March 1, 1778, Joshua Spooner, a businessman in Brookfield, Massachusetts, and member of the local Committee of Correspondence, is murdered. The next day his body is found in the well behind his house, and at a tavern in a neighboring town two British soldiers--taken prisoner at Saratoga--are found wearing Spooner's shoe buckles and other pieces of clothing. In an attic in a neighboring tavern magistrates find Ezra Ross, a teen-aged veteran of Saratoga. The three men confess to killing Spooner--but insist they were instigated by Spooner's wife, Bathsheba, who is now pregnant with Ross's child. Find out more about this spectacular case--Bathsheba's father was exiled General Timothy Ruggles, Robert Treat Paine was the prosecutor in the Worcester Court House, and Levi Lincoln defended Bathsheba and her accomplices, who were executed in July 1778 before a crowd of thousands in one of the most sensational murder cases in American history. Andrew Noone has written the story of the case in Bathsheba Spooner: A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy.

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Founded in 1923 through the gift of William Lawrence Clements, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan is a fount of historical manuscripts, maps and rare books, particularly on the American Revolution. Their collections include the papers of General Thomas Gage, and General Henry Clinton, two of the leading British military leaders during the American Revolution, as well as Lord George Germain, a cabinet minister and Hessian General von Jungkenn. The Clements library is currently engaged digitizing the Gage and Clinton papers, making these resources available to scholars world-wide, and an exhibit on April 19, 1775, which will open on April 18, 2025. We talk with Paul J. Erickson, the Randolph G. Adams Director of the Clements Library, and Cheney Schopieray, Curator of Manuscripts, about the treasures the Clements hold, how scholars and students can access them, and what are their favorite things (today) in this tremendous archive.

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We are now deep into the Semiquincentennial commemoration of the events that led to American Independence. 2025 represents a watershed year as we commemorate the Battles of Lexington & Concord, Chelsea Creek and Bunker Hill. Just in time to help us remember these events, and why we are commemorating the 250th, Professor Abby Chandler of UMass Lowell, has launched a new journal, Remembering the American Revolution at 250. Professor Chandler joins us to talk about this new project, along with Professor Marianne Holdzkom, author of its first article, "Based on a True Story; Remembering the Revolution through Film."

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