As part of the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution and the events immediately preceding it, I present a timeline of some critical events in 1773 and 1774.

 

“Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught,” -a broadside from the period

1773

March 12- The Virginia House of Burgess creates a Committee of  Correspondence “to obtain the most early and Authentic intelligence of all such Acts and Resolutions of the British Parliament, or proceedings of Administration, as may relate to or affect the British Colonies in America.” 

May 10- The Tea Act of 1773 becomes law. The law did not raise the tax on tea but it did give the East India Company a monopoly of Colonial sales as well as enforced the principle of Parliament's taxing authority over the Colonies.

November - Meetings are held almost weekly in Boston demanding that any tea that arrives in the harbor be sent away and that the local "tea agents" resign their commissions.

November 30-Decmeber 4- The ships Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver arrive in Boston harbor carrying a total of 342 chests of tea.

December 8- Governor Hutchinson orders military authorities not to allow ships to leave port without his permission.

December 16- The Boston Tea Party. The Sons of Liberty, a local "Patriot" organization, boards three ships in Boston Harbor and dumps some 342 chests of tea into the water(each chest weighing 350 pounds). More than a dozen tea parties would be held across the Colonies over the next year. (The term "tea party" actually would not come into use until some fifty years later.)

“The Dye is cast: The People have passed the River and cut away the Bridge: last Night Three Cargoes of Tea, were emptied into the Harbour. This is the grandest, Event, which has ever yet happened Since, the Controversy, with Britain, opened!”

~ John Adams in a letter to James Warren, December 17, 1773

1774

January 6- the Virginia Gazette of Williamsburg, reports the news from Boston that, "  . . . and in a little time every ounce of tea on board the ships in the harbor was immersed in the bay without the least injury to private property. The spirit of the people on the occasion surprised all parties who viewed the scene."

January 20- News reached London of the Boston Tea Party brought by the ship Hayley  . . . owned by John Hancock. On the same day a mass burning of 700 pounds of tea took place in Boston.

January 29- Benjamin Franklin called before the Privy Council - Benjamin Franklin was in London in 1774 acting in his capacity as Agent for the Colony of Massachusetts and as Postmaster of the Colonies. On the 29th he was called before the Council in the matter of his petition to remove Massachusetts' Governor and Lt. Governor. While there he was attacked and ridiculed by Solicitor General, Alexander Wedderburn, as he who "“stands in the light of the first mover and prime conductor of this whole contrivance." The next day he was removed as Postmaster.

 Franklin before the Lord's Council, Whitehall Chapel, London,- R. Whitechurch

March 31 - The Boston Port Bill becomes law. The Act banned the loading or unloading of any ships in Boston harbor to take affect June 4 to be enforced by the British navy.

April 15- A British newspaper, The Public Advertiser publishes "An Open Letter to Lord North" which sarcastically proposes a "Scheme . . . without Delay to introduce into North America a Government absolutely and entirely Military." The anonymous author is Benjamin Franklin. 

May 10- News arrives in Boston of the Boston Port Bill.

May 13- General Thomas Gage arrives in Boston and assumes office as the Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

May 20- The  Coercive Acts. In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed several acts to punish the Province of Massachusetts and to strengthen its governmental forces in North America.

  a)The Boston Port Bill 

  b) The Act for the Impartial Administration of Justice, i.e. "An act for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts's Bay, in New England." allowed royal officials to transfer the venue of cases involving public disturbance to England.

  c)The Massachusetts Government Act put the election of most government officials under the control of the Crown. The government of Massachusetts operated up to this time under a royal charter. Also Thomas Gage, the commander of British forces in the Colonies, was made Governor of Massachusetts.

The chamber of the House of Burgesses

May 30- The Virginia House of Burgesses is dissolved. An extra legal meeting was  held at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg. Members of the House of Burgesses gathered after Governor Lord Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses when a Day of Prayer was called for June 1 for the Colony of Massachusetts. A permanent Committee of Correspondence was established to maintain communication with the like minded in the other Colonies. This is sometimes, but erroneously called the First Virginia Convention; the members did announce a formal convention to be held in August. A general or "continental" congress was also proposed.

"That it is the Opinion of all the late House of Burgesses who could be convened on the present Occasion, that the Colony of Virginia will concur with the other Colonies in such Measures as shall be judged most effectual for the preservation of the Common Rights and Liberty of British America; "

John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore 

June 2- The Quartering Act of 1774 becomes law; Parliament broadening its previous Quartering Act of 1765. - Soldiers were not required to be quartered in private homes, but would be housed at the expense of the Colonies. The peacetime quartering of troops among the civilian population had long been a source of contention in the Colonies.

Summer- All the colonies except Georgia began electing delegates to the "Continental Congress" to be held in Philadelphia.

June 6- The Prince William County Resolves -  the first of the Virginia county resolutions expressing support for Massachusetts and against the 

June 22- The Quebec Act becomes law - The Quebec Act of 1774, among its provisions, extended the boundaries of British Canada to include what would be called the Old Northwest.

July- In counties across Virginia meetings are held to elect delegates to what would become known at the First Virginia Convention.

July 12- The New Kent Resolves - "The present state of America being seriously and duly considered, the following Resolutions were proposed and agreed to as an Instruction to our Deputies . . "

July 18 - The Fairfax Resolves. -  Probably the most famous of the Virginia county 'resolves.' Other counties, among others included Westmoreland and Albemarle. The Williamsburg Gazette mentions the resolves of Hanover, Caroline, Northumberland, Henrico, Nansemond, Prince William, and town of Dumfries, Westmoreland, Prince George, James City, Richmond, Spotsylvania, County and Borough of Norfolk, Surry, Middlesex, Essex, Dinwiddie, Chesterfield, York, New Kent, Fairfax, Mecklenburg, Prince Edward, Brunswick, Lancaster, Sussex, Accomack, Charles City, Gloucester, Elizabeth City.

July 26- First battle of Lord Dunmore's War - The war was a conflict between the Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo, the theater of war being the trans-Appalachian area of Virginia. 

August 1- The First Virginia Convention - Held in Williamsburg the Convention met while the Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, was away campaigning on the Virginia frontier. The Convention moved ahead with measures to boycott (not yet a term) trade with England.

Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia. -New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Sept 5- First Continental Congress - Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia -  Twelve of the thirteen colonies sent a total of fifty-six delegates to the First Continental Congress. Virginia's delegates: Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison & Edmund Pendleton. Peyton Randolph was made President.

September 1- The Powder Alarm - 

October 7- Massachusetts Provincial Congress - After Governor Gen. Thomas Gage dissolved the Massachusetts Assembly, the body reconvened in Concord as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.

October 10- Battle of Point Pleasants - In what is now West Virginia Chief Cornstalk of the Shawnee suffers defeat in battle against the Virginia militia under Colonel Andrew Lewis.

October 20- The Continental Congress passed the Articles of Association. The Articles called for the Colonies to united in economic warfare against the home country. Committees of Inspection were to be established across the Colonies to see the measures are carried out. 

November 7- The citizens of Yorktown, Virginia, seized two chests of tea in one of the last "Tea Parties." "The Inhabitants of York . . . hoisted the Tea out of the Hold and threw it into the River, and then returned to the Shore without doing Damage to the Ship or any other Part of her Cargo.”

December 14- The Capture of Fort William and Mary - Armed men capture Fort William  and Mary in New Castle, New Hampshire from a small caretaker unit.

"On Wednesday last after 12'o clock an insurrection suddenly took place in this town, and immediately proceeded to his Majesty's castle, attacked, overpowered, wounded, and confined the captain, and thence took away all the King's powder. Yesterday numbers more assembled, and last night brought off many cannons, &c and about sixty muskets."

Digital Sources:

The Northern Illinois Illinois Digital Library

Virginia 250 

The Washington Papers 

Further Reading

In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774- David Ammerman. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 1974