250 and Counting

This day in American History, 250 years ago.

You Don’t Mess Around With George–July 14, 1776

One of the most common things written about George Washington is that he always behaved like a gentleman, and expected others to behave the same way; following protocol was very, very important to him.

When he was sixteen years old, he copied out by hand 110 rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in
Company and Conversation, likely as a penmanship exercise. These rules are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. The first English translations of the French rules appeared in 1640, and are ascribed to Francis Hawkins, the twelve-year-old son of a doctor. (So, probably as a translation exercise from Hawkins’ French tutor.)

Without even knowing it, the people who worked with this set of rules was absorbing a code of behavior that worked for people of all social strata, rather than for a specific class of people. Thus, it makes sense that the protocol for Washington as a leader of soldiers, and then a nation, depended on the “all men are created equal” credo.

As Parson Mason Locke Weems said of Washington, “‘no wonder every body honored him, who honored every body.” And while Weems is also thought to be the guy who made up the Cherry Tree story, he was certainly correct in this respect.

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July 14, 2026
Rhode Island Gets The Declaration–July 13, 1776

That the Southwick Broadside version of the Declaration of Independence isn’t as famous as the Dunlap Broadside shouldn’t be a surprise, since the Dunlap is the first one, and the one on which all the others are based. The the Southwick has the wrong date on it is an interesting nugget of information.

It’s worth noting, however, that while John Dunlap spent the better part of the night of July 4 setting the type, making a copy, making corrections, rinse and repeat, there are still mistakes on his as well. Some copies are on the “wrong” side of the paper (i.e. the watermark is reversed). Some have ink smudges, as though they were folded or rolled up before the ink was quite dry, and according to Ted Widmer in an Op-Ed he wrote for the New York Times (soft paywalled link), the punctuation doesn’t necessarily agree from one copy to another.

Historians have identified nineteen different versions of the Declaration of Independence printed around that time, though there may be a few more idenfied since that initial survey, which was in the late 1940s. Of those nineteen, 71 copies were known to exist. That said, when the survey was published, only 14 of those copies were the Dunlap Broadside. Now that there are 26 Dunlaps, we’re up to 84 contemporary copies of the Declaration, with another few whose provenance or source are unknown.

Interestingly, three copies of the Dunlap Broadside are in the hands of the British. One was seized by Richard Howe in New York, another accidentally fell into Howe’s hands while he was on Staten Island, and the third one was part of a larger Customs seizure from a man named Jonas Phillips, who was sending a box of documents to Great Britain from Philadelphia in late July 1776. Phillips’ note to his relative in Britain was in Yiddish, which the Customs agents thought was a code, so he seized the documents without examining them. It was only a couple of years ago that the contents were examined and identified.

Accidents of history, I tell you what.

For what it’s worth, only seven copies of the Southwick Declaration are known to exist today.

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July 13, 2026
The Constitution’s First Draft–July 12, 1776

In the play/film 1776, John Dickinson is portrayed as a Loyalist from the Pennsylvania Colony whose goal is to obstruct any efforts at achieving Independence. When his efforts fail, he resigns from the Congress and leaves, though John Adams publicly admires his integrity before Dickinson departs.

(Leave us alone; 1776 is a delightful film and we both like it, plus it’s many people’s only lens for viewing the story of that time.)

As usual, however, the truth is far more complicated than could be well-conveyed, especially when cramming several weeks’ worth of story into 168 minutes. So let’s dive in a little bit.

Dickinson, to begin with, actually represented the Delaware colony, whose delegates were divided on the cause of Independence. But remember that Delaware and Pennsylvania were the same colony as far as Britain was concerned.

Now, Dickinson argued that while the British Parliament had the right to regulate trade in Europe, they did not have the right to raise revenue via taxing the Colonies; furthermore if the Colonies didn’t resist this, then Parliament would only push their agenda further. But while he felt that the Colonies had the right to seek redress for whatever grievances they had, AND he felt that the Colonies were right in defending themselves against the British, they did not have the right to separate themselves from Britain. Part of this stand involved the fact that Dickinson was immersed in Quaker beliefs for most of his life, though he never officially joined a Quaker meeting.

Now, because it had been previously agreed by the Congress that no man could serve without signing the Declaration, Dickinson stuck to his principles and voluntarily left, but he did join the Pennsylvania/Delaware militia afterward, though he never actually saw combat. It’s also worth reminding you that the Declaration was still largely unsigned at this point, and would remain so for a few more weeks, so it’s not a contradiction that he was working on a new Constitution at this point.

Dickinson was re-appointed to the Continental Congress in 1779 and he did sign the Articles of Confederation, which arose from the document submitted by his committee on this day in 1776.

John Dickinson was a complex and fascinating man, and you can learn a lot about him by visiting the John Dickinson Plantation, part of First State National Historical Park.

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July 12, 2026
New York Becomes A State–July 11, 1776

White Plains, New York, calls itself the birthplace of the State of New York, and this day in 1776 is the reason why.

The provincial congress, having fled New York City to White Plains, received a copy of the Declaration of Independence and immediately approved it, then resolved to change their name from “The Provincial Congress of the Colony of New York” to “The Convention of Representatives of the STATE of New York.”

Thus, when the Declaration was read aloud to an assembled crowd a short time later, it was the first time it had been read in New York State. The earlier reading in New York City didn’t count for that, because New York was still technically a colony. (And sticklers know that “technically correct” is the best kind of correct. Sticklers also get beat up a lot…um, I’ve heard. )

About today’s cover art: the image that we used on the July 3 episode is also a depiction of Judge Thomas reading the Declaration to the people of White Plains, which is why it’s titled “Birth of the State of New York.” This is a different angle of the same event, created around the same time as the other image, by the same artist. Mr. Harker got some mileage out of this day and he wasn’t even there.

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July 11, 2026
Samuel Powell–July 10, 1776

Samuel Powell is another one of those early Representatives in our government about whom little is known from a legislative standpoint.

We have odd details noting that he became a lawyer “prior to 1800” because we don’t really know how he got there.

And another detail that we have about Samuel Powell is that, after his one and only term, he was not a candidate to be renominated in 1816. But there’s no reason why cited in most sources. Did he lose a primary? Maybe. Did he choose not to run? Possibly. Was that the last gasp of the Democratic-Republicans? Mmm, probably not; they were still around until 1824, at which point they split into separate factions.

We do know that he missed 31 of 113 roll call votes, about 27.4%, which is higher than average. In his first year he missed 25% of votes and in his second year it went up to 31.7%. So even in his first year he missed more than typical. So it’s possible that he was elected for a cynical reason—to gain recognition and some name power. Once he had that, it was recommended that he walk away, so he did. This is entirely speculation on my part, though.

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July 10, 2026
Down With The King–July 9, 1776

When a statue of King George III was pulled down in New York, it was a good sign for the city, since there were times that it felt that the spirit of Independence was rather squashed by the sight of the British fleet, which was still arriving.

A brief digression: several years ago (ugh, longer ago than I care to remember) I took the opportunity to visit the City of the Museum of New York. It’s quite a cool museum that has hundreds of thousands of objects in its collection, with several thousands on display at any given time. They currently have a special exhibit called The Occupied City, which deals with New York City during the early years of the American Revolution.

According to an article I recently read in Smithsonian Magazine, which provided some of my research material for today’s episode, the Museum of the City of New York has, as part of this exhibit, an opportunity to virtually pull down the statue of King George III. Who can pass up something like that?

No kidding, if you’re in Manhattan, budget yourself a few hours to see this museum. You’re guaranteed to learn a lot of fascinating things. Then head on over to the New York Historical Society. They already pulled down their statue of King George III (today, in fact), but there’s still plenty to see and do. They’re on opposite sides of Central Park and about 30 blocks apart, but if you do it in that order, you’ll end your day close to Zabar’s and that’s a whole other experience for you.

Man, I miss living in New York.

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July 9, 2026
Battle of Gwynn’s Island–July 8, 1776

The Battle of Gwynn’s Island doesn’t seem to get much attention these days, which is a shame because it was rather important at the time.

First, Lord Dunmore, the former Royal Governor of Virginia, had been there since May, having retreated there after the bombardment of Norfolk in January. The Patriots made their lives very difficult, so after a few weeks the British bailed out of Norfolk and headed to Gwynn’s Island to regroup. They were about 2000 men in all, including British army regulars and Loyalists.

They were spotted by a lookout (the distance across the narrows at this time was only about 200 yards, after all) and the Patriots began harassing the British on the island, but the British began firing back and many militiamen decided it wasn’t worth the effort, so they deserted. The Continental Army soldiers, on the other hand, mostly just got used to it.

Dunmore had a fort built and they settled in behind the fortifications, but 2000 people on a relatively undeveloped island of four square miles, with inadequate water supplies, meant that disease ran rampant, killing about a third of the men, most of whom were Black. When Andrew Lewis arrived with the bigger guns and began blowing the fort to bits, Dunmore realized it was time to evacuate. It was a few more weeks until he left America altogether. In the meantime, with the British entirely out of Virginia, the Continental Army was able to move north to New York to assist with George Washington’s troops there.

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July 8, 2026
Howe Checks In–July 7, 1776

William Howe had already been in New York for a little over a week when he wrote to George Germain from his Staten Island headquarters.

Not everyone had yet arrived from Halifax, of course; it was a long trip and the ships moved at different speeds. Howe took the time to detail what troops and ships had already arrived in New York, and what was still enroute, and that he was awaiting some more reinforcements before acting in full.

I presume that he was as detailed as he was because he was dispatching the letter to George Germain immediately via a packet ship, and the American Navy wasn’t really in a position at that point to intercept anything; otherwise they would have had a lot of actionable information about troop movements and their plans.

On the other hand, George Washington (and a few others) had already figured out what the British were up to, but at this point they were at a little bit of a loss regarding how they were going to counter it.

Part of the problem was that the troops were still fighting more or less defensively. They didn’t have a specific cause to fight for. But in another couple of days, they would have that. It wouldn’t really help in the short run here, but it worked wonders in the end.

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July 7, 2026
Some Big News–July 6, 1776

The Pennsylvania Evening Post is an interesting study in media relations and what a publication sometimes has to do in order to survive.

The Post was America’s first daily newspaper, but early on it published three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. They were generally supportive of the Revolution and published pro-Patriot articles.

As Mike explains, it was through a quirk of their publishing schedule that the Post was able to publish the text of the Declaration of Independence before anyone else, but the war got worse before it got better, and as things progressed into 1778 and the British occupied Philadelphia, they simply shifted gears, publishing Loyalist opinions and British-positive stories. All the other Patriot newspapers in town ceased operating. The crazy part of this is, because of their sudden political shift, the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania placed its publisher, Benjamin Towne, on a list of traitors. Because the other printers had not returned to the city, the list was printed in The Post!

Some of this activity did lead to public controversy and a drop in revenue. Towne resorted to selling the newspaper via hawkers (the people on street corners in old movies hollering “Extra! Read all about it!” and such), but the Pennsylvania Evening Post ultimately shut down in 1784.

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July 6, 2026
Bernard Smith–July 5, 1776

In the biography of Bernard Smith in today’s episode, it was noted that he spent a couple of years as the Collector of Customs in 1809 and 1810. Which set up the question for me: what does a Collector of Customs do?

My guess wasn’t too far off, tell the truth. The Collector of Customs assesses import duties and tariffs, enforces trade laws and regulates goods moving across international borders. My research didn’t turn up where he worked, but it could have been in New York. On the other hand, the Customs House in Linwood (near Atlantic City) was fairly new at the time so that could have been the location. At that time, tariffs and duties were the primary source of revenue for the US Government. Federal income taxes weren’t levied until 1861 for a few years, and then permanently in 1913.

At any rate, after Bernard Smith put in his time with the Sixteenth Congress, he was register of the land office in Little Rock, Arkansas, then secretary to the governor of Arkansaw, and finally an agent to the Quapaw Nation until his death in 1835, shortly after his 59^th birthday.

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July 5, 2026