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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 12h

Oct. 13, 1775: “It is now reported, that tho' Government is taking every measure to oblige the Americans to submit, there are many who persuade themselves that a certain General Assembly will offer their mediation” and “restore peace and harmony on a solid foundation.”

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 13h

Oct. 13, 1775: The people of Falmouth, Mass. (now Portland, Maine) are alarmed by a glimpse of a British flotilla five days before the town will be targeted for destruction.

Naval Documents of the American Revolution

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 13h

Oct. 13, 1775: “We hear that lord Dunmore has just received a reinforcement of soldiers from St. Augustine, to complete his corps of banditti to the number of 500,” reports Purdie’s Virginia Gazette of Williamsburg. The royal governor tries to exercise authority from a ship anchored off Norfolk.

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 13h

Oct. 13, 1775: After a difficult passage through lakes and bogs, Col. Benedict Arnold’s 950 men reach the head of the Dead River in Maine. Arnold praises his men’s spirit in overcoming fatigue and hardships in a letter to Washington. He predicts he’ll reach his objective, Quebec City, in two weeks.

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 15h

Oct. 13, 1775: Lettter writer “Nauticus” submits a proposal to the Pennsylvania Safety Committee to build fire ships on the Delaware River filled with a substance that would make “furious instantaneous flame.” The members will adopt this plan a day later.

British fire ships attacking France’s Regulus in 1809

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 16h

The New York City Committee insists no such order for arrests exists, and “it was their earnest wish that he [Tryon] will continue to reside among us." 3/3

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 16h

Tryon says he has reports that the Continental Congress has ordered the arresra of all royal officers, and if anyone attempts to hinder his removal he will order ships to “enforce the demand with their whole power.” 2/3

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 16h

Oct. 13, 1775: New York Gov. William Tryon says he will relocate from his house in New York City to the man-of-war Asia in the harbor. The royal official, whose authority is still respected by city officials despite the outbreak of war, tells Mayor Whitehead Hicks he acts for his safety. 1/3

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 18h

A committee of three members—Silas Deane, John Langdon and Christopher Gadsden—is chosen to administer the creation of the sea force. They work swiftly, as the first Continental Navy ships, the Wasp and Hornet, set sail from Baltimore in January 1776. 5/5

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 18h

The need for an American naval force has become clear as Britain intends to bolster its force in Boston and wage a more aggressive war on the colonists. Gen. Washington has outfitted privateers to pursue British shipping but he has enough to handle commanding a ground force. 4/5

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 18h

The commanders will “be instructed to cruise eastward, for intercepting such transports as may be laden with warlike stores and other supplies for our enemies, and for such other purposes as the Congress shall direct.” 3/5

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 18h

Each ship should be “a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible despatch, for a cruise of three months.” 2/5

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 18h

Oct. 13, 1775: Congress authorizes the purchase and outfitting of two armed vessels to constitute a Continental Navy. This has been recognized as the birthday of the U.S. Navy. 1/5

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

(From the National Park Service's "Bicentennial Daybook," 1975)

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

Oct. 12, 1775: The Pennsylvania Assembly orders a battalion raised to defend the colony. Each man will be provided a hunting shirt and a blanket "If one could be found.”

Daniel Morgan wearing a hunting shirt at the Saratoga surrender ceremony, 1777

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

(From the National Park Service's "Bicentennial Daybook," 1975)

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

"Others had scorched their tounges [sic] with hot chocolate, to induce a belief that they had a fever." Many of the men are frustrated with their lack of progress against the British and the lack of provisions on the campaign, the general writes to Connecticut Gov. Jonathan Trumbull. 2/2

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

Oct. 12, 1775: Malingering is rife among the Americans laying siege to Fort St. Jean in Quebec. "Some have feigned sickness, some acknowledged that they had procured their discharges by swallowing tobacco juice, to make them sick," reports Gen. Philip Schuyler from Ticonderoga. 1/2

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

(From the National Park Service's "Bicentennial Daybook," 1975)

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

Oct. 12, 1775: The New Jersey Assembly receives a petition from the people of Alexandria and Kingwood protesting the restriction of the franchise to "freeholders," or property. "Householders and others...who pay their proportion of the taxes in this Colony" must also be permitted to vote.

A 1764 cartoon satirizing an election in Pennsylvania

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

Washington alerts both John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress, and Virginia patriot George Mason about his intelligence. This will directly lead to Connolly's capture in Hagerstown, Md., later this year. 3/3

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

"I left all my Cloaths & all that I had on Board but that is nothing so I could be of any Service to my Country," Cowley writes. He says Connolly plans to "go to St Augustine & there to get Guides to convey him through the Cherokees nation & from thence to the Shawneys Mincoes & Delaways." 2/3

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

Oct. 12, 1775: William Cowley, the servant to Maj. John Connolly, the loyalist commissioner of Indian affairs, alerts Gen. Washington of British plans to raise Indians on the frontier against the colonists. The tipster had absconded in late September from a ship at Newport, R.I. 1/3

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

Oct. 12, 1775: John Penn takes his seat at the continental Congress as a member representing North Carolina, succeeding Richard Caldwell, who has resigned to take a provincial treasurer job. In 1776, at age 35, Penn will be one of the youngest signers of the Declaration of Independence.

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250 Years Ago News @250yearsagonews.bsky.social · 1d

Oct. 12, 1775: Lyman Beecher, the most famous American preacher of the early 19th century who was renowned for his stance against slavery and for temperance, is born in New Haven, Conn. The Presbyterian moralist’s 12 children included clergyman Henry Ward Beecher and novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe.

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