Episodes

We have two fun events for you today: first up, North Carolina reaches an important deadline it had set back in August. Then, by sheer coincidence, John and Abigail Adams each wrote a letter to the other. Of course, they wrote to one another quite frequently, so this probably happened more often than you’d think. But remember also that any news they received was probably two weeks old by the time the letter landed in their hands. I will close today’s notes with an amusing anecdote that John Ad...

Robert Adrain is one of those names that most people wouldn’t recognize, but back in the day he was a mathematical scholar in a place where there really weren’t any. At least, none of special note. Adrain made education his entire life, teaching youngsters while still pretty much a child himself, being 15 when he started. After moving to America, he resumed his teaching career and became the publisher of a mathematical journal, which ran for several years. It’s Cake and Candles today for Rober...

During the episode we noted that not much is known about David McConaughy’s early life. Even his adult life isn’t especially well-documented. We don’t even know who painted the portrait in today’s cover art. But there’s no question that, even if the man himself is a bit of a cypher, his legacy at Washington College is not. Meanwhile, another couple of Washingtons are in communication with each other. Lund Washington, a cousin of George, is taking care of Mount Vernon in George’s absence. Unfor...

First off: let me apologize for not tutoring Mike in the correct pronunciation of “Iroquois.” I’d make him record that part again but he’s at a podcasting conference and away from his studio. (It only looks like a French word, Mike; it’s not pronounced like one.) Of course, I grew up in New York so those tribes were kind of beaten into us during Social Studies classes. At any rate, we’ve talked in the past about efforts to get the various tribes in upstate New York to join the war effort, but ...

William Woodford got his start in the military when he joined George Washington’s Virginia Regiment, and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1761. When hostilities with Britain began to turn into actual shooting at each other, Woodford became a colonel commanding the 2nd Virginia Regiment. Based on a letter he’d received from his fellow Virginian George Washington, he determined to ensure that his men were well-trained. In early December we’ll learn how that paid off handsomely. The post September ...

Thomas Jefferson was a writer, an inventor, a lawyer, a philosopher, a statesman, and of course a soldier. Wait, what? Yes, indeed. Thomas Jefferson was named commander of the militia in Albemarle County. It could be argued that the title was little more than ceremonial, but then again…Jefferson saw no combat. It’s entirely possible that his mere presence was a deterrent to the British, who wanted no part of this fierce warrior. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. OK, I’m kind of in a mood t...

And this, kiddies, is what happens when you don’t push the “publish” button. You get a late episode. At least the radio folks heard it today. BTW: Shout-out to Hillsboro’s News Hound, HBORO.com! Welcome aboard! Ethan Allen was part of the Green Mountain Boys and the whole contingent that went north to invade/convince Canada in the effort to get them to join us in the Independence movement. Allen was young and ambitious, and that may have contributed to his downfall here. Because while a plan t...

It could be argued that Captain Heald’s biggest claim to fame is that he was on hand for the disastrous outcome at Fort Dearborn, but at least he doesn’t eat the blame for it; it just happened to be the guy who was there. On the bright side (such as it is), the events at Dearborn were soon overshadowed by President Madison declaring war on the British, thus beginning the War of 1812. Heald and his wife, who were both injured at Fort Dearborn, were released back to the Americans. Heald was promo...

For those of you new to this podcast (or those who haven’t been paying attention), I grew up on Long Island, and have lived or worked pretty much from one end of the map in today’s cover art to the other at one time or another. For instance, my childhood home is just about where the Long Island portion of the map ends at the top right. I did my undergrad work approximately where the “H” appears just above Hempstead. I got my graduate degree at a school along that road between Oyster Bay and Hu...

Philip Milledoler was a minister and the fifth president of Rutgers University (Rutgers College, then), but it’s a little more complicated than that. Milledoler took a moribund college and transformed it into the intellectual powerhouse it is today. But how it happened is at the heart of our story. The post September 22, 1775: Philip Milledoler appeared first on 250 and Counting.

In the episode itself I took the time to hammer home the point that many of our historical legends aren’t quite what they seem to be. But also important is the forgotten people of our history as well. Not just the faceless folks who fought and died (or didn’t but remained in obscurity), but the people who were an important part of some events, yet go unnoticed today. And Abel Prescott is one of those people. Not a lot is known about him, other than that he was William’s younger brother. And wh...

Calling Bernard Romans a “Renaissance Man” wouldn’t be far from the truth, given his various talents and the fact that folks from that era were much more like people from the Renaissance than they are from modern times. Romans was a surveyor, a naturalist, an artist and an author. He was also an entrepreneur, which is what put him on our radar for today. And he was a ship’s captain, which meant that he had a front-row seat to the War for Independence. It was his “An Exact View of the Late Batt...

We think of “Benedict Arnold” and the word “Traitor” comes immediately to mind. The two are essentially synonymous. Say one, and you’ve said the other. But Benedict Arnold was quite loyal to the Independence cause in the early days of the war. In fact, he was often eager to show what he could do. And why he switched sides is quite complicated and can’t really be answered quickly. There were times when he felt that injustices were suffered upon him by other generals and by the Continental Congr...

The Committee of Secret Correspondence is one of those names that sounds like they should be on Double Secret Probation or something. However, when you look at their purpose, the name makes sense. The Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed to seek out support from other nations. They reached out to France, Spain, and a few others to get supplies, food, munitions…pretty much anything they could get. Oftentimes they had to use a third party to give everyone plausible deniability. And fort...

The Minuteman statue in Lexington, Massachusetts is said to represent Captain John Parker, who died on this day. Except Parker wasn’t a minuteman. He also probably didn’t look like the man in the statue, given his age and what other small details we know about him. But as usual, nobody lets the facts get in the way of a good story, so just roll with it, hm? (We’re guessing he probably wasn’t green, either. ) The post September 17, 1775: Death of a Militiaman appeared first on 250 and Counti...

So obviously this Josiah Bartlett isn’t the guy on The West Wing, in part because President Bartlet is fictional. (Okay, maybe entirely because of that.) But he is supposed to be a direct descendant of the Founding Father. Why, and when, the terminal T dropped off was never explained. Anyway, Josiah Bartlett and John Langdon both arrived in Philadelphia from New Hampshire as delegates to the Continental Congress, and they both fought in the war, plus they were around for the Constitutional Conv...

Since the early 1700s there have been several Fort Johnsons on James Island in the Charleston Bay. The curious thing is that few people know what happened to each fort as it was destroyed, with the exception of the third one, which was definitely damaged in a storm. But the first two? Who knows. Today’s episode focuses on the second version of the fort, which still has a few vestiges of the old walls around. But it’s much like visiting Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where the location of the barra...

John Henry Hobart was born on this day in 1775, and he came that close to dying on the same day in 1830, on September 12. We read once that, statistically, men tend to die before “big” dates, e.g. birthdays and major holidays, while women tend to die afterwards. In Claude’s family anyway, it does have a ring of general truth to it. Go figure. Although Hobart was an Episcopalian minister (and later Bishop), he was the pastor to Elizabeth Ann Seton, our first American saint. (Seton converted to...

Let’s talk state vexillology. Believe it or not, there are people who are very passionate about state flags. (Not me, he said, about to go into a mini-rant.) Most states have a very utilitarian purpose. They kind of lean in, announce themselves, and lean out again. Some flags are weirdly cluttered (New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Delaware). Some flags are rather boring (Alabama, Minnesota). Some have heavy symbolism but it’s lost on most viewers (Arkansas, Utah) I’ve lived in Maryland...

We mentioned a while back that John Adams had siblings, as did George Washington. This wasn’t one of them, and as far as anyone can tell, it’s more of a cousin-type relationship. William Washington essentially won a bet with his brothers, and his prize was the ability to join the militia in Virginia to fight for independence. From this day in 1775 until 1781 he was engaged in multiple battles against the British in Virginia and the Carolinas. It was in 1781 that his horse was shot out from unde...

As the winter of 1775 approached, George Washington had to think about the state of the siege of Boston. In short, housing and clothing thousands of men in a New England winter is a very different proposition than doing it in the summer. So Washington convened his War Council to discuss the possibility of breaking the siege by attacking the city from a different direction. Meanwhile up in Canada, General Philip Schuyler takes another run at Fort St. Jean. The post September 11, 1775: One Sieg...

The riflemen in the Continental Army were a special breed of soldier. They weren’t subject to all the drudge work that most of the other soldiers had to endure. The downside to this is, they knew it and they took advantage of it. So when one rifleman got himself in trouble, word got out and suddenly a relatively small problem turns into a relatively big one. And while George Washington kinda-sorta recognized this stratification of soldiers, he didn’t do much to discourage it. He did, however, ...

The Independence Hurricane from September 2 is still going strong, and on this day it made landfall again, this time in Newfoundland, Canada. The devastation was immense, and perhaps would have been worse had it happened in modern times (we get it, there are satellites and stuff now). It remains Canada’s worst natural disaster and it’s still in the Top Ten chart for North Atlantic hurricanes. The post September 9, 1775: Landfall in Newfoundland appeared first on 250 and Counting.

As late as the 1970s, pioneers like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone had achieved a kind of mythical status, largely because of fictionalized stories created about them by the folks at Disney. Sometimes it gets tough to determine what’s fiction and what isn’t, since they tend to embellish things that may have actually happened for the sake of a story. (Not a knock on Disney, so don’t sue us; that’s a typical practice when it comes to stuff like this.) So these folks became larger than life for a...