This is the grave of Robert Treat Paine. Born in 1731 in Boston to a minister father and the daughter of the minister who had founded Newark, New Jersey, Paine attended the Boston Latin School. He entered Harvard at the age of 14, which was...
American Revolution
This is the grave of the Boston Massacre dead. So here's the thing about the Boston Massacre: it's one of these super-patriotic moments when our ancestors stood up to those.
This is the grave of Samuel Adams. Born in 1722 in Boston, Adams started Harvard in 1736. Disappointing his parents, he took a greater interest in politics than the ministry..
This is the grave of Paul Revere. Born in 1734 in Boston, Revere became an apprentice to his father, a silversmith, at the age of 13. He served briefly in the Seven Years War as a lieutenant but returned him to take charge of the...
This is the grave of Joseph Warren. Born in 1741 in Roxbury, Massachuestts, Warren grew up in the respectable class of his colony. His father was a reasonably well off.
This is the grave of Roger Sherman. Born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1721, Roger Sherman moved with his family to Connecticut in 1743, where he rapidly rose in the colony's.
Rob Parkinson, a colleague from my master's program many years ago, has a great editorial in the Times on the connections between the fear of slave revolts and American independence. FOR more than two centuries, we have been reading the Declaration of Independence wrong. Or...
This is the grave of George Washington. There's one much one can say about Washington, so just a couple of points. 1) His choosing to step down from power peacefully.
For your evening reading, check out this Sam Haselby discussion of the United States as a secularist nation, including understanding its Protestant intellectual origins, the heresy of men like Thomas.
This is the grave of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg. Muhlenberg, a son of the founder of the Lutheran Church in America, was a Pennsylvania minister and supporter of the American Revolution. He served in the Continental Congress in 1779 and 1780 and then in the Pennsylvania...
This is the grave of Nathanael Greene. Nathanael Greene, Rhode Island's biggest contribution to the American Revolution, was born in 1742 in Warwick. He didn't do anything particularly unusual before.
And here I thought it was just Thomas Jefferson who bought into those effete Europeans and their wine. But no, it turns out that both sides do it! I was.