Join your friends and neighbors with the return of Essex Historical Society's (EHS) popular Winter Lecture Series, hosted by our partners at Essex Meadows. This year's theme highlights the American Revolution. The Series continues on Sunday, January 4, at 3:30 pm with the topic “The Powder Alarm: The Breakdown of Royal Rule in New England, September 1774” presented by J. L. Bell, author of the book: The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War.
Before dawn on September 1, 1774, the royal governor of Massachusetts ordered some of the colony’s gunpowder moved into army-occupied Boston. That action put thousands of militiamen on the march. As rumors spread, they grew more dire. People in Connecticut heard that the king’s army and navy had attacked Boston. In Milford, a 13-year-old boy went to bed fearing he would “be dead or a captive before to-morrow morning.” But the real result of this event, dubbed the “Powder Alarm” by later historians, was that almost all of New England was free of royal rule—almost two years before the Declaration of Independence.
J. L. Bell is a scholar and writer specializing in the history of the American Revolution in New England. His talk will focus on the lead up to the revolution.
All Winter Lecture Series talks are free and open to the public, held in beautiful Hamilton Hall at Essex Meadows, 30 Bokum Road, Essex. We limit space to 50 non-Essex Meadows residents, so please register below if you plan to attend.
Doors open at 3:00 pm, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, please contact EHS at 860-767-0681 or email us.
About the Speaker
J. L. BELL is a writer who studies the start of the American Revolution
in and around Boston. He has published numerous research papers and articles for historical scholars, the general public, and young readers. In addition to The Road to Concord, he wrote a book-length study on Gen. George Washington’s first campaign of the Revolutionary War for the National Park Service. He shares history, analysis, and unabashed gossip about Revolutionary New England on his Boston1775.net website.