Sam Forman's Blog, page 10

Public Satisfaction to See at Least One Blockhead Exposed to the Contempt We Both Agree Such Deserve

Date: May 4, 1767 “Messieurs Edes & Gill, Please to insert the following. Happy Continent, thrice happy Massachusetts, & even beyond a superlative Happy Boston, whose lot it is to be blest with so learned, so sagacious and disinterested a Physician, embellished as much as the Belles Lettres, as imbued with the art of Apollo. [...]

Reenacting Paul Revere’s 1775 Marathon Run to Lexington

That headline reads a bit cockeyed. Revere had the able assistance of a horse, by tradition named Brown Beauty. He did not don running shoes, which in any case would not as yet have been invented. Local runner Michael McHugh plans again this year to embark on his annual run in homage to the iconic [...]

Nothing to Recommend Him but His Unparalleled Impudence

Date: April 27, 1767 “Though no Person is less desirous of censuring a stranger than I am, yet when I find an ignorant empirick displaying his malice against me in a news paper, only because I was unhappily necessitated to condemn his ill-founded practice, I think none can blame me if I give a fair [...]

No Room to Doubt the Propriety of Blood-Letting

“To the Publishers of the Boston Evening-Post. As Life and Health are the basis of all possible enjoyment, and disease every day threatens both, it is no wonder the professors of the art of medicine seem of such importance to mankind, especially when considered that the means of life in their hands if misapplied work [...]

Latin Quotations Associated with Joseph Warren

From the 1772 Boston Massacre Oration, March 5, 1772: quis talia fando/Myrmidonum, Dolopumve, aut duri miles Ulyssei, /Temperet a lacrymis.  (Virgil, Aeneid Bk. II, 6-8) “In speaking such things, what Myrmidon, or Dolopian, or soldier of harsh Ulysses, could refrain from tears?” Omnes ordines ad conservandam rempublicam, mente, voluntate, studio, virtute, voce consentiunt  (Cicero). “All [...]

Crispus Attucks, Supposed to be Murdered

Date: March 22, 1770 “Benjamin Church, Jun., of lawful age, testify and say, that being requested by Mr. Robert Pierpont, the Coroner, to assist in examining the body of Crispus Attucks, who was supposed to be murdered by the soldiers on Monday evening the 5th instant, I found two wounds in the region of the [...]

1775 Boston Massacre Oration – Manuscript Transcription in Full Text

1 It is not without the most humiliating conviction of my want of ability that I now appear before you. But The sense I have of the obligation I am under to obey the calls of my country at all times, together with an animating recollection of your indulgence exhibited upon so many occasions, has [...]

Warren’s 1775 Boston Massacre Oration in Full Text: Our Country Is In Danger but Not To Be Despaired Of

ORATION Delivered at Boston, 6 March 1775 “MY EVER HONOURED FELLOW CITIZENS, It is not without the most humiliating conviction of my want of ability that I now appear before you: but the sense I have of the obligation I am under to obey the calls of my country at all times, together with an [...]

Lovell’s 1771 Boston Massacre Oration in Full Text – Slaves Envy the Freedom of Others and Take a Malicious Pleasure in Contributing to Destroy It

by James Lovell Omnes homines natura Libertati student, et CONDITIONEM Servitutis oderunt. Caes. —: Nunc ea petit, quae dare aullo modo possumus, nisi priùus volumus nos bello victos confiteri. Cic. At a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Town Meeting assembled, by Adjournment, on Tuesday the 2d Day [...]

History Channel’s Sons of Liberty Tarred and Feathered

Source: This was prepared as a letter to the editor for newspaper publication by a committee of historical reenactors. In reflecting upon the History Channel’s popular miniseries Sons of Liberty, first  aired January 25-27, 2015, the letter raises several interesting points regarding the depiction of history in fiction, academic historians’ participation in pop culture, and [...]