Free Republic

LEXINGTON — Like the other Minutemen in his company, Bill Poole will grab his musket, sling his cartridge box over his shoulder, and stride onto Lexington Green this morning to fight, and lose, the famed first skirmish between Patriot and Redcoat. But unlike his comrades in the annual reenactment, Poole will carry with him a piece of a 235-year-old mystery that still surrounds that momentous clash: the question of who fired the shot that sparked the opening volley of the Revolutionary War. Poole, 76, is the direct descendant of Ebenezer Locke, a man who, according to one account, fired the...

I find it appropriate, though certainly and unintentionally ironic, that this date was chosen for the signing of the health care reform bill which will, over both the short and long haul, forge chains with which the American People will be bound. What's the irony you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, on this date in 1775 Patrick Henry delivered what is one of the most often quoted lines ever delivered: "Give me Liberty, or give me Death." Patrick Henry's speech served to urge the American People to shed the chains of Britain. The irony continues if...

Letters to and from Henry Strachey, secretary to the British commanders in chief, are being auctioned as the Copley Library sells its collection. Despite King George’s boast that “once these rebels have felt a smart blow, they will submit,” back-channel messages from British generals and diplomatic officials in America during the Revolutionary War, some of them previously unpublished, turn out to have been decidedly more pessimistic. As early as June 1775, after the Battle of Bunker Hill — which the Redcoats technically won — Gen. John Burgoyne pronounced British military prospects in America “gloomy” in what he called “a crisis...

George Santayana said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeating history. Today marks the 245 anniversary of the passing of The Stamp Act. It was repealed one year later, however the spark of the American Revolution was ignited. In this most timely hour, let us learn from our history, let us learn from the ways of the sons of liberty, let us be heartened by their example. A spark has been ignited and a new revolution is underway!

Travis Bowman says he is a relative of Peter Francisco. Travis Bowman has said before that he would one day like to see a movie based on the life of his ancestor Revolutionary War soldier Peter Francisco. He doesn't yet have a development deal for a full-length film, but he is working on a half-hour documentary that will air on the History Channel July 4. The show, tentatively titled "Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About One of Our Founding Fathers," will focus on the exploits of the 6-foot-6-inch man who fought at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. The anniversary...

CIVILIAN control of the military is a cherished principle in American government. It was President Obama who decided to increase our involvement in Afghanistan, and it is Congress that will decide whether to appropriate the money to carry out his decision. It is the president and Congress, not the military, that will decide whether our laws should be changed to allow gays and lesbians to serve in our armed forces. The military advises, but the civilian leadership decides. Yet if not for the actions of George Washington, whose birthday we celebrate, sort of, this month, America might have moved in...

Jim Wright, a former staff writer for The Record, wrote an essay on John Fell’s prison diary for the recently published book “Revolutionary Bergen County: The Road to Independence” (The History Press.) “Last night I was taken prisoner from my house by 25 armed men…” THUS BEGINS the Revolutionary War prison diary of John Fell of Allendale, the leader of the Bergen County insurgency against the king of England and his local sympathizers. Fell’s 16-page diary, written in secret in the Provost Jail in Lower Manhattan from April 1777 to January 1778, is one of the most significant documents chronicling...

Now 300 years old, the Loring Bowl, as it is known, will be the star of the show at Sotheby’s auction of early American silver in New York on Jan. 22. It is, by far, the biggest bowl of its kind and period that Sotheby’s has ever handled. Now 300 years old, the Loring Bowl, as it is known, will be the star of the show at Sotheby’s auction of early American silver in New York on Jan. 22. It is, by far, the biggest bowl of its kind and period that Sotheby’s has ever handled. (Southeby's) Fearing for his...

From Hollywood to the history shelf, the Civil War was a widescreen epic, while the American Revolution has too often been a footnote. One of the most important battles of the Revolution happened in what is now Greensboro on March 15, 1781, but, over the past century, Americans have treated that war as an afterthought. The Civil War was "Gone with the Wind," "Glory" and 11 hours by Ken Burns. The Revolution, by contrast, was little more than a few forgettable movies, an occasional special on The History Channel and a handful of books (or more often booklets) sold at...

A noted historian debunks the conventional wisdom about America's War of Independence We think we know the Revolutionary War. After all, the American Revolution and the war that accompanied it not only determined the nation we would become but also continue to define who we are. The Declaration of Independence, the Midnight Ride, Valley Forge—the whole glorious chronicle of the colonists’ rebellion against tyranny is in the American DNA. Often it is the Revolution that is a child’s first encounter with history.Yet much of what we know is not entirely true. Perhaps more than any defining moment in American history,...

The British weren't coming — the British were gone. That was the message Gen. George Washington communicated to the newly independent nation 226 years ago, on Nov. 25, 1783, the day Washington officially "took back" Manhattan from the British. Without benefit of Paul Revere or Western Union, the victorious general relied on burning beacons set along the Hudson Highlands to celebrate the day, now known as Evacuation Day. On Nov. 25 of this year, the memory of those beacons and the message they brought to the country will be invoked along the same hilltops by a variety of historical groups...

Mark HoffmanSurrounded by white corn drying the traditional way, manager Jeff Metoxen talks about the benefits of white corn to a group of visitors from Germany last month at the Tsyunhehkwa Agricultural Center in Oneida. Oneida embrace planting, harvesting of white corn as a staple of diet, culture Mark HoffmanWhite corn has far fewer rows of kernels than its sweet corn cousin. Oneida - George Washington's troops at Valley Forge may have starved to death without the white corn an Oneida Indian chief gave them in the winter of 1777 during the Revolutionary War. Now, the Oneida, like other...

ELIZABETH -- Many of the headstones marking the graves in New Jersey’s oldest cemetery are no longer readable, not only because they’re worn, but because they’re partially underground. While excavating around the headstones in the Old First Presbyterian Church cemetery in Elizabeth last week, archaeologist Seth Gartland found stones had sunk several feet, leaving only the top half exposed. When workers elevated the decaying stones, Gartland discovered inscriptions that had long been hidden. Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerRows and rows of markers in the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church on Broad St. The cemetery is currently undergoing a project of preserving...

IN PURSUIT OF LIBERTY: COMING OF AGE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION By Emmy E. Werner Potomac Books, $17.95, 190 pages Reviewed by James Srodes Too often books about children are written in an infantile voice as if the audience is somehow unable to read adult themes unless the prose is watered down. Happily, the book at hand is a compelling history that is both clearly written and a riveting experience for both adults and young people who are interested in Revolutionary War history from a different perspective. The story of young people, even children, in our War for Independence has...

MILFORD -- A 1907 catalog of the New Haven County Historical Society listed several rare and odd items, including a necklace from an Egyptian mummy, slave chains, a small block of wood from the Old South Bridge in Concord, Mass., which the British guarded at the start of the Revolutionary War. But lot 23 in the inventory -- "a skull of an American soldier, one of 42 who died of the 200 in a destitute and sickly condition that were brought from a British prison ship ... and suddenly cast upon the shore of the town of Milford on the...

BOSTON — Somewhere along an industrial stretch of river pocked with rotting piers and towering salt piles north of Boston lies the answer to one of the great riddles of the Revolutionary war. Where is the final resting place of the British schooner, the HMS Diana? The river — known as Chelsea Creek — separates the city of Chelsea from the East Boston neighborhood of Boston. Today the river is plied by oil tankers and is home to a landscape dotted with the city's iconic tripledeckers. But more than 200 years ago, the creek was the site of one of...

Revere thoroughly deserves his place in American history, but another courageous American has been ill-served by those who write books about the Revolutionary War. Revere was 40 at the time of his journey, but she was a girl of 16. Born at Patterson, Putnam County, N.Y., on April 5, 1761, she was the eldest of 12 children born to Henry and Abigail Ludington. On the stormy night of April 26, 1777, she is said to have been putting her younger siblings to bed when the family had a visitor. Close to exhaustion, a messenger had come to tell her father...

BENSONHURST — History came alive on Liberty Weekend this past Saturday and Sunday with the annual celebration of early Brooklyn history at the 17th century New Utrecht Reformed Church. This year’s events also celebrated the church’s designation as part of the American Revolution Heritage Trail. The new trail placards are posted just behind an iron fence on 18th Avenue at the entrance to the church at 84th Street. One shows an 1890s photo of the church. The other is a map of Brooklyn at the time of the Revolutionary War showcasing historic sites. With the raising of a 13-star “Betsy...

On April 15th, 1775, Major General Thomas Gage decided to send a column of seven hundred troops (two hundred over the magic number that the Concord Congress had set) to Concord under the command of Lt. Col. Francis Smith and his second, Major John Pitcairn. Gage had no intention of tolerating anything approaching a repetition of the action at Fort William and Mary. Learning that the depot in Concord held a growing store of gunpowder and arms, he sent these soldiers twenty miles from Boston to seize the military supplies. On the evening of the 18th, Dr. Joeseph Warren, President...

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Bowling Green, a parade ground and cattle market in the Dutch era, was laid out in 1733 during the period of British colonial rule. Bowling Green, the uneven gated ellipse at the foot of Broadway, evokes history more than most spots in New York City. Legend has it — though historians give the legend almost no credence — that Indian tribal leaders used the land for meetings and to negotiate the sale of Manhattan to Peter Minuit in 1626. What is known is that the site was a parade ground and cattle market in...