New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Lexington & Concord

New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government

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The Long Room at Fraunces tavern, a secondary meeting place for the Provincial Congress in 1775 (2022 photo by John Bigelow Taylor)The New York Provincial Congress on May 26, 1775, appointed a “standing committee of correspondence” and the next day ordered all the counties in the Province of New York to name committees for the counties, towns and districts and to have the “general association” signed, in order to execute the orders of the Second Continental Congress.

Every citizen was to be invited to sign the “association” and by July 1775, all the non-signers (loyalist, or otherwise) were to be reported to the Provincial Congress. [Read more…] about New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government

Critical Mass and the Road to Revolution, 1763-1776

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Sons of Liberty meet across the American Colonies to discuss resistance to parliamentary overreach shown in "Agitation against tea ships, New York City, 1773" (NYPL)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

1775 Articles of Association: One Long Island Community’s Experience

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New York Articles of Association, 1775The residents of Huntington, on Long Island, were quick to react to the first battle of the American Revolution when the local militia in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts successfully repulsed a British attempt to seize their arms on April 19, 1775.

A week later in the city of New York, the Committee of Sixty, which had been created the previous November, expressed its opinion “That at the present alarming Juncture, it is highly adviseable [sic] that a Provincial Congress be immediately summoned.” [Read more…] about 1775 Articles of Association: One Long Island Community’s Experience

HMS Cerberus: The Warship That Brought Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe to the Colonies

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Illustration of HMS Cerberus (1758–1778) by John WhiteselA 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

A Call to Arms: Schenectady’s Committee of Correspondence

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The Manner in which the American Colonies Declared Themselves Independent of the King of England, throughout the Different Provinces, on July 4, 1776, by Noble (engraver), after Hamilton (painter), for Edward Barnard’s The New, Comprehensive, Impartial and Complete History of England… (London, 1783).In 1775, rumors of a catalyzing crisis had reached Schenectady, NY. By this point, there had long been disputes between Britain and the American Colonies.

In January of the previous year, many people in Schenectady had taken to the streets to raise a Liberty Flag, a statement of vague but spirited resistance to the distant dictates of Parliament. [Read more…] about A Call to Arms: Schenectady’s Committee of Correspondence

1775: New York City Revolutionaries Seize British Arms

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Village Tavern by artist John Lewis Krimmel (American, 1786-1821), 1813-1814In the early part of the year 1775 a state of uneasiness and expectancy pervaded the City of New York. Trade was prostrate. The merchants met at the Exchange or at the Coffee House and nervously talked over the situation, for which there seemed to be no remedy; while they looked out on the quiet docks, now almost deserted.

They were calmly waiting for something to happen, and it came in the news of the battle of Lexington. This was the crisis which produced a decided change in conditions. The dissatisfied people now showed that they had lost all respect for English rule. [Read more…] about 1775: New York City Revolutionaries Seize British Arms

Battlefield Brutality: The Death of Dr. Joseph Warren

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The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull (1786)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

The Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775

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A view of the town of Concord by Engraver Amos Doolittle, 1775. April 19, 2025 marked the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord — the moment the American Revolution turned from protest to war. What do we really know about that fateful day? How did the people of Concord prepare for what they faced in April 1775?

David Wood, the longtime curator of the Concord Museum recently joined the Ben Franklin’s World podcast to explore answers to these questions. [Read more…] about The Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

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The Revolutionary: Samuel AdamsThomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the American Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history.  Adams amplified the Boston Massacre and helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party.

He employed every tool available to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Samuel Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. Despite his celebrated status among America’s founding fathers as a revolutionary leader however, Samuel Adams’ life and achievements have been largely overshadowed in history books. [Read more…] about The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

Everyday People of the American Revolution

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ben franklins world podcastIn this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Woody Holton, a Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and the author of Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution (Simon Schuster, 2021), discusses with Liz how we can better see and understand the American Revolution as a whole event.

Holton’s widely acclaimed book describes the origins and crucial battles of the American Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans — enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters — and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. [Read more…] about Everyday People of the American Revolution

Indispensables: New Book On Marblehead’s Soldier-Mariners

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The IndispensablesBook purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

The new book The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2021) by Patrick O’Donnel looks back at the American Revolution’s soldier-mariners from Marblehead, Massachusetts. [Read more…] about Indispensables: New Book On Marblehead’s Soldier-Mariners

1774: The Long Year of Revolution

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the long year of the revolution

The new book 1774: The Long Year of Revolution (Knopf, 2020) by Mary Beth Norton keenly focuses on the sixteen months during which the traditional loyalists to King George III began their discordant “discussions” that led to their acceptance of the inevitability of war against the British Empire and to the clashes at Lexington and Concord in mid-April 1775. [Read more…] about 1774: The Long Year of Revolution

The British Are Coming: Independence and American Character

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ben_franklins_worldBook purchases made through this link support New York Almanack‘s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

The American Revolution is embedded in the American character. It’s an event that can tell us who we are, how we came to be who we are, and how we can strive to be who we want to be as a nation and people.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Rick Atkinson, author of The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (Henry Holt & Company, 2019), joins us to explore how the War for Independence has impacted and shaped the American character.

[Read more…] about The British Are Coming: Independence and American Character

The Road to Concord, 1775

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ben_franklins_worldHow did the colonists of Massachusetts go from public protests meant to shame government officials and destroy offending property, to armed conflict with British Regulars in Lexington and Concord?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, John Bell, the prolific blogger behind Boston1775.net and the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War, (Westholme Publishing, 2016), leads us on an investigation of what brought colonists and redcoats to the Battles of Lexington and Concord. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/129

[Read more…] about The Road to Concord, 1775

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