250 YEARS AGO: After tangling with Patriots for four years, New York's Royal Governor William Tryon decides that the conflict has gotten too sharp for him to stay on land. Tryon hopes to govern from New York Harbor until the King's army can make a show of force in New York City.

250 YEARS AGO: Townspeople are still evacuating when Captain Mowat orders his Royal warships to open fire on Falmouth. The bombing lasts 9 hours, destroys more than 400 buildings and leaves 1,000 homeless! Americans are shocked by the destruction. (In 2025 this location is part of Portland, Maine.)

250 YEARS AGO: The captain of the HMS Canceaux threatens Falmouth, Massachusetts. In addition to an oath of loyalty, he demands the townspeople give him all their personal guns and gunpowder.

250 YEARS AGO: Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves has ordered Captain Mowat to "lay waste burn and destroy such Sea Port towns as are accessible to His Majesty's ships… and particularly Machias" (the scene of fight in June!!). But Mowat's first target may be for a personal vendetta . . .

250 YEARS AGO: The moccasins of many of Arnold's soldiers have been shredded on the rocks as the men pushed their bateaux against the current of the Kennebec River. Food is so scarce that two oxen helping to pull bateaux across "the Great Carrying Place" have been killed for beef.

250 YEARS AGO: General Montgomery finally achieves the original goal that sent him north from Fort Ticonderoga in AUGUST: to destroy the ship that could threaten Ticonderoga! After a day of shelling, the Royal Savage is in ruins. But Redcoats still hold Fort St. Jean, blocking the way to Montreal.

250 YEARS AGO: Today is the birthday of what will become the U.S. Navy! Congress members Silas Deane, John Langdon and Christopher Gadsden are put on a committee to oversee the fitting of two warships that will seek British supply ships and take supplies for the Patriot army.

250 YEARS AGO: Colonel Arnold's men are sick and hungry after weeks of going north on the Kennebec River, fighting against its strong current. Now they must carry their boats over 12 miles of soggy land!

250 YEARS AGO: In 1775, each of the 13 American colonies legally allows one human being to own another.

250 YEARS AGO: Washington and his commanders make a deliberate choice to reject the help of some soldiers who fought at Bunker Hill. Their choice makes clear the hypocrisy of white men fighting for freedom while also continuing a system of legalized slavery of people of African descent.

250 YEARS AGO: Another escalation in five months of coastal skirmishes! In Rhode Island, Captain James Wallace has used five Royal ships to control Newport Harbor for several weeks. When he moves the ships to confront Patriots in Bristol, SPARKS FLY.

250 YEARS AGO: Patriot General Montgomery gets a big mortar that he hopes will do more damage to the defenders of Fort St. Jean than what his smaller mortars have done so far in the siege that is delaying his invasion of Canada.

250 YEARS AGO: Days are getting colder, smallpox cases are rising, and worries are growing that the Redcoats are specifically letting smallpox patients leave Boston to infect the rebel soldiers circling the city.

250 YEARS AGO: Washington and nine of his generals are unanimous in deciding that Dr. Church has spent the summer acting as a spy, sending military info to the Royal forces in Boston! Washington writes that Patriots are "exceedingly irritated" at this stunning betrayal so early in the war.

250 YEARS AGO: The detained surgeon general of the Patriot army outside Boston today writes to General Washington to claim his innocence. Dr. Church says that the military info he has been sneaking to the Redcoats was really just to scare the Redcoats into NOT attacking!

250 YEARS AGO: Colonel Benedict Arnold's force reaches a significant snag on their trip toward Canada. The soldiers will need to "portage" -- carry the boats and the cargo on land around these falls in the river.

250 YEARS AGO: Five months after the first shots at Lexington --and with winter near -- colonists wonder how long this shooting war will last. Winthrop is married to a Harvard math professor who is also the great-grandson of the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

250 YEARS AGO: Skenandoa travels with his friend, the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, from central New York to meet Washington. The meeting causes Washington to write to the Massachusetts General Court and urge that Patriot leaders extend diplomatic courtesies to Skenandoa.

250 YEARS AGO: A letter written in code is causing whispered questions about the Patriot army’s surgeon general . . .

250 YEARS AGO: Colonel Arnold’s force of 1,100 troops begin their journey into the dense wilderness of Maine . . .

250 YEARS AGO: General Montgomery sent Ethan Allen to hold the south side of the St. Lawrence River, across from Montreal. Allen hears that few Redcoats defend the city. He crosses the river and attacks! But the Canadians that he recruited abandon him in the fight, and Allen is captured.

250 YEARS AGO: The Redcoats inside Fort St. Jean are well prepared for a siege! They began strengthening the fort in May, and now 750 troops and an armed schooner, the Royal Savage, defend it. This has not been the easy victory that General Montgomery thought it would be.

250 YEARS AGO: Colonel Arnold's force of 1,100 men have made it from Newburyport, Massachusetts, over to the river that they plan to take north to Canada. Arnold thinks the river boats on hand are too small and orders MORE. No Royal ships have made an effort to stop these rebels -- so far.

250 YEARS AGO: General Montgomery is determined to capture the Royal fort guarding a main waterway into Canada. His men are building positions that are sturdy enough to support mortars (a kind of artillery that can fire high in the air and into Fort St. Jean).

250 YEARS AGO: An ill General Schuyler has returned to Fort Ticonderoga and left General Montgomery in charge. No surprise, Montgomery goes AGAIN to capture Fort St. Jean on the Richelieu River. The Americans easily surround the fort. But the Royal troops inside have prepared for a long siege!

250 YEARS AGO: Seeing the rebels inside Fort Johnson, Royal Governor Campbell orders his two British ships at the mouth of Charleston Harbor to sail in close enough to shell the fort. The fort is in bad shape-- it would fall quickly under cannon fire. But nature saves the Patriots!

250 YEARS AGO: Things are moving quickly in South Carolina. As Patriots recover the cannon that British troops had tossed (but not smashed!) last night, Royal Governor Campbell closes Royal government offices, declares the lawmaking Assembly disbanded and goes onboard the HMS Tamar for safety.

250 YEARS AGO: Patriots confront the Royal Governor of South Carolina in front of his house in the morning! The governor, Lord William Campbell, is now convinced the political differences cannot be settled without violence. With too few Redcoats to hold Fort Johnson, he orders the cannons disabled.

250 YEARS AGO: The Second Continental Congress has a quorum to restart after a short summer break. Georgia has sent a delegation for the first time. Virginia has replaced George Washington and Patrick Henry with Thomas Nelson Jr. and George Wythe (who taught law to Thomas Jefferson).

250 YEARS AGO: On a flat map, Benedict Arnold's plan for a second march into Canada seems like a reasonable way to push Royal troops away from New England. But his plan is based on an old map drawn by a Royal engineer who intentionally left out some key details along the way ...

250 YEARS AGO: More than 1,100 soldiers are on the march to meet up for Benedict Arnold's plan to make a second move into Canada. They march through woods well north of Boston to avoid detection by any of the King's troops.

250 YEARS AGO: After 800 troops from Connecticut join the Patriot force camped on Ile aux Noix, General Richard Montgomery tries another attack on the Royal fort guarding the Richelieu River into Canada. He gets the same result as a few days ago.

250 YEARS AGO: The wheels are in motion to a plan that Benedict Arnold, General Washington and General Schuyler have discussed in secret. There will be a SECOND group to march into Canada, using a different route! BENEDICT ARNOLD GOT THE IDEA FROM A 1761 BRITISH MAP!

250 YEARS AGO: General Montgomery's scouting mission gets about a mile from the Canadian fort when 100 warriors attack! These fighters are allied with the Redcoats, who stay in the fort and fire cannon to hurry the Patriots' retreat back to their island camp in the Richelieu River 10 miles away.

250 YEARS AGO: Unlike the earlier sea skirmishes we've seen that featured freelance ships, the Hannah sails today under orders from General George Washington! The Hannah is technically a ship of the Continental Army around Boston that Congress sent Washington to direct.

250 YEARS AGO: With this reuniting, there are about 2,000 Patriot soldiers camped on an island near the Canadian border. General Philip Schuyler is the ranking officer and takes charge of the force. What will Schuyler do with it????

250 YEARS AGO: General Washington continues to brainstorm ways to break the stalemate around Boston! He doesn't have enough gunpowder to attack the city, and the Royal troops have no wish to pay the bloody price to win another hill around the city. What is GW up to . . . ???

250 YEARS AGO: The Virginia frontiersmen have a different kind of solution for General Washington's gunpowder shortage. Picking off a few sloppy Redcoats each day doesn't cost much powder, and it has scared the Royal troops into hunkering down in defense instead of attacking the Patriot lines.

250 YEARS AGO: More chess moves between Washington's army and the Redcoats in Boston! Though low on gunpowder, the Patriots have occupied a hill closer to the Redcoats on Bunker Hill (which is just left of this panel). But Redcoats still control the water and can move floating cannon around ...

250 YEARS AGO: Soooooo . . . I guess we're going to Canada??!!

250 YEARS AGO: While General Schuyler is still in Albany, General Montgomery leads 1,200 Patriot troops out of Fort Ticonderoga toward Royal forces to the north! Is this a defensive move, to protect Patriot control of upper New York? Or does Montgomery intend to INVADE CANADA?!?

250 YEARS AGO: General Schuyler gets exactly what the Patriots wanted from a long treaty council with members of the Iroquois Confederacy: They pledge to stay neutral in the fight between Americans and the King's troops. But Schuyler writes to George Washington that this truce feels shaky.

250 YEARS AGO: Today on the coast of the Bay of Funday --just a few miles east of what most people consider to be the colony of Massachusetts -- Patriots attack a Royal fort and capture a British ship loaded with supplies for the Redcoats in Boston. Is this daring initiative? Or recklessness??

250 YEARS AGO: Individual colonies along the Atlantic Coast have been gearing up ships to fight the mighty Royal Navy and to protect shipping business in that single colony -- but today the Patriots in Rhode Island suggest a bolder step. Will the Continental Congress agree?

250 YEARS AGO: The Royal Navy notices Alexander Hamilton’s unit carrying off the cannon! But the NYC raid is successful. Hamilton’s militia group drags the guns uptown and posts them in City Hall Park.

250 YEARS AGO: Some New York City Patriots sneak out on a nighttime raid to get some cannon for their cause.

250 YEARS AGO: King George III refuses to receive “the Olive Branch Petition” from the moderates in the Second Continental Congress who still seek peace. Instead, he makes an official declaration that the American colonies are in rebellion!!!

250 YEARS AGO: The Royal Governor of South Carolina realizes that the hanging of a free Black man in Charleston yesterday signals how little power he has in leading a colonial government here. For Lord Campbell, the case confirms Loyalist views that the Patriots are a lawless, dangerous mob.

250 YEARS AGO: SC Patriots especially fear that the Black pilots who guide ships into Charleston Harbor will serve the Royal Navy instead of the Patriot cause. Today, one of those pilots is hanged as a warning. (Learn more about this early casualty of the war here: www.nps.gov/people/thoma... )

250 YEARS AGO: The Patriot "Council of Safety" in South Carolina sent the Rev. William Tennent into the upcountry to convert Loyalists in the hills. Tennent has had little success. On this day, he tries to flatter a Loyalist leader, but this three hour conversation doesn't budge Thomas Fletchall.