March 1774

In March, I added to our slide show for the meeting the following slide:

It was perfect for Women's History month.  Sybil Ludington was the female Paul Revere.

A DAR member posted more information about Sybil and her ride on the WVDAR site.  The story is not exactly the same, but close.

In U.S. history, we remember that famous ride that would warn the colonies that the British were coming.

The Colonel needed someone he could trust, someone brave enough, someone who could ride a long distance, through the darkness, from 9 p.m. to dawn, someone who could fight off enemy combatants, to alert the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces.

So, the Colonel chose the "best man for the job." He chose Sybil Ludington, his 16-year-old daughter. Sybil Ludington was born on this day, April 5, 1761.

This month, on April 26, 1777, her father asked his young daughter to take the dangerous ride.

On the night of April 18, 1775. Revere made his famous ride and history remembers him well, because of the famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who would tell the tale, saying:

"Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere . . ."

But, many people do not know about the four other riders, who warned their communities of the approach and movement of the British forces.

The five heroes (including Paul Revere) were Samuel Prescott, Israel Bissell, William Dawes, and, the one who I am dedicating this post to, Sybil Ludington, who at that time was only 16 years old.

On the night of April 26, 1777, Colonel Henry Ludington chose his daughter to take that famous ride in history.

Sybil set out at 9 p.m. that night in the rain to warn the colonists at Danbury, Connecticut of the approach of the British. She would make a journey double to that of Revere (totaling 40 miles), riding through Kent to Farmers Mills and then returning back home again.

During her famous ride, she gathered her father's troops, knocked on doors and warned the countryside of the British troops’ incoming attack - and, she fought off a highwayman with a long stick.

By dawn, she was exhausted, damp from the rain, but had accomplished her mission warning the colonists and bringing together 400 soldiers ready to march and drive the enemy troops from the area.

She would later be commended by George Washington for her heroism. Each April since 1979, the Sybil Ludington 50-kilometer footrace has been held in Carmel, New York. The course of this hilly road race approximates Sybil's historic ride, and finishes near the statue which was erected in her honor on the shore of Lake Gleneida, Carmel, New York.

So, when you hear the tale of Paul Revere this month, remember about the other riders, one of which was the courageous Sybil Ludington.

So, December 2023 we celebrated the 250th birthday of the Boston Tea Party.  And then the next two months we talked about the fact that news traveled very slowly.  The news of the dumping of the tea into the Boston Harbour would have to travel back to Great Britain my ship.  Then Parliament would act on the news.  And then the news would travel back to our shores via ship again.  So the actions were very quiet in the early months of 1774.  However, the Colonies were NOT quiet.  All 13 colonies were abuzz with the news of the audacious act that had taken place in Boston! 

In March 1774 the news had reached Great Britain and Parliament acted! 

The Boston Port Act was introduced to the House of Commons by Lord North on March 18, 1774. A week later, on March 25, the bill was sent to the House of Lords where it was approved. It was given Royal Assent by King George III on March 31, 1774, and went into effect on June 1, 1774.

 This was the first of the so-called "coercive" or "intolerable" acts.  The news reached Virginia mid May. This act Helped Unify the Thirteen Colonies in anger against the crown.

From the website George Washington's Mount Vernon:

 https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/the-coercive-acts-of-1774-timeline/

The first of the Coercive Acts, the Boston Port Act authorizes the Royal Navy to blockade Boston Harbor because “the commerce of his Majesty’s subjects cannot be safely carried on there." The blockade effectively closes Boston’s port to commercial traffic. Additionally, it forbids any exports to foreign ports or provinces. The only imports allowed are provisions for the British Army and necessary goods, such as fuel and wheat. The Act mandates that the port remain shuttered until Bostonians make restitution to the East India Company (the owners of the destroyed tea), and until the king determines that the colony is able to obey British laws and that British goods once again can be traded in the harbor safely. However, if the Bostonians refuse to pay the East India Company or the king remains unsatisfied, the harbor will be blockaded indefinitely.

And also from the Mount Vernon site is this information:

The Coercive Acts cause a clear shift in American public opinion. Where Washington had once questioned the radical Boston Tea Party, conceding “that we [do not] approve their conduct in destroying the Tea,” he now fully rallies behind the Bostonians.

George Washington's birthday

Photo of Martha Washington taken from Wikipedia:

As we wait for the next event that leads to the Revolution, I was reminded by the DAR President General's message about celebrating George Washington's birthday:  

This month, we hope that you will take a moment on or around February 22nd to honor the legacy of Revolutionary War Patriot and Founding Father George Washington. If you are looking for material for a program, Mount Vernon’s Washington Library has videos, podcasts, and other resources to share with your chapter. You may also consider reading his Farewell Address aloud at a meeting. A perhaps surprising and lesser-known-fact is that Washington never actually delivered his Farewell Address publicly, but instead published it in Philadelphia’s Daily American Advertiser in 1796.

I forgot at our February DAR meeting to mention several things that I had thought I might mention.  But actually they are better put in a blog than talked about at the meeting anyway.  These thoughts are actually more about Martha Washington than about George himself.  Martha had married Daniel Parker Custis in 1750.  He was 20 years older than Martha.  And Martha bore four children to Daniel Parker Custis in the seven years she was married to him.  Only two of the children survived childhood:  John/Jacky and Martha/Patsy.  Her husband died in 1757 leaving her a wealthy widow (Daniel Parker Custis was one of the wealthiest men in Virginia at the time).  She mourned him for months but as she was attractive and rich she was courted by many gentlemen.  One of them was a young Soldier named George Washington who was closer to her own age.  He had just inherited Mount Vernon, a beautiful estate near the Potomac River.  They were married 6 January 1759.

I have taken this information from an article in Spring 2020 Piecework.  The article is written by A.K. Fielding and I highly recommend taking a look at the article for yourself to see paintings of Martha as well as information about her needlework.  

and the author suggest several sites including:

www.marthawashington.us

and 

www.mountvernon.org/preservation/collections-holdings/browse-the-museum-collections

And if you have interest in the magazine, Piecework's website is found at:

www.pieceworkmagazine.com

And if you go to Wikipedia with search Martha Washington, you will find several other illustrations of interest. 

I received an article published in the on-line version of National Geographic.  It describes George Washington as Calm, Cool, Collected Commander in Chief.  I would like to redo this post next February and add some of the information in that article.

February 1774

 Our Chapter began having a three minute informational talk about the events leading up to the revolution in December with the talk about the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  

Everything moved slow in the days leading up to the Revolution.  The News of the tea party had to travel by ship to Great Britain and then the repercussions had to travel back by ship as well.  So we can know that while this was not a quiet month as the news of the Tea party traveled to all parts of the Colonies,  there were no new big events that happened during this month that were directly related to the upcoming Revolution.

But there was an event that was mentioned in the January/February National Defender that is near and dear to my heart.  It is not exactly a Revolutionary War fact, but it does include George Washington.

In 2015, in preparation for a trip to downtown Philadelphia, I asked my Quaker mail list what I should be sure to see.  My friends on the mail list explained that there are very few Quaker sites left from the late 1600s and early 1700s. That one should see the usual sites with Quaker eyes.  And one of my favorite examples of this is the Liberty Bell.

The State House bell, now known as the Liberty Bell, rang in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House. Today, we call that building Independence Hall. Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris first ordered a bell for the bell tower in 1751 from the Whitechapel Foundry in London. That bell cracked on the first test ring. Local metalworkers John Pass and John Stow melted down that bell and cast a new one right here in Philadelphia. It's this bell that would ring to call lawmakers to their meetings and the townspeople together to hear the reading of the news. Benjamin Franklin wrote to Catherine Ray in 1755, "Adieu, the Bell rings, and I must go among the Grave ones and talk Politicks." It's not until the 1830s that the old State House bell would begin to take on significance as a symbol of liberty.

                                                       https://www.nps.gov/inde/learn/historyculture/stories-libertybell.htm

In one of his books, historian David Hackett Fischer examines the bell as a uniquely Quaker sort of tool. Essentially, his observation was that the bell could be heard by all announcing that the assembly was in session.  Legislatures elsewhere operated more quietly, more "sub rosa," if you will.  Into that, Fischer read a more democratic attitude in the Quaker life style.

 

January 1774

After the Boston Tea Party the Sons of Liberty of Boston engaged Paul Revere to ride to New York and to Philadelphia to tell the Sons of Liberty in those two cities about the audacious act that they had been a part of in Boston:  The Boston Tea Party.  

The news was heard in every Colony as the information was published in papers and talked about in every town.  As far away as Williamsburg the news had traveled:

From the Boston Gazette:

 

December 1773

photo from Wikipedia

December 16th, 2023 is the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  To celebrate I spoke briefly at my DAR chapter's Christmas luncheon about the event:

  The Boston Tea Party took place the night of December 16th 1773.  116 men are documented as having participated, but it is estimated that 100s of men actually took part.

The three ships holding tea had arrived in the Boston Harbour at the end of November and the first and middle of December....each carrying more than a 100 chests of British East Indian Tea.  The colonists had asked the Royal Governor Hutchinson to allow the ships to be sent back to England without unloading the tea.  He did not respond to this request.  On December 17th customs officials were scheduled to board the ships to unload the tea.  Once the tea was unloaded the tax would have to be paid.

The colonist's major complaint was not that the tea was being taxed but that Parliament implemented the tax with no representation by the colonists,  Parliament exerted this power move to gain more control over the colonists.

Remember that the British Government and the colonists had recently fought the French and Indian war which ended in 1763.  This had been an expensive war for the British and they felt that the colonists should help pay the bill.  Great Britain was deep in debt.  

Great Britain had imposed the Stamp Act in 1765 and the Townsend Act in 1767 which taxed essentials such as lead, glass, paint and tea.

John Hancock and Samuel Adams, architects of the Boston Tea party planned the even, but stayed at Faneuil Hall to establish an alibi.  These were ordinary men doing an extraordinary action.

The Tea Party participants (a group of men who called themselves the sons of Liberty) destroyed 340 chests of tea weighing more than 92,000 pounds by dumping it into Boston Harbor.

What happened after the Boston Tea Party was even more amazing.  Men and women in other colonies rallied behind this idea and organized similar protests in their cities.

As a result of the destruction of the tea in Boston, the British cut off all access to Boston by land and sea for three years.  Bostonians were prevented from starving by sneaking food into Boston during those three years.