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response that the Boston leaders boasted that the town would become the chief grain port of America if the act was not repealed.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.

April 1774

 Last month we talked about the fact that the news of the Boston Tea party had reached Great Britain and that Parliament  had passed the first of the  Coercive Acts of 1774 which were  known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies,  These acts were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party.  

Then it took time for the  news to reach our shores via the ships that sailed from Great Britain.  The News reached Virginia in May.  The colonies were abuzz with the news of the audacious act of the Sons of Liberty in Boston.

So while the Revolutionary actions are quiet in April, I'll talk about a contributing factor to the Revolution.  And it includes a great many of our ancestors for those of us who live in Appalachia:  the Scotch-Irish.  The Scotch-Irish are people who originally lived in Scotland or England and moved into the northern part of Ireland.  I believe that without the Scotch-Irish the war might never have happened.  Our population was made of many people.  There were Quakers who did not believe in fighting.  There were Germans who were busy with their very tidy and productive farms.  There were the English who traded with England and might not have become so unhappy with the government in Great Britain.  And then there were the Scotch-Irish who did not have great love for the English and were always ready for a fight!  They had their rifles (while the English mostly had muskets) and they were excellent marksmen.  They were proud and quick tempered by nature.  So I suggest as we wait for the news to get back to the colonies about Parliament's action to punish the Boston people for the Boston Tea party in May that we take a look at these colonists who fit the description of Scotch-Irish.  These families had lived in Scotland and England and then moved to Northern Ireland and lived there for a generation or two or even three.

The first major influx of border English and Lowland Scots into Ulster came in the first two decades of the 1600s.  Bailyn in his book, The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction, says on page 26: 
in one 24 month period in the 1630's at least 10,000 Scots migrated to Ireland.  The below map shows how easy this migration was because of the geography of the area.

Many of the early migrants came from the Scottish borders, men with names like Armstrong, Bell and Elliot.  These settlers  had been hardened in an age-old struggle with the English.   By 1640 it is estimated that as many as 100,000 Scots had settled in Ulster compared with some 20,000 migrants from England. 

And many of these families lived in Ulster for several generations.  What caused them to look to the shores of North America?

Pushed out of Ireland by religious conflicts, lack of political autonomy and dire economic conditions, these immigrants, who were often called "Scotch-Irish," were pulled to America by the promise of land ownership and greater religious freedom.

And they poured into the ports of Philadelphia from 1717 to 1750.

They came in such a deluge that the settled Quakers and English began pushing them towards the frontier which at that time would have been Lancaster County, PA.

A great many Scotch-Irish squatted on the land without purchasing the land on which they lived.  When in 1730 the Penn family began to try to crack down on these settlers forcing them to buy their land, the Scotch-Irish moved.  

And a large number ended up in what was often called the Irish Quarter:

The Beverly Patent and the Borden Survey.

On a modern map it would look like the below:

To make it easier to know which county to look in, I present a few maps from the site

https://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/countyformations/virginiaformationmaps.html

Why did the settlers move south rather than West?  One reason was the Indians who lived to the west of the Susquehanna river in PA.  Another was the Proclamation line of 1763.  After the French and Indian War, the British government drew up the proclamation line and it was illegal to live west of this line.

So why do I believe that this was a factor leading up to the Revolution?  Because these men and women had no love for the British government.  And they were rough and ready and did not shirk from a fight.  When the call went out to fight at Point Pleasant only a few months after the Boston Tea Party in the early fall of 1774, it was the Scotch-Irish living on the frontier who gathered  at Camp Union (present Lewisburg) and journeyed down the Kanawha River to its mouth at Point Pleasant, arriving on October 6.  While the northern events were happening in the early years leading up to the Revolutionary War, our Scotch-Irish ancestors were gathering on the frontier of our new lands ready to fight the British for their land and the right to practice their Presbyterian non-conformist religion.

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: