About 1768, New York’s first paper mill was established, but throughout the 1700s New Yorkers suffered from a lack of paper, no more so than during the American Revolution. The industry grew from the need for paper and owes its early history to the rise of printing in America. [Read more…] about Small & Scarce: Early New York Paper Making History
Boston
New York & America’s First Organized Soccer Team
With the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup underway this is a good time to consider that in June 1993 the United States Soccer Federation recognized Gerrit Smith Miller of Peterboro, Madison County, NY, as the founder of the first organized soccer team in this country. [Read more…] about New York & America’s First Organized Soccer Team
Bunker Hill Redoubt Where Joseph Warren Died Rediscovered
June 17, 2025, marked the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force.
The Bostonians and their allies sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of the battle, Dr. Joseph Warren, the namesake of Warren County, NY, who was brutally killed and mutilated by the British at the end of the battle. [Read more…] about Bunker Hill Redoubt Where Joseph Warren Died Rediscovered
Henry Davis Minot’s Adirondack Warbler & ‘Diary of a Bird’
Henry Davis Minot was born near Forest Hills (part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston) in 1859, the sixth of seven children of William and Katharine Maria Sedgwick Minot.
He took an early interest in ornithology (the study of birds), recording careful observations, including, at the age of 11, what he believed to be a new species of bird in 1871 (it turned out not to be the case). [Read more…] about Henry Davis Minot’s Adirondack Warbler & ‘Diary of a Bird’
The American Revolutionary Committee System: 1765-1775
During the controversies over the enforcement of the Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, committees were created in New York to correspond with those of other colonies and to contrive means of opposing those measures. Similar committees were organized elsewhere.
The Townshend Acts of 1767 reawakened the disturbance occasioned by the Stamp Act and furnished a renewed occasion for protests through committees. [Read more…] about The American Revolutionary Committee System: 1765-1775
New York’s Revolutionary Committee Records: Correspondence, Safety & Conspiracies
For a century and a half prior to the American Revolution the people of New York had been accustomed to act through representative committees in order to win one concession after another for self-government.
During the Dutch period the Twelve Men (a committee chosen in 1641 by the residents to advise Willem Kieft on relations with Native Americans), the Eight Men (Remonstrance of the Eight Men, 1644), the Nine Men (Remonstrance of the Commonality, 1649, led by Adriaen van der Donck), and other groups, wrested rights for the people from autocratic New Netherland governors and the West India Company. [Read more…] about New York’s Revolutionary Committee Records: Correspondence, Safety & Conspiracies
Critical Mass and the Road to Revolution, 1763-1776
According to Webster’s American Dictionary, “critical mass” is the time when a turning point is reached in a series of events leading to a major action. Scientifically, the term is used when sufficient size of matter leads to a chain reaction, as in a nuclear reactor.
Thus, “critical mass” can help explain the American Revolution. [Read more…] about Critical Mass and the Road to Revolution, 1763-1776
Philistine Elbert Hubbard, Roycroft, and the Arts & Crafts Movement
The principles of beauty and artistic taste and its appreciation in nature and art are very personal, yet aesthetics can often be shared. During the nineteenth century the industrial revolution, first in Europe and later North America, left a dearth of creative aesthetics among inhabitants. Many felt the impersonal civilization, where industrialization forced movement from agrarian societies to urban social life, stripped creativity and aesthetic expression.
Like the industrial revolution itself, what would become an international trend originated in England and would be spread to British colonies and former colonies of the Empire, with origins in the 1850s. This was an arts and crafts movement, spurred on by those with both a grasp of mechanical design and a gift for expressing themselves in writing and lecture, such as John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle and William Morris. Art of pre-industrial times, produced by the skills of craftsmen, were championed and embraced by the movement. [Read more…] about Philistine Elbert Hubbard, Roycroft, and the Arts & Crafts Movement
Evert Wendell Account Books Reveal Life in 1695-1789
The New York Historical Society has digitized their Evert Wendell collection, including five account books in Dutch and English covering the period from 1695 to 1758 and one docket book (in English).
Evert Wendell (1681-1750) was a Dutch-descended Albany merchant, fur trader, and attorney, who conducted business with Native Americans in upstate New York and with colonists in Albany, Schenectady, New York City, and Boston. [Read more…] about Evert Wendell Account Books Reveal Life in 1695-1789
The ‘Tea Party’ Revolution in Boston and New York
Incensed at the landing of three ships carrying East India Company tea in late November, 1773 American colonists who had been blocking the unloading of the tea and convening meetings demanded that the tea be returned to England without delay.
On the night of December 16, 1773, between 30 and 60 disguised men rushed out of a meeting at the Old South Church and into the streets of Boston, heading for Griffin’s Wharf and its three tea-laden ships. In all, they dumped 340 large wooden chests containing some 90,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor that night. [Read more…] about The ‘Tea Party’ Revolution in Boston and New York
Art Dealer William Schaus, Sugar Baron Henry Havemeyer & America’s First Rembrandt
The “Gilded Age,” a term coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 novel of that title, indicates a period in American history from the 1870s to the early 1900s in which rapid industrialization and growing prosperity contrasted with extreme poverty and social deprivation.
The era encountered an evolving cultural landscape. Tycoons like Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, J. P. Morgan and others used their fortunes to collect art, build museums or sponsor libraries. Critics argued that these “robber barons” masked the exploitation of the workforce by acts of cultural philanthropy. [Read more…] about Art Dealer William Schaus, Sugar Baron Henry Havemeyer & America’s First Rembrandt
HMS Cerberus: The Warship That Brought Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe to the Colonies
A few weeks after the April 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, the British warship HMS Cerberus, a 28-gun frigate, arrived in Boston harbor carrying three British generals that would go on to play key roles in the American Revolution: John Burgoyne, Henry Clinton, and William Howe.
The very name of the sixth-rate ship, Cerberus, did not go unnoticed to Bostonians. Cerberus was a mythical Greek god, a monstrous three-headed dog often called the “hound of Hades.” [Read more…] about HMS Cerberus: The Warship That Brought Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe to the Colonies
Angelica Schuyler Church: A Woman at the Center of Revolution
Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution (W. W. Norton & Company, 2025) by Molly Beer is a women-centric view of revolution through the life of Angelica Schuyler Church (1756-1814), the eldest daughter of General Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer.
The Van Rensselaers of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck were one of the wealthiest and most politically influential families in what was then the still heavily Dutch-influenced Province of New York. [Read more…] about Angelica Schuyler Church: A Woman at the Center of Revolution
Vito Corleone, Alonzo Blauvelt & Smallpox in Italian Harlem
The year was 1901 when the steel barque Moshulu sailed into New York Harbor carrying many Sicilian immigrants for inspection at Ellis Island.
This is the gripping fictional opening scene of The Godfather II, although considerable artistic license was taken by its producer and director Francis Ford Coppola. [Read more…] about Vito Corleone, Alonzo Blauvelt & Smallpox in Italian Harlem
Roger Williams, A Rogue Puritan & Religious Freedom
When we think of early American champions of religious liberty, one name often rises above the rest: Roger Williams (ca. 1603 – 1683).
Williams is widely remembered as the founder of Rhode Island and a strong advocate for the separation of church and state. But what kind of man turns down a prestigious ministerial position in Boston, only to be banished – and then builds an entirely new colony grounded in radical ideas? [Read more…] about Roger Williams, A Rogue Puritan & Religious Freedom
Joseph Warren: Harvard Hustler, Doctor, Revolutionary
June 17, 2025, marked the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Although technically a British victory, Bunker Hill proved that colonial soldiers could hold their own against the might of the British Empire. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force. The New Englanders sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of this battle: Dr. Joseph Warren. [Read more…] about Joseph Warren: Harvard Hustler, Doctor, Revolutionary
Battlefield Brutality: The Death of Dr. Joseph Warren
The day after George Washington was made Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, Joseph Warren was made a Major General. He had been serving President of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the highest position in that colony’s revolutionary government.
Three days later on June 17th 1775, Warren would be brutally killed and mutilated by the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill. [Read more…] about Battlefield Brutality: The Death of Dr. Joseph Warren
Moses Roper’s Escape from American Slavery
The following excerpt is from A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery published in 1838. Moses Roper (ca. 1815 – 1891) was an African American abolitionist, author and orator. He gave thousands of lectures in Great Britain and Ireland to inform the European public about the brutality of American slavery. [Read more…] about Moses Roper’s Escape from American Slavery
The Expulsion of Deborah Moody
New England was a male-dominated Puritan society in which women could not vote, own property or hold a post in religious or governmental bodies. Men were inferior to God and women lesser than men. But the lived experience varied according to background and education.
Despite restrictions, some women did make themselves heard and challenged communal norms. Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643) and Deborah Moody (1586-1659) battled for the right to speak out. Demanding inclusive debate, they were accused of undermining the authority of the Colony’s patriarchal structure. [Read more…] about The Expulsion of Deborah Moody
The Life Dr. Joseph Warren: The Revolution’s Lost Hero
This week’s Lake George Battlefield Moments podcast is the first of a two-part interview with historian Christian Di Spigna, author of Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero (Crown, 2018).
The book is one of only a few biographies of one of the most important early Revolutionaries – the President of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress – who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. [Read more…] about The Life Dr. Joseph Warren: The Revolution’s Lost Hero