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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After a stint in the Navy and forty years teaching history, Larry Kidder was curios about the lives of ordinary people in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He could not find a good book on the subject, so he started writing , and how he has told stories of the Revolution from the vantage point of New Jersey's militia. On Christmas Eve he joins us to share the epic story of General Washington crossing the Delaware, and introduces us to the Revolutionary World of Jacob Francis, a Free Black man from New Jersey who, as a "Massachusetts" soldier, participated inn the crossing. Larry Kidder tells us of Jacob Francis and other stories from New Jersey in the Revolution's ten crucial days--from the Delaware crossing to the Battle of Princeton.

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John Dickinson burst onto the scene with his "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1767 and 1768. He wrote "The Liberty Song," sung all over America, including at the 1769 Sons of Liberty dinner in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and the Continental Congress's Olive Branch Petition and with Jefferson the "Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms." While he opposed the Declaration of Independence, he drafted the Articles of Confederation, and in 1787 was a member of the Constitutional Convention. We talk about Dickinson with Dr. Jane Calvert, author of the new biography, Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson , and the Director and Chief Editor of the John Dickinson Writings Project.

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In the place of Professor Cornelia Dayton who could not join us today, Professor Robert Allison presents a lecture on the military career of Benjamin Lincoln, who, with General George Washington and General Nathanael Greene were to only General officers to serve from the Siege of Boston to Yorktown. Lincoln came from a distinguished family in Hingham, Massachusetts where the family held various town offices since the 17th century. While Lincoln never anticipated a military career, his quiet and steady capability soon recommended him to Washington for a number of posts. Wounded at Saratoga, Lincoln would also be forced to surrender Charleston, SC to the British, but also accepted (at Washington's urging) the surrender of the British at Yorktown.

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Today, the Revolution 250 Podcast revisits an episode from 2021. Next May will be the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Chelsea Creek and plans are in preparation for the commemoration of this important event.

The first time the patriots use artillery, the first time they sink a British ship, and the first time officers and men from different colonies stage a joint operation--the battle of Chelsea Creek, in what today are the cities of Chelsea and Revere, and the East Boston neighborhood, along an industrial waterway that still retains much of its 18th-century contour. We hear from archaeologists Craig Brown, a PhD candidate at the University of Ediburgh, and Victor Mastone, President of the Massachusetts Archaeology Society on this important, but little known May 1775 battle, and their work to map the site.

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Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” remains one of the defining rebukes to the work of the Founders. While Douglass admired the ideals of the Founders, their inability to extend their precepts of liberty to people of color Douglass considered a breach of the promise of America. Frederick Douglass scholar and performer Nathan Richardson talks with us about Douglass’ use of the founding ideals to fight for the emancipation of people of color and the absolute abolition of slavery.

Nathan Richardson is a published author, performance poet, and Frederick Douglass Historian.

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