History, Natural History & the Arts
Paul Revere was Joseph Warren’s brother Mason. In 1760, when Revere was 25, he entered St. Andrew’s Lodge, a newer lodge whose members were mostly craftsmen.
It met at the Green Dragon Tavern on Union Street (then known as Green Dragon Lane) in Boston’s North End. [Read more…] about Joseph Warren, Paul Revere & Freemasonry
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
Charity Clarke was born in the colonial city of New York on June 28, 1747, and lived through the momentous times that gave birth to the United States. She grew up on her father’s “Chelsea” estate (now the Chelsea neighborhood) in Manhattan.
Clarke married the Rev. Benjamin Moore, the pastor of Trinity Church, in 1778. Their son, Clement Clarke Moore was author of the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas or The Night Before Christmas. [Read more…] about Charity Clarke Moore: American Revolutionary Writer
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
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
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
In April 1775, when news of the Battle of Lexington and Concord reached New York, Nicholas Fish, born in Newtown, Long Island, was a 17-year old law student at King’s College (now Columbia University).
Together with his close friend, Alexander Hamilton, and other law colleagues who were members of the Sons of Liberty, Fish without hesitation joined a volunteer militia called the “Corsicans” – later named the “Hearts of Oak.”
The Hearts of Oak carried out one of the early actions of the war in August 1775 when they seized 21 royal cannons from New York’s Battery under fire from the British warship HMS Asia. [Read more…] about Revolutionary, Military & Political Leader Nicholas Fish Focus of New Exhibit
The 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
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
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
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
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
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