Most people (we think) have this popular notion of American history involving the British imposing taxes and massacreing people in Boston and the Colonists responding with an indignant “Oh, we need to dump some tea and write a Declaration of Independence and take up arms and shoot those red-coated monsters right now!” But if you’ve […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 19, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

When the Provincial Congress of Georgia met in the city of Savannah, the natural place for them to meet was a place called Tondee’s Tavern. Georgians were no fans of British activities such as the Intolerable Acts, but they otherwise prospered under British rule and remained largely indifferent to the mother country. However, while the […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 18, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

In the early 1770s, the American colonies began feeling the need to defend themselves against British pressures. In some cases the activity was political, but there were plenty of people who saw that there could conceivably be a need to take up arms at some point, especially given the way they interpreted the Intolerable Acts. […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 17, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

We suppose there’s something kind of heroic and–dare we say it, romantic–about the idea of a bunch of men dressing up as Native Americans, sneaking onto a boat and throwing 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. And as an overt act of rebellion, it certainly made a splash (you should excuse the expression). But […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 16, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Chances are, if you do your basic Google search for “first Mountain Man,” among the top results you’ll get would be a man named John Colter. We’d argue that he was ONE OF the first, but the real anser, as youll hear today, is Joseph Harrison Dixon. Dixon and Colter did, in fact, spend some […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 15, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

William Legge was the Second Earl of Dartmouth and, just before the hostilities between the Colonists and the British started in earnest, was also the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the First Lord of Trade. Lord Dartmouth noticed that people throughout the Colonies appeared to be preparing for all-out war, so he sent […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 14, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

At one time there were rumors that Benjamin Franklin had lots and lots of children born out of wedlock. (Insert your favorite “lightning rod” joke here.) As usual, the real story is more complicated than that. Franklin courted a woman named Deborah Reed. At the time, he was 17 and she was 15, so her […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 13, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Joseph Gist wasn’t an especially distinguished person, but you don’t have to be distinguised to get noticed on 250 and Counting. Gist was born in Union County, SC and while he moved to Charleston in his teen and college years, he moved to Pinckneyville to practice law. Pinckneyville was part of the Ninety-Six District, which […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 12, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Francis Salvador was a man who is in the history books for two notable things: the day he was elected to public office, and the day he died in the Revoluationary War. That doesn’t ordinarily make a person notable, but Salvador had the distinction of being the first person of his faith to achieve these […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 11, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

James Sewall Morsell was a lawyer and then a judge in Maryland and Washington DC for the better part of his career. Perhaps most notable about his long tenure is that he handled freedom petitions for many Black Americans during the slavery era as the families’ representative, something that many other attorneys were not willing […]

The post 250 and Counting: January 10, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.