13 Facts About the 13 Colonies-- Part 2

Again, go to the site for more information.

7.  New Hampshire offered parcels of land in exchange  for one ear of corn each year.  (Sounds like a deal to me.)

8.  Georgia was founded as a new haven for debtors and impoverished people.

9.  New York became  the first target of British trade restrictions -- for exporting fur hats.

10.  South Carolina benefited from the demand for blue dye.

11.  North Carolina was sold back to the British Crown.

12.  Rhode Island played a big role in the slave trade.  (By 1775, slaves made up 11.5% of its population.)

13.  Delaware really wasn't  formed until 1776.

--CootCol

This Month in the American Revolution

From the American Battlefield Trust June 2022 calendar.

JUNE 2, 1774

**  The Quartering Act is amended.

JUNE 9, 1772

**  A British ship, the Gaspee, was patrolling against smugglers ran aground near Rhode Island and a local mob burns it.  The mob is then accused of treason.

JUNE 14, 1777

**  Flag Resolution.  Congress declared "That the flag of the thirteen  United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field."  (And the reason you should display the flag this date.)

JUNE 15, 1775

**  George Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

JUNE 17, 1775

**  The Battle of Bunker Hill, Massachusetts.

JUNE 28, 1776

**  The Battle of Sullivan's Island, South Carolina.

--CootFlag

Twelve More Revolution Cannons Found in Savannah River-- Part 3:

The HMS Rose was a brig that carried 160 men and twenty 9-pounder cannons.  Earlier, it had worked to control smuggling in Rhode Island and fought and patrolled waters off New York City and up the Hudson River.  Later, it switched operations to the south as the British were hoping they could get the support of many Loyalists there and the ship ended up in Savannah, Georgia, after the British captured it.

But with French ships closing in on the city, the Rose was scuttled on September  19, 1779, to block the Savannah River.

It is possible that the cannons also may have belonged to the  HMS Venus or HMS Savannah which were also scuttled.  The French did not capture the city and kept control of it until almost the war's end.  (I could not find any records on these two ships as British Navy ones, but likely were troopships.  I have seen a couple places where it was mentioned that ships by these names were sunk in the river.)

The cannons appear to date from about the mid 1700s, which would put them  closely aligned to the Rose's history.

The ones found last February were about five feet long.

An interesting story.

--DaCootRose

Charles V. Gridley-- Part 1: Born in Indiana, Moved to Michigan, Appointed to USNA

I have been writing about this man in my Running the Blockade: Civil War Navy blog and this one as well.  This is a part of my Roadtripping Through History approach to these blogs.  

From the Spanish-American War Centennial website.

Charles V. Gridley was the commander of the USS Olympia, the flagship of Commodore George Dewey's Asiatic Squadron at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines.  Dewey was in command of the whole fleet, but was aboard the Olympia.  At the beginning of the battle, Dewey uttered the sentence that became one of the most famous statements in U.S. Naval history and which immortalized the Olympia's ailing commander (he died less than a month after thee battle.)

"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley."

Charles Vernon Gridley was born in Logansport, Indiana, on November 24, 1844.  But, when he was three months old, his family moved to Hillsdale, Michigan.

At the age of 16, Gridley received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.  However, within a year, the Civil War broke out.  The Naval Academy was in dire straits.  Many of its students went south to Fight for the Confederacy.

Those that remained stayed with the Union, including the young man who had somehow acquired the name of "Steve" Gridley.

The Academy was deep within the state of Maryland which had a lot of Confederate sympathizers which put it in danger, so, for the duration it was moved to Newport, Rhode Island.

--Cooter

Blacks Serving In U.S. Military Over the Years: The American Revolution

From the Feb. 23, 2021, U.S. Army "African American service and racial integration in the U.S. military" by Dr. Paul-Thomas Ferguson.

Formal black service in the U.S. military dates from the American Revolution.  Many freemen and some slaves already served in Northern colonial militias to protect their homes against Indian attack.  Their numbers rose in 1770 after Crispus Attucks, a black man believed to be the first casualty at the Boston Massacre, was killed.

Commanding general of the Continental Army, George Washington, was initially against recruiting black soldiers, but military necessity later made him relent.

 The most prominent group of black soldiers served in the 1st Rhode Island Regiment.   Enough black and Indian soldiers were recruited to eventually make up half of its 225 men.  This regiment achieved its greatest fame protecting  the Continental army's withdrawal from Aquidneck island during the Battle of Rhode Island in 1778.

Thomas Wilson Dorr-- Part 4: Campaigned for White Male Suffrage in Rhode Island

Meanwhile, Governor Samuel King proclaimed martial law and  offered a $5,000 reward for the capture of Dorr and started making widespread arrests of Dorr's followers.  He was forced to flee the state in 1842. Dorr and his followers launched a bungled attack on the Providence, R.I., arsenal helped bring about Dorr's collapse as well.

In June, Dorr and his followers were back as an armed force but were dispersed by the Rhode Island militia and he found refuge in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  He returned after the passage of a more liberal constitution in 1843 which allowed universal suffrage for all white males but was arrested and tried for treason against the state.

He was convicted and sentence to hard labor and solitary confinement for life on June 27, 1844.    The public was outraged and in 1945, Dorr was given amnesty but his health was broken by then and he lived in retirement afterwards until his death in 1854.

So, this is how Dorr Township in McHenry County came to be named for this man.  Some folks were indeed admirers.  Also, Dorr Township in Alleghan County, Michigan.

--CootVote

Thomas Wilson Dorr-- Part 3: Rhode Island Had Two State Governments

Efforts had been made to increase while male suffrage in Rhode Island at intervals in its early years as a state, usually by lowering the amount of land that needed to be owned.  In 1834, a convention met at the capital, Providence, with that intention.  Dorr was a part of it. But all their efforts were blocked by rural interests in the legislature.

By 1841, Rhode Island  was almost the only state that had not adopted universal suffrage for white males.  More than half of the adult white males were unable to vote. And, with more people owning factories and living in cities, even fewer could vote because of the land requirements.

In 1840,  the Rhode Island Suffrage Association was formed to address the problem and state legislator Thomas Dorr took a leading role.  When that didn't get anywhere, a "People's Party" was formed and adopted a state constitution.  The sitting legislature refused to recognize it.

However, the new party, referred to as Dorrites, were unfazed and went ahead and elected an entire state ticket with Dorr as governor.

So, in May 1842, Rhode Island had two governments.  The already seated government was allowed to remain in the statehouse, but both governors, Dorr and Samuel Ward King, issued proclamations.  King appealed to Washington, D.C., for federal aid.  Dorr went to D.C. himself to plead his cause with President John Tyler, but received no help.

--Cooter

Dorr Township, Illinois-- Part 2: Thomas Wilson Dorr

From Wikipedia.

The governor Dorr in question turns out to be Thomas Wilson Dorr and he was not an Illinois governor, but a governor of Rhode Island.  People in Illinois must have admired him to name a township after him.  (There is also a Dorr Township in Michigan's Allegan County.)

THOMAS WILSON DORR

(November 5, 1805 - December  27, 1854_

Was an American politician and reformer in Rhode Island, best-known for leading the Dorr Rebellion.

Came from a prosperous family.  Attended Phillips Exetor Academy and Harvard and admitted to New York Bar as a lawyer and returned to Providence, R.I..

Became a representative in Rhode Island's General Assembly and became concerned about issues of franchise where white men were not allowed to vote if they didn't own land worth a certain value.  This led to a dominance in the assembly of the rural areas.

--Cooter

What's in a Name: DAR Chapter Names-- Part 2

BEACON POLE HILL CHAPTER, MANVILLE, RHODE ISLAND.

Commemorates a celebrated site in the northwestern section of Cumberland, R.I., known as Beacon Hill, one of the highest points in the state, 531 feet above sea level.

During the Revolution, a 70-foot-tall beacon pole with a kettle of tar or other combustible materials suspended from it was at the hill's summit.

The kettle would be fired to warn towns and people of Boston and Newport of the British fleet's approach.

This was part of a series of signal beacons that played an important role during the war.

Never Heard of These Signal Beacons. --DaCoot