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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Erato on Saturday 19 April 25 16:39 BST (UK)
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It's the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride and the Battle of Lexington. My home town - wish I could be there for the festivities. I don't have any ancestors who fought at Lexington and Concord, but at least one joined up in time for the Siege of Boston and the Battle of Bunker Hill.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/us/paul-revere-ride-250-anniversary.html
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Thanks to a cruel 11th grade U.S. history question I still remember the main portion of the Battle of Bunker Hill is said to have been fought on Breed's Hill ::)
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Why exactly did Paul Revere make that historic ride Erato, ?
We did the history of the Pilgrim Fathers, the early settlements etc but no later.
When doing the family history of my father’s side ,I was told he had be born in Boston —— later I found that he was - but, Boston Lincolnshire! ::)
Viktoria.
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To warn that the British were coming- here's the famous Longfellow poem we had to learn in school-
https://poets.org/poem/paul-reveres-ride
https://www.paulreverehouse.org/the-real-story/
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General Thomas Gage, the commander of all British troops in North America and the appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts had been instructed to stomp out all vestiges of rebellion in the colonies, especially Massachusetts. The crown had disbanded the elected provincial government, and the colonists had responded by creating a rogue provincial congress of their own which moved about from place to place to avoid being broken up General Gage's forces.
Gage's plan was to 1) seize stores of gun powder, munitions and weaponry thereby hamstringing colonial resistance and 2) capture the most prominent leaders of the opposition. He had already made several attempts to grab military supplies, one successful (at the Provincial Powder House) and two unsuccessful (at Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Salem, Massachusetts). On April 19, 1775, he planned to grab the supplies reportedly stored at Concord. In fact, those supplies had already been moved out and hidden away deeper in the countryside. He also wanted to capture two leaders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who had been attending the Provincial Congress which had been meeting in Concord and who were laying low in Lexington at the home of the local clergyman. Gage's spies had told him that the best route to Concord was through Lexington.
The colonists had their own spies and were well aware of what Gage was planning. As soon as they knew for sure when Gage was going to set his plan in motion, they triggered the alarm system they had devised to alert the colonial militias. The trick was to get the message out of Boston which was essentially an island and under British control. The plan included express riders to carry the message and signal lights hung in the tallest church spire in Boston ("one if by land and two if by sea"). Revere was one of the riders - he crossed by boat from Boston to Charlestown and rode the northern route to Lexington, rousing the populace along the way. William Dawes took the southern route, across Boston Neck and then on through Cambridge to Lexington. They arrived in Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams before the British troops had even started their march. They then rode on towards Concord to warn that town but were captured by a British patrol. Fortunately, Samuel Prescott, a local doctor, who was riding with them, managed to break away and escape. He carried the message to Concord. Meanwhile, express riders were fanning out all across eastern Massachusetts and by the following day some 4000 militia men were streaming towards Concord and Lexington, vastly outnumbering the British forces.
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We had no American history at all in school. I took one American history course at University, all about slavery. Fascinating. The prof was British, he was excellent.
OH has a Loyalist ancestor named DeForest (his ancestor landed in New York when it was still New Amsterdam), who was chased from New York and crossed into the safety of British territory at Niagara Falls. My kids have a number of ancestors who fought on the other side, but somehow ended up in Canada. History is interesting!
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Thankyou Erato,we did not do that period of Colonial History ,we did The Industrial Revolution at A Level .
Very interesting as my home town of Manchester was one of the worst
places .Engels wrote about it in depth and I have an inverse snobbery that my great grandparents were part of it ,living and working in the dire conditions imposed upon working class people who hitherto had led healthy lives as hand spinners and hand loom weavers in villages outside the fast growing towns and cities .
Mechanisation put an end to that and brought about the utter squalor people were forced to live in.
Thanks ,what an exciting part of American history.
Viktoria.
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I learned a little about the American War of Independence (as we call it) when I found that one of my ggg uncles married the granddaughter of a United Empire Loyalist, a serjeant in the King's Carolina Rangers.
Having been forced out of Florida by the Treaty of Paris, he and his family were granted 200 acres of land in Nova Scotia.
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Wow, quite a way off!
Goodness me, c
Such a difference,I hope they made a good life there ,tell us.
Viktoria.
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I learned a little about the American War of Independence (as we call it) when I found that one of my ggg uncles married the granddaughter of a United Empire Loyalist, a serjeant in the King's Carolina Rangers.
Having been forced out of Florida by the Treaty of Paris, he and his family were granted 200 acres of land in Nova Scotia.
Except in Canada, the Loyalists seem to be a forgotten element of the story. Historians now estimate that one-third of the 13 American Colonists (people also forget the "other" colonies that did not fight for independence - although they were invited to do so) were rebels, a third were loyal, and a third were neutral and just wanted a peaceful life.