Embattled Farmers: Campaigns and Profiles of Revolutionary Soldiers from Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1775-1783 by Richard C. Wiggin There was nothing extraordinary about these men; they were ordinary farmers, laborers, merchants, tradesmen, slaves, and former slaves, the cross-section of a typical eighteenth-century…
On Monday morning, July 1, 1776, just as delegates to the Continental Congress were assembling in the East Wing of the Pennsylvania State House to resume debate on declaring independence, a currier handed John Adams a letter from Samuel Chase. The Maryland Convention had suddenly reversed its position, Chase informed Adams. Three weeks earlier, in response to Richard Henry Lee's momentous resolution in favor of independence, the Maryland delegation had stormed out. Then Chase and others sent the matter back to the county conventions, and at least four of these instructed their delegates to the Maryland Convention to instruct its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote in favor of Lee's resolution. In an emergency session on Friday evening, June 28, the Maryland Convention finally conceded to the dictates of the county conventions. "See the glorious effects of county instructions," Chase now boasted to Adams. "Our people have fire if not smothered."
A Declaration of Independence 21 months before July 4, 1776 On October 4,1774, the Worcester Massachusetts Town Meeting issued instructions to blacksmith Timothy Bigelow, whom it had chosen for its representative to the forthcoming Provincial Congress: You are to consider…
Boston and the Dawn of Independence "Required Reading" By Brian Deming BostonDawn Hardcover, 508 pages, Westholme Publishing The world of colonial Boston packed up and sailed away long ago, but it left quite a mark. That town of just eight…
