Greetings! Our next meeting is to be a hybrid meeting on Tuesday, April 16. We will be meeting in person at the Mount Vernon Inn at 6 p.m. (social hour) and 6:40 p.m. (dinner). For those who want to attend remotely, the Zoom meeting will start at 7 p.m. or a little later. Please let me know by responding to this email if you would like to attend the meeting in-person (which we much prefer) or by Zoom.
If you would like to attend, please fill out the attached reservation form and mail it to Richard Rankin. You can also let Richard or me know if you would like to attend and pay at the door (cash or check to ARRT). Please indicate if you want meat or salmon for dinner.
If you can only attend by Zoom, I will email you a Zoom link to the meeting the day of the meeting. Feel free to share this email with a friend who or family member whom you think may be interested.
Our next speaker will be Bob Thompson, who will be speaking on his recent book, Revolutionary Roads: Searching for the War That Made America Independent . . . And All the Places It Could Have Gone Terribly Wrong.”
Bob explains: “Revolutionary Roads is what I like to call “traveling history,” of which the late Tony Horwitz was one of the great practitioners. My plan was to go to as many key battlefields as possible – as well as to other places where crucial military-related events took place – then do my best, in writing, to take my readers along. As I traveled, I sought out passionate lovers of revolutionary history who knew a lot more than I did about specific parts of the war. Many became characters in the book. I also wrote in the first person, which helped me keep the story moving and find unconventional ways to convey complex material. Finally, I honed in on the turning points, both well-known and obscure, that show up all over the revolutionary landscape. In every one of those places, something different might have happened, changing our shared story in ways we can only imagine.”
Bob Thompson, a resident of Washington, D.C., is the author of Born on a Mountaintop, an on-the-road exploration of the real and legendary Davy Crockett. He dropped out of graduate school in history after three weeks, then worked as a house painter and a librarian before moving on to journalism. A longtime feature writer and editor at the Washington Post, Bob was known for his pieces on the intersection of history and myth. He began work on Revolutionary Roads in 2015, promising his spouse that family life would return to normal in three years – an absurd estimate, as it turned out, though he has been forgiven.
To purchase this book prior to our meeting, here is a link to the online Fort Plains Museum Bookstore: https://fortplainmuseum.square.site/ [search: Revolutionary Roads]
America’s
Premier 11th Annual Conference on the American Revolution Held Last March
15-17.
America’s Premier 11th Annual Conference on the American Revolution was held on March 15-17, for the first time at Glen Allen, Virginia, on a campus environment just north of Richmond. It was a great time and location! Attendees from our ARRT included Doug Bonforte, Glenn Williams, Gary Ecelbarger, Kass Kassebaum, Lorna Hainesworth, Gene Procknow, and Gabe Neville. I was able to attend on the last day, Sunday. And now to . . . .
Fort
Plain Museum Revolutionary War Conference 250 in the Mohawk Valley
The excellent Fort Plain Museum’s Revolutionary War Conference 250 in the Mohawk Valley will take place this year on June 14-16 in Johnstown, New York. Registration is open. The scheduled speakers are:
- James Kirby Martin and guest host Mark Edward Lender having a fireside chat about the American Revolutionary War, its Sestercentennial, and their legacies as historians
- Nancy Bradeen Spannaus, “Alexander Hamilton’s War for American Economic Independence Through Two Documents” (supported by the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society)
- Gary Echberger, “‘This Happy Opportunity’: George Washington and the Battle of Germantown”
- Shirley L. Green, “Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence”
- Mark Edward Lender, “‘Liberty or Death!’: Some Revolutionary Statistics and Existential Warfare”
- Shawn David McGhee, “No Longer Subjects of the British King: The Political Transformation of Royal Subjects to Republican Citizens, 1774-1776”
- James Kirby Martin, “The Marquis de Lafayette Visits the Mohawk Valley, Again and Again”
- Kristofer Ray, “The Cherokees, the Six Nations and Indian Diplomacy circa 1763-1776”
- Matthew E. Reardon, “The Traitor’s Homecoming: Benedict Arnold’s Raid on New London, September 4-13, 1781”
- John L. Smith, “The Unexpected Abigail Adams: A Woman ‘Not Apt to Be Intimidated’” (supported by the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation)
- Bruce M. Venter, “Albany and the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765”
- Glenn F. Williams, “No Other Motive Than the True Interest of This Country: Dunmore’s War 1774”
- Chris Leonard, Schenectady City Historian, “Storehouse Schenectady: Depot and Transportation Center for the Northern War”
- David Moyer, “Recent Archaeology Discoveries on the Site of Revolutionary War Fort Plain”
There will also be a bus tour of Revolutionary sites in the area with the theme of “1774: The Rising Tide.” In that year Schenectady saw a violent Liberty Pole riot while the British Indian agent Sir William Johnson passed away in July.
As you can read, our own Glenn Williams will be speaking on
Dunmore’s war, which has its 250th anniversary this year.
For more information, click on this link: https://fortplainmuseum.org/viewevent.aspx?ID=1062
Best,
Christian McBurney
President, George Washington American Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia
