Bow Tie Tours

09/07/2026

A map showing how North America was divided after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

The treaty formally ended the American Revolutionary War and forced Britain to recognize the independence of the United States. The new country stretched west to the Mississippi River, north toward the Great Lakes, and south to the border with Spanish Florida.

Spain also came out of the wider peace settlement with major gains. It regained East and West Florida from Britain and already controlled Louisiana west of the Mississippi, giving it a huge presence across the south and west of the continent.

Britain, meanwhile, kept Canada and its northern possessions. France had already lost most of its North American empire in 1763, but it still retained the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland, which remain French territory today.

Vermont is one of the more unusual details on the map. It had declared itself an independent republic in 1777 and remained separate until joining the United States as the 14th state in 1791, although its status was disputed during that period.

The borders agreed on paper were not always settled immediately on the ground. Britain continued occupying several forts in the Great Lakes region for years after the treaty, while the United States and Spain argued over the northern boundary of West Florida until a later agreement in 1795.

Some boundaries were also based on incomplete geographic knowledge, meaning the political map of North America was still far from final.

The result was a continent where the newly independent United States existed alongside much larger British and Spanish possessions, with several borders and territorial claims still waiting to be resolved.

Source: Treaty of Paris, 1783; U.S. National Archives; Library of Congress historical maps.

09/07/2026

World's First Submarine Attack
On this day in 1776, during the Revolutionary War, the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship Eagle in New York Harbor. It was the first use of a submarine in warfare.
Submarines were first built by Dutch inventor Cornelius van Drebel in the early 17th century, but it was not until 150 years later that they were first used in naval combat. David Bushnell, an American inventor, began building underwater mines while a student at Yale University. Deciding that a submarine would be the best means of delivering his mines in warfare, he built an eight-foot-long wooden submersible that was christened the Turtle for its shape. Large enough to accommodate one operator, the submarine was entirely hand-powered. Lead ballast kept the craft balanced.
Donated to the Patriot cause after the outbreak of war with Britain in 1775, Ezra Lee piloted the craft unnoticed out to the 64-gun HMS Eagle in New York Harbor on September 7, 1776. As Lee worked to anchor a time bomb to the hull, he could see British seamen on the deck above, but they failed to notice the strange craft below the surface. Lee had almost secured the bomb when his boring tools failed to pe*****te a layer of iron sheathing. He retreated, and the bomb exploded nearby, causing no harm to either the Eagle or the Turtle.
During the next week, the Turtle made several more attempts to sink British ships on the Hudson River, but each time it failed, owing to the operator's lack of skill. Only Bushnell was really able to competently execute the submarine's complicated functions, but because of his physical frailty he was unable to pilot the Turtle in any of its combat missions. During the Battle of Fort Lee, the Turtle was lost when the American sloop transporting it was sunk by the British.
Despite the failures of the Turtle, General George Washington gave Bushnell a commission as an Army engineer, and the drifting mines he constructed destroyed the British frigate Cereberus and wreaked havoc against other British ships. After the war, he became commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stationed at West Point.

09/05/2026

On September 3, 1777, Continental and British forces clashed at Cooch's Bridge Historic Site - the only Revolutionary War battle fought in Delaware. It was a small victory for the British; however, the Continental Army received good news on September 1st and 2nd:

🥁September 1st: The main Continental Army received additional supplies from the victory at Fort Stanwix in Rome, NY. Under the command of Col. Peter Gansevoort, Continental forces had successfully defended the fort from the British and their allies for 20 days - August 2nd-22nd. Fort Stanwix National Monument

🥁September 2nd: The main Continental Army received news of the Battle at Bennington (located in Vermont) - a Continental victory that deprived British General John Burgoyne of resources and allies. Bennington Battlefield State Historic Site

Follow along as we move towards the Battle of Germantown (just a month away).

09/05/2026

September 5, 1774 - The First Continental Congress convenes at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, PA, and would not conclude until October 26.

09/03/2026

The Powder Alarm!

Concerned about the unrest in the colony in response to the Intolerable Acts, on September 1, 1774, Massachusetts military governor General Thomas Gage sent a secret expedition up the Mystic River to seize and remove the colonial gunpowder supply from the colonial Powder House, several miles outside Boston. The redcoat regulars (about 250 of them) quickly descended on the Powder House, whisking away the gunpowder and two cannons and removing them to Boston.

Gage’s move had taken the Patriots by surprise. But almost immediately word of it began to spread across the countryside, creating what history remembers as “the Powder Alarm.”

As news of the British seizure of the powder spread, it was embellished with wild rumors. All over New England reports arrived that British warships were bombarding Boston, and redcoat soldiers were indiscriminately slaughtering the people there. Nineteenth century historian Benson Lossing described the response, “The news spread rapidly, and the thrill of horror produced by the report was succeeded by a cry of vengeance. In less than thirty-six hours the country for more than one hundred and seventy miles in extent was aroused. From the shores of Long Island to the green hills of Berkshire, "To arms! to arms!" was the universal shout. Instantly, on every side, men of all ages were seen cleansing and burnishing their weapons, furnishing themselves with provisions and warlike stores, and preparing for an immediate march; gentlemen of rank and fortune exhorting and encouraging others by voice and example. The roads were soon crowded with armed men, marching for Boston with great rapidity, but without noise or tumult. Full thirty thousand men were under arms and speeding toward the town; nor did they halt until well assured that the report was untrue.”

Gage was astonished by how rapidly and enthusiastically the people of New England mobilized. He could now plainly see the writing on the wall. After canceling a second planned expedition to seize colonial arms, he sent an urgent message to London requesting reinforcements. “If you think ten thousand men sufficient,” Gage wrote, “send twenty; if one million is thought enough, give two; you save both blood and treasure in the end.”

The Powder Alarm caused Patriot leaders to establish a communication network to monitor and quickly report any future British movements. A Massachusetts Provincial Congress was created, and local militias were instructed to keep themselves ready for action on a minute’s notice.

The following April, when Gage ordered an expedition to move out secretly and seize the militia arsenal at Concord, Patriot spies detected their movement and riders spread the alarm to the Minutemen, who were ready and waiting when the British arrived.

09/03/2026

Where did Revolutionary War soldiers go to the bathroom? The 18th-century answer turns out to be a matter of military doctrine, discipline, and survival. In Fort Ticonderoga's latest YouTube video, discover how the sweeping saga of building the Continental Army in 1776, included building, "necessaries".
Watch our newest video to learn more! https://youtu.be/CRs4ZeWtDCs?si=7cQLLKoMf9bjBB5A

09/03/2026

America's First Bank Robbery
Carpenter's Hall

Carpenters' Hall is a treasure in historic Philadelphia. It hosted the First Continental Congress in 1774 and was home to Franklin's Library Company, The American Philosophical Society, and the First and Second Banks of the United States.

It was also the site of America's first bank robbery. An enormous sum of $162,821 had been taken from vaults of the Bank of Pennsylvania at Carpenters' Hall during the night of Saturday, August 31 or the morning hours of Sunday, September 1, 1798.
Pat Lyon was enormously interested in newspaper accounts of the robbery. The last job he completed — a rush job — before fleeing the city to avoid the yellow fever, was to change fittings and locks on two iron vault doors for the Bank of Pennsylvania. In the end, the affair would take on the flavor of a farce. The bank would get its money back and innocent victim Pat Lyon would regain his good name, and eventually profit handsomely from his imprisonment.

Read Ron Avery's accounting followed by a recording of a lecture about Pat Lyon and The Bank of Pennsylvania by Carpenters’ Hall Docent- Dan Barto on Carpenters' Hall website. https://www.carpentershall.org/pages/america-s-first-bank-robbery

09/03/2026

Born into a wealthy and politically powerful South Carolina family, William Henry Drayton had initially opposed breaking off commerce with Great Britain, but Parliament’s passage of the Coercive Acts in 1774 pushed him into the Patriot camp and he became an ardent and active revolutionary. During 1775 he led efforts to suppress loyalist support in the Carolina backcountry, and he led raids on the royal armory and post office in Charleston, seizing critically needed arms and supplies.

In 1775 Drayton was elected to the South Carolina Provincial Congress. He was appointed Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court the following year and he was one of the principal authors of the South Carolina Constitution. In February 1776 Drayton became the first prominent South Carolina leader to call for independence. In 1778 Drayton was elected to the Continental Congress, and during the seventeen months he served before his untimely death from typhus, he sat on over 90 ad hoc and standing committees, strongly supporting the Continental Army, while staunchly opposing all proposals for reconciliation with Britain.

During Drayton’s time in Congress, the delegates were debating how Independence Day should be observed. According to traditional accounts, South Carolinian Henry Laurens, who was then the president of the Continental Congress, called for the day to be observed somberly, with fasting and reflection. Drayton disagreed, arguing that it should be a day of celebration, observed with “grand fireworks.” Drayton carried the day and the Independence Day celebration in Philadelphia in 1778 featured a “brilliant exhibition of fireworks,” a tradition that has now been observed in the U.S. for nearly 250 years.

William Henry Drayton died in Philadelphia at age 37 on September 3, 1779, two hundred forty-seven years ago today.

09/03/2026

Read the extraordinary story of the Turtle, the Revolutionary War submarine. Yes, you read that right.

David Bushnell was a student at Yale College when the Revolutionary War broke out. After the battles at Lexington and Concord, the College closed early and sent its students home. Bushnell went back to his farm in Saybrook, Connecticut, and there began work on what he hoped would be a decisive contribution to the Patriot cause—the world’s first submarine.

While at Yale, Bushnell had devised a way to explode gunpowder underwater. His goal was to create a vessel that could approach an enemy warship from underwater, attach an explosive charge to it, then escape before the detonation. What he came up with was an oaken barrel-shipped boat, that would carry a single crewman who would use foot pedals and a hand crank to turn the propeller. It was an ingenious design, elements of which are still used in submarine technology today.

Working with his brother Ezra, and with New Haven clockmaker Isaac Doolittle, himself a brilliant engineer and inventor, Bushnell created his machine and dubbed it “the Turtle.” Operating the Turtle required great strength and stamina, and Ezra trained diligently to be its debut pilot. The brothers’ plan was for Ezra to take the ship out into New York harbor and sink the HMS Eagle, the British flagship.

Ezra fell seriously ill just before the planned attack. Rather than wait for him to recover, Bushnell recruited a volunteer, Sergeant Ezra Lee of the Connecticut Continental Line, to step in. After being hastily trained, on the night of September 6, 1776, Sgt. Lee quietly maneuvered the Turtle out to the Eagle, surfacing at its rudder just as planned. But unfortunately for Bushnell as his team, Lee was unable to attach the explosive—perhaps because his drill struck the iron plate around the rudder, perhaps because he was too exhausted from the effort of getting the Turtle to the target, or perhaps because he was suffering from oxygen deprivation. Soon sentries spotted Lee and the strange vessel and boats put off from shore to apprehend him. Seeing the danger, Lee released the mine, which floated away, then exploded, driving back his pursuers, and allowing him to escape. Lee and the Turtle made it back safely, but the mission, history’s first submarine attack, was a failure.

A few weeks later Lee and Bushnell tried again, this time targeting a British warship anchored off Manhattan, but British sentries spotted him on his approach, forcing Lee to abandon his attack.

Shortly after the failed second effort, the Turtle’s tender vessel was sunk during a British attack on Patriot ships at Fort Lee, New Jersey, taking the Turtle down with her.

Bushnell was later commissioned an officer in the Corps of Sappers and Miners and served at the Siege of Yorktown.

Kept top secret at the time, the story of the Turtle became publicly known when Thomas Jefferson discussed it in a 1798 lecture to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

Ezra Bushnell died in 1786 on the family farm in Connecticut, at age 39. Isaac Doolittle died in New Haven in 1800, at age 78. Ezra Lee served with distinction to the end of the war. After his death in 1821 at age 72, a sentence in his obituary read, “This soldier is the only man who fought the enemy upon land, upon water, and under the water.”

After the war, David Bushnell moved to Georgia, where he worked as a college professor and medical doctor, while continuing to design underwater mines. He died in Warrenton, Georgia in 1826, at age 86.

David Bushnell, the Father of Submarine Warfare, was born on August 30, 1740, two hundred eighty-six years ago today.

09/02/2026

This is exciting!

Exciting progress at Princeton Battlefield! 🇺🇸

Plans are moving forward to restore the historic landscape and help visitors experience the battlefield more as it appeared in 1777.

Preserving the landscape. Protecting the history. 🇺🇸