250 and Counting

Ben Franklin and Gabriel de Borbón had corresponded with one another previously, so while the letter that is the subject of today’s episode has a very specific (and relevant) ask in it, it was also just another in a chain of correspondence between the two. For his part, Prince Gabriel was probably receptive to Franklin’s […]

The post Ben Franklin Wants A Friend–December 12, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Most of the portraits we see of Martha Washington were made when she was older, so we have (I think) this image of her as a bit of a crabby old frump. And maybe she was, by the time her husband got to be President. She didn’t really love the life of the public spouse […]

The post Martha Comes to Cambridge–December 11, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Conanicut Island isn’t much of an island to look at, but they had supplies of some kind, and the British were looking. Admiral Graves had the task of finding supplies for the British who were under siege in Boston, and he decided to move beyond the local waters, and went into Narragansett Bay. In some […]

The post Raid on Conanicut–December 10, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of Great Bridge is a little bit overlooked these days, and more’s the pity. It was the first battle in Virginia, it was a big victory for Patriot troops, the Royal Governor and his crowd got pushed out altogether, and nobody died on the Patriot side. On the British side, about 100 soldiers […]

The post The Battle of Great Bridge–December 9, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The siege of Quebec was an event that was months in the making, and it was still just the penultimate act of the play. Benedict Arnold and his troops thought they could get to the American side of the St. Lawrence River within 21 days; instead it took several weeks. Along the way they lost […]

The post The Siege of Quebec–December 8, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The map in today’s cover art might be a little confusing to people who live and work in the modern-day Norfolk area. That’s because it’s oriented with North at the bottom. What’s not known is why this was done in this particular case. North/Up South/Down is, of course, the usual convention, and there are arguments […]

The post Tensions Rise At Great Bridge–December 7, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

There are a couple of things that it’s kind of important to remember about American history. First, by this point Independence was still NOT on the table for the Continental Congress. That’s not to say that there wasn’t talk about it, but little of it was in earnest. Americans were fighting the British because of […]

The post Congress Responds to King George–December 6, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia was a frequent target of raids throughout the Revolution. Indeed, most of Nova Scotia was harassed from both land and sea by Americans. This had a huge impact on the maritime economy there. But all those attacks—mostly by American (and probably some French) privateers—inflicted lots of disruption on British supply lines the […]

The post The Raid On Yarmouth–December 5, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

While the premise of today’s episode seems a little far-fetched, if you look closely at the map in today’s cover art, you’ll see it makes a lot of sense. In the mid-1700s, neither Pennsylvania nor Virginia had well-defined western borders. In fact, Virginia was occasionally thought to continue northward all the way to Lake Erie. […]

The post When The North Went South–December 4, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

John Paul Jones was born in Scotland as John Paul and began his maritime career at 13 when he was hired as an apprentice. In 1770 he was involved in an incident wherein a crew member was flogged after a failed mutiny. The crew member later died, and it was clear that his reputation had […]

The post The First American Flag Is Raised–December 3, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.