Most people probably have never heard of the Canadian Regiments that played an important role during the American Revolutionary War. These units recruited French and British Canadians and fought throughout the war, spanning campaigns from the northern frontier to the Battles of Saratoga and the Siege of Yorktown. [Read more…] about The Continental Congress’s Canadian Regiments
Second Continental Congress
A 1776 Crown Point Council of War Was A Deciding Factor
On July 7, 1776, the Continental Army’s senior commanders assembled at Fort Crown Point on Lake Champlain to confront a military crisis.
Their meeting during a council of war at Crown Point, fundamentally changed the course of the Revolutionary War in the North, and helped lay the groundwork for the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga a year later. [Read more…] about A 1776 Crown Point Council of War Was A Deciding Factor
Rouse, Brave Citizens: An Appeal to New Yorkers to Support Revolution
In December 1776, the American Revolution was just getting started and New York was in crisis. New York’s delegates to Philadelphia had signed the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
But by the end of the year, though, New York was in peril – Long Island and the city of New York had been occupied by the British, the Westchester County region was not in control of either side, and British authorities were appealing to New Yorkers to abandon the rebels and support the Crown. [Read more…] about Rouse, Brave Citizens: An Appeal to New Yorkers to Support Revolution
Financing the Revolution: National, State & Local Currencies
The New York Provincial Congress was one of the first revolutionary bodies to outline a new inter-colonial program to finance the Revolutionary War.
On May 26, 1775, only two weeks after the Second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, the Provincial Congress wrote to New York’s delegates that it was “clearly impossible” to raise by taxes a sum “adequate to the public service” and that it was equally certain that the existing paper money of the various states could not obtain ‘”universal circulation.” [Read more…] about Financing the Revolution: National, State & Local Currencies
The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture
Each year, millions of visitors flock to see the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives building in Washington, DC where it rests on display with the United States’s other Charters of Freedom.
But how did it end up there and why do people approach it with religious reverence? [Read more…] about The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture
Robert R. Livingston and the Declaration of Independence
Five men served on the Second Continental Congress’s Committee of Five, to produce the Declaration of Independence. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two?
The latest episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast explores the lives and contributions of Robert R. Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. [Read more…] about Robert R. Livingston and the Declaration of Independence
The Articles of Confederation
On June 12, 1776, the Second Continental Congress turned to perhaps the most difficult element of independence: drafting a plan of government for their brand new nation.
The man Congress chose to write the first draft was John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. Although he would not vote for independence, Dickinson was the most respected constitutional thinker in Congress. What Dickinson wrote was strong and bold. What Congress did to his draft was something else entirely. [Read more…] about The Articles of Confederation
New York’s Response to the Declaration of Independence
Conscious of the new political status which the Province of New York had attained by the adoption of the text of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4th, the deputies of the New York Provincial Congress voted unanimously on July 10th:
“That the style or title of this House be changed from that of the Provincial Congress of the Colony of New York to that of the Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York.” [Read more…] about New York’s Response to the Declaration of Independence
New York’s Uncertainty Over The Declaration of Independence
At the outset of the emerging American Revolution there was no intent to overthrow the established social order, nor to subvert the government of the British Empire.
Most colonists wanted self-government, self taxation and direct representation within the empire, and professed to stand for their old and recognized rights as men and as Englishmen under the British constitution, which they believed a blind parliament and an obstinate ministry were violating. [Read more…] about New York’s Uncertainty Over The Declaration of Independence
New York’s Revolutionary Provincial Congresses 1775-1776
By May 1775 civil war between the American colonies and the British government had begun. The Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the seizures of Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point told the story of an appeal to arms.
Town, county, city and state committees, as representatives of the people, assumed the functions of government, took the initiative in opposing the objectionable acts of the British parliament, and gradually, perhaps more or less unconsciously, prepared the people for the Revolutionary War. [Read more…] about New York’s Revolutionary Provincial Congresses 1775-1776
Road to Independence: The 1776 Lee Resolution
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to declare independence. But that vote didn’t begin with the Declaration of Independence.
It began on June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) of Virginia introduced a three-part resolution that would set the American Revolution on its definitive course to independence. [Read more…] about Road to Independence: The 1776 Lee Resolution
New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government
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
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
Benjamin Franklin’s Travels Through Upstate New York in 1776
A 70-year-old Benjamin Franklin passed through upstate New York in the spring of 1776 on a mission to Canada that failed in the moment but helped shape the American Revolution.
Traveling north in poor health, Franklin traveled up the Hudson River, passing through Albany, Saratoga, and up Lake Champlain, reaching Montreal in April 1776. [Read more…] about Benjamin Franklin’s Travels Through Upstate New York in 1776
The British, Enslaved People & The American Revolution
As the American Revolution broke out in New England in the spring of 1775, dramatic events unfolded in Virginia that proved every bit as decisive as the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill in uniting the colonies against Britain.
A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025) relates the largely untold story of rebellion in Virginia that should forever change our understanding of the American Revolution. [Read more…] about The British, Enslaved People & The American Revolution
1775: New York City Revolutionaries Seize British Arms
In 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
Hudson River Defenses in the Revolutionary War
The Hudson River is not a place that’s conducive to a leisurely scuba dive. The water in the Hudson is very murky, cold, has uninviting currents, and ship traffic, so underwater archaeology in the Hudson River has mainly relied on remote sensing to image the river bottom.
According to Dr. Daria Merwin, an underwater archaeologist by training and Co-Director of the Cultural Resource Survey Program at the New York State Museum, initial surveys have mapped roughly 300 anomalies that may represent historic shipwrecks and there are already a few known sites from the American Revolution in the Hudson River. [Read more…] about Hudson River Defenses in the Revolutionary War
The Establishment of Postal Service in New York
What follows is excerpted from “The New York Post Office in Olden Times, by W.B.,Taylor, a paper read before the New York Historical Society on October 7, 1851.
The first regulation providing for the transmission of letters by post in the Province of New York, bears [the] date 10 December, 1672, when Governor [Francis] Lovelace [ca. 1621-1675] established “a post to go monthly” from New York to Boston and back again. [Read more…] about The Establishment of Postal Service in New York
What Really Happened on the Fourth of July
On April 19, 1775, British Regulars and American minutemen fought at Lexington and Concord. There were casualties on both sides. A second battle was fought at Bunker Hill in June, the Continental Army with George Washington as commander was created, the British forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point were captured by the colonists, King George III declared his colonies to be in a state of rebellion in August, Canada was invaded, and in May 1776 Congress learned that Britain had employed Hessian troops to fight their American cousins.
Despite all that ensued, the Continental Congress still had not taken up the idea of independence, much to the dismay of the more radical delegates such as John and Samuel Adams and Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee. [Read more…] about What Really Happened on the Fourth of July
Philadelphia: An Early History
Two hundred fifty years ago, in May 1775, delegates from thirteen British North American colonies gathered in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress.
Why was Philadelphia chosen as the seat of Congress? What made the city a critical hub for revolutionary ideas, commerce, and culture? And how has Philadelphia’s early history shaped the broader narrative of American Independence? Join the Ben Franklin’s World podcast for an exploration of Philadelphia’s early history. [Read more…] about Philadelphia: An Early History