250 and Counting

We’ve noted before that France had been helping the United Colonies for a little while, using gray markets and go-betweens in order to give themselves some plausible deniability. Britain and Spain were both a little salty about having been beaten by Britain in the past, so they were only too happy to have somebody else […]

The post Help From Abroad–May 2, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

When it comes to breaking away from England, there are a lot of “Firsts” involved. Just a few weeks ago, delegates from North Carolina are the first in the Continental Congress to have the authority to vote for Independence–as long as someone else proposes it first. Today, Massachusetts Bay becomes the first to declare itself […]

The post Massachusetts Bay Cuts The Cord–May 1, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Reverend Samuel Cooper has an interesting item in his family history. His grandfather was Samuel Sewall, a judge in the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was involved with the Salem witch trials in 1692-3. Now, to be fair, Sewall did apologize for his part in that bit of foolishness, and he’s also known for writing […]

The post Samuel Adams Is Spoiling For A Fight–April 30, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It was called the Bayley Hazen Road, named after the two engineers who worked on it, and it was an attempt to make it easier for troops and equipment to get from New England to Canada. Prior attempts to move materiel were fraught with sickness and the need to navigate various forms of terrain, including […]

The post The Road To Canada–April 29, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Lachlan McIntosh was inadvertently responsible for a world record that stood for several years. In 1776 and 1777, McIntosh got into a bitter dispute with the Speaker of the Georgia Provincial Congress, a man named Button Gwinnett. It began when McIntosh succeeded Gwinnett as commander of Georgia’s Continental Battalion. Both men were Patriots but they […]

The post Recruiting In Georgia–April 28, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Horatio Gates did move up quickly through the ranks, and partially because he knew George Washington well, but it was also because he had a pretty good handle on getting things done. As an Adjutant General, Gates was the man who ran the administrative side of the Continental Army, and is now thought of as […]

The post Gates Moves Up Quickly–April 27, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Jonathan Trumbull was first and—for a while—the only Colonial Governor to support the American Revolution. (Most of the other colony leaders either didn’t hold that title, or remained quiet, as if hedging their bets.) Througout the Revolution, Trumbull supported the troops in general and George Washington in particular, and was often a close advisor to […]

The post George Washington Has Concerns–April 26, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Thomas Stone was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress who served with strict instuctions to “arrive at a happy settlement and lasting amity” with the Mother Country. What’s more, he and his fellow delegates were told not to vote for any proposition that declared independence. Fortunately, just a few days before Richard Henry Lee […]

The post Thomas Stone Writes Home–April 25, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It may seem as though a large number of men were suddenly being appointed as South Carolina delegates to the Continental Congress, but in fact they weren’t all new appointees. Some of them had already been delegates and were re-appointed. It’s also worth noting that while many of them were supporters of Colonial rights, they […]

The post New Kids In Town–April 24, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

William Henry Drayton was born in 1742 on his family’s plantation just outside of Charleston. The plantation was dedicated to growing rice. In 1764 he married Dorothy Golightly. In the early 1770s he was a Loyalist and enjoyed some of the perks that came with it. Then in 1774 he wrote a pamphlet supporting a […]

The post South Carolina’s Small Declaration–April 23, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.