundle of black […]
On Saturday September 17, 1938 New York governor Herbert H. Lehman and 5,000 others assembled in Poughkeepsie to observe the sesquicentennial of the Empire State’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution. One hundred and fifty years previously delegates had gathered in that Hudson Valley hamlet to debate whether New York should ratify that document and thus […]
The Declaration of Dependence signed by 547 New York City Loyalists in November 1776 was not the only such declaration written and signed by loyal inhabitants of the colony of New York soon after British military forces established their presence in the region. At least three others are known to exist, bearing a total of 3,414 […]
While the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, was on holiday in the summer of 1774, his office continued to receive and send communications concerning the political divergence with the American colonies. The general issues were the Quebec Act, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, the Non-Importation Agreement, […]
One of the hallmarks of Journal of the American Revolution is its ability to bring lesser-known yet compelling events of the War for Independence to the public’s knowledge. Great battles and campaigns that altered the course of the war are always at the forefront of history, but smaller, more obscure actions often bore witness to […]
