September 2013

Worcester's Resolve against the British Absentees and Refugees Acts

September 27, 2013
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Local History

Crown Passes Law to Seize Estates and Property of Massachusetts Citizens

The following votes were passed by the citizens of Worcester, May 19, 1783, and contain the substance of their doings relative to the refugees:

Voted, — That in the opinion of this town, it would be extremely dangerous to the peace, happiness, liberty and safety of these states, to suffer those who, the moment the bloody banners were displayed, abandoned their native land, turned parricides, and conspired to involve their country in tumult, ruin and blood, to become subjects of and reside in this government;

National Oration Winner for 2013: "Veracity in Freedom"

September 24, 2013
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Articles

National Oration Winner for 2013: "Veracity in Freedom" Louis Edmundo Vasquez’s “Veracity in Freedom” was named the winner of the 2013 Joseph S. Rumbaugh Oration Contest. Following is the text of Vasquez’s speech. When in the course of human events,…

Judge Hiller B. Zobel to speak at Yorktown Celebration

September 19, 2013
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Events

The Honorable Hiller B. Zobel to speak at Yorktown Celebration John Adams’ Ethical Dilemmas in the time leading up to the War for American Independence Special Family Rates at Sturbridge Village 19 October 2013, Sturbridge Village, 9am to 5pm Most…

Fulfilling the Mission

September 3, 2013
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News

I am humbled, grateful and honored to have been elected as President General for 2013-14. I pledge to you all that I will dedicate my life this year to fulfilling the mission of the Sons of the American Revolution, to preserve the memory of those heroes who established the independence of the United States and secured the liberty of her citizens.

Let me briefly review some items I’d like us all to work on this year.

John Hancock's role as treasurer left an uneasy Harvard

September 3, 2013
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History

Hancock was elected Harvard treasurer in July 1773, taking into his possession 15,400 pounds sterling in securities, along with the College account books. By November 1774, Harvard President Samuel Langdon and others wrote the first in a two-year series of dunning letters to Hancock, calling for an accounting and for him to return the materials. The fifth such letter arrived at Hancock’s Concord, Mass., home in April 1775, a week before the opening battles of the Revolutionary War in Lexington and Concord. His response — the original resides at Harvard’s Houghton Library — was so chilly that he cast it in the third person, offering that “he very seriously resents” the letter’s implications.

On March 17, 1776, Langdon penned a more conciliatory letter, since by then he was fully aware of Hancock’s growing role in the unfolding Revolution.