December 1774

 At our Christmas Luncheon Dec 2024 our fact for 250 years ago Dec 1774 started with a review of what we had talked about at each meeting since Dec 2023 when I started this blog with the Boston Tea Party. 

By  December of 1774 the Bostonians were struggling with their harbour closed to trade.  And their plight was being talked about in every colony.  And smaller versions of the tea party were enacted in various sites:  Philladelphia turned away a ship by threatening to tar and feather the captain….

But there was  also a first skirmish:  

In New Hampshire, Dec 1774, John Sullivan and a group of patriots raided Fort William and Mary (a British fort) twice.  The first event they captured gun powder and distributed it among the colonies and in the second they captured cannons that were later used in the battle of bunker hill.

The battle of Fort William and Mary is known in New Hampshire as "The Shot Not Heard Around the World."

 This information is from AI experiment.  I was unable to attend the November meeting of Buford Chapter of DAR

In November 1774, the Yorktown Tea Party took place and the Continental Congress called for a boycott of British goods. 

The Yorktown Tea Party 

On November 7, 1774, local residents boarded the British ship Virginia and dumped two half-chests of tea into the York River.

The tea had been imported despite a boycott of English goods.

The boycott was an attempt to pressure Parliament to repeal tax laws and regulations.

October 1774

 The First Continental Congress adjourned October 26, 1774.

The First Continental Congress’s most fateful decision was to call for a Second Continental Congress to meet the following spring. 

September 1774

Perhaps the most important thing that has happened so far leading to the Revolutionary War happened in September and October 1774.  This month and the following  found the 13 colonies sending representatives to Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. 

Across North America by late spring 1774, Colonists had risen in solidarity with the people of Massachusetts.  Goods had arrived in Massachusetts from as far away as Georgia.  By late spring 1774, nine of the colonies called for a Continental Congress.  Virginia's Committee of Correspondence is largely  credited with originating the invitation.  

On September 5, 1774 the first Continental Congress Convened.  

Delegates from 12  of the 13 colonies gathered together in Carpenter Hall in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to discuss America’s under growing British Aggression.

Though other sites were considered to house the First Continental Congress, the newly built Carpenters' Hall was chosen because it was the largest privately owned building of its day (as opposed to the British-owned State House which today would be called Independence Hall), allowing the delegates more freedom to discuss their grievances against Great Britain.

This was all such NEW "stuff" that they first met  on the morning of September 5 at Philadelphia’s City Tavern.  The group then walked over to Carpenters’ Hall to inspect the meeting room.

“They took a view of the room, … The general cry was, that this was a good room, and the question was put, whether we were satisfied with this room? and it passed in the affirmative,” said John Adams.

They started with a prayer.

Georgia was the only colony that did not send any delegates to the First Continental Congress. Facing a war with neighboring Native American tribes, the colony did not want to jeopardize British assistance.

Peyton Randolph of Virginia was Named President of the first Continental Congress when the group convened.

One of the Congress’s first decisions was to endorse the Suffolk Resolves passed in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The Suffolk Resolves ordered citizens to not obey the Intolerable Acts, to refuse imported British goods, and to raise a militia. Congress’s early endorsement of the Suffolk Resolves was a clear indication of the mood and spirit in Carpenters’ Hall. 

Vacation

 June and July of 2024 my personal life got in the way of my celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Revolution.  My DAR chapter does not meet those two months, so I was not pushed to get something written.  Instead I celebrated the 250th with being involved with a parade and pool party in my neighborhood for the 4th of July.

June 1774

 We have been talking about the coercive acts that Great Britain passed as punishment for the Boston Tea Party.  The first one was enacted 31 March 1774.  It is called the Boston Port Act.  It was one of five measures that were enacted.  June 1 1774 was the date which that first coercive (called intolerable acts by the colonists) act was enforced.

From Wikipedia:

Royal Navy warships subsequently began patrols at the mouth of Boston Harbor to enforce the acts. The British Army also joined in enforcing the blockade, and Boston was filled with troops led by Commander-in-Chief Thomas Gage. Colonists protested that the Port Act penalized thousands of residents and violated their rights as subjects of George III. As the Port of Boston was a major source of supplies for the citizens of Massachusetts, sympathetic colonies as far away as South Carolina sent relief supplies to the settlers of Massachusetts Bay. So great was the response that the Boston leaders boasted that the town would become the chief grain port of America if the act was not repealed.

June 1 was widely observed as a day of fasting and prayer throughout the 13 colonies: bells being tolled, flags placed at half-mast, and houses draped in mourning. That was the first step in the unification of the Thirteen Colonies since they now had a cause for which to work together.

The First Continental Congress was convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774 to co-ordinate a colonial response to the Port Act and the other Coercive Acts.

Our DAR chapter will be hosting a mock Continental Congress in our Cabin the third Saturday of September in celebration of this first big step in the process of gaining freedom from Great Britain.  

May 1774

In march the first of the coercive acts was passed:  The Boston Port Act.  This act punished all of Boston for what had happened with the Boston Tea Party.  The entire port was to be shut down until the town of Boston had paid for the tea that had been destroyed.  This act and its enforcement demonstrated the power of Great Britain to shut down an entire City's port with their navy and to cause hardships among the citizens of the tow.

In May the second of the coercive or intolerable acts was passed by the British Government:

The Massachusetts Government Act which essentially revoked the charter of the royal colony and placed them under the direct control of Great Britain. 

Power was centralized in the hands of the royal governor, and historic rights to self-government were abrogated. The Act provided that local officials were no longer to be elected:

[The] governor, to nominate and appoint... and also to remove, without the consent of the council, all judges of the inferior courts of common pleas, commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, the attorney general, provosts, marshals, justices of the peace, and other officers... and nominate and appoint the sheriffs without the consent of the council.

Most important was the provision regarding town meetings, the key instrument of local rule:

whereas a great abuse has been made of the power of calling such meetings, and the inhabitants have, contrary to the design of their institution, been misled to treat upon matters of the most general concern, and to pass many dangerous and unwarrantable resolves: for remedy whereof, be it enacted... no meeting shall be called... without the leave of the governor, [apart from one annual election meeting].^[4]

General Thomas Gage was appointed by the crown as the governor

the Massachusetts Government Act which replaced the colony's elected local council with one appointed by the military governor, essentially eroding representative government in Massachusetts;

Across North America, Colonists rose in solidarity with the people of Massachusetts.  Goods arrived in Massachusetts from as far away as Georgia.  By late spring 1774, nine of the colonies called for a Continental Congress.  Virginia's Committee of Correspondence is largely  credited with originating the invitation.