The Fourth of July has been celebrated with feasting, fireworks and festivity since Boston shot off cannons on the first anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The document wasn’t actually signed on the Fourth of July, as some of the ...

The Spirit of 76 reappeared again and again after the American Revolution as an idea, as a symbol and as a propaganda tool aimed at a public not terribly keen on going to war in Europe. In the year leading ...

On October 11, 1776, British military forces finally drove the American military from Lake Champlain at the Battle of Valcour Island. Connecticut’s Benedict Arnold had spent the year harassing the British. In concert with Vermonter Ethan Allen, Arnold successfully took ...

A Loyalist House was likely to be seized and sold when the American Revolution broke out. Many colonies passed laws that let them confiscate the property of known Loyalists, criminalizing dissent against the war and raising revenue for the war ...

Wallace Nutting was a dyspeptic minister so overwhelmed by urban life and modern values that he led countless Americans into a nostalgic vision of the colonial age. He was the Martha Stewart of the Colonial Revival, influencing the décor of ...

Shortly after the end of the Revolutionary war the new American country needed currency, and Stephen Burroughs was happy to oblige. He printed more different banknotes than anyone in his day. Unfortunately, they were all counterfeits. The story of Stephen ...

By 1885 Americans were ready for new math. In 1773, the sixth edition of Thomas Dilworth’s classic Schoolmaster’s Assistant was the dominant textbook of the day for students in American grammar schools. Dilworth was a British cleric and his book ...

In August of 1777, some New Englanders feared America was losing its Revolutionary War.  American forces had surrendered Fort Ticonderoga without a fight, and the British had successfully harassed Seth Warner and his troops out of Hubbardton, Vt. The surrender ...

In December of 1776, Colonel John Brown of Pittsfield, Mass. made an allegation against Connecticut’s General Benedict Arnold so shocking it seemed ridiculous. During the attack on Fort Ticonderoga, Arnold had “made a treasonable attempt to make his escape . ...

James Jewett started life in Rowley, Massachusetts. A laborer, he was not a follower of convention. He would later move to Exeter, N.H. and then Hopkinton, N.H. There, in 1776, he refused to sign the association test. The Continental Congress, ...