Glossary
"Illegal taxes"
Pg 1-1
Stamp riots in New York (click to enlarge)
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The four acts mentioned by John Adams (Stamp, Townshend, Sugar, Tea) are expanded on below
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In a nutshell: The taxes imposed by British Parliament were highly unpopular with the American colonists
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Undermined their right to self-governance. The American colonists did not have direct representation in British Parliament, so they felt the English crown had no right to tax them without their consent: “No Taxation Without Representation”
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Raised prices of British imports across the nation
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American colonists protested in a number of ways: peaceful (petitions, boycotts) and violent (property damage, physical violence)
Stamp Act 1765
Pg 1-1
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​First direct tax placed on American colonialists
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Imposed by the British government without the approval of the colonial legislatures
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Payable in hard-to-obtain British sterling, rather than colonial currency
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Required many printed materials from the colonies (papers, magazines, newspapers, documents, playing cards, etc) to be produced on stamped paper from London that had an embossed revenue stamp
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Repealed in 1766
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Stamp Act of 1765 proof
Townshend Acts
(passed 1767-1768)
Pg 1-1
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A series of four acts, ostensibly intended to help fund the expenses of governing the American colonies, but ultimately a move by the British Parliament to exert its perceived historic right to assert authority over the colonies
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Notably, indirectly taxed British imports of glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea to the colonies
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Sugar Act 1764
Pg 1-1
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Replaced an earlier 1733 tax — generally decreased taxes from that earlier tax, but enforced the terms more harshly
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Imposed the following indirect taxes:
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Cut the duty on foreign molasses from 6 to 3 pence per gallon
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Retained a high duty on foreign refined sugar
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Prohibited the importation of all foreign rum
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Taxed numerous foreign products, including wine, coffee, and textiles
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Banned the direct shipment of several important commodities (like lumber) to Europe
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Allowed customs officials to try smugglers in vice-admiralty courts (i.e. verdict passed by a British appointed official), without the benefit of a local trial by a jury of one's peers
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Repealed in 1766
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May 8, 1776
Pg 1-1
Aside from it being the day our musical opens on — according to the record, it's an unremarkable day.
Tea Act 1773
Pg 1-1
The Boston Tea Party (click to enlarge)
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Designed to help the financially troubled East India Company by ensuring that it could pay the Townshend duty on tea, while still underselling its competitors
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Granted the East India Company:
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A monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies
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An exemption on the export tax
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A “drawback” (refund) on duties owed on certain surplus quantities of tea in its possession
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Undercut the price of illegally smuggled tea, which would force the colonists to buy tea on which the Townshend duties (see above) had been paid, which would implicitly force the colonists to accept the British Parliament's right to taxation
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The colonists strongly protested against this act
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​In Boston, this resistance culminated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, when colonists boarded tea ships anchored in the harbor and dumped their tea cargo overboard
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Mr. Melchior Meng
Pg 1-4
This was in fact reported in the Journals of the Continental Congress on June 6, 1776:
"The Committee of Claims reported, that there is due, ... To Melchior Meng, for twenty one days hire of this waggon and horses, carrying money to Virginia, the sum of £15"
Grenadier
Pg 1-5
(As mentioned in “Piddle, Twiddle, and Resolve”)
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A soldier armed with grenades
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Required skill and strength to throw grenades (which were heavy cast iron balls filled with gunpowder) all day
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Grenadiers risked exposing themselves to enemy fire, not to mention, the grenades themselves could be hazardous to the throwers
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Grenades were used during the American Revolutionary War; the forces had whole units designated as grenadiers
British grenadier officer, 1775 (click to enlarge)
Saltpetre and pins
Pg 1-7
Pins.
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Saltpeter: Potassium nitrate, especially as a component of gunpowder
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John Adams was enthusiastic about the war effort, and therefore eager to see Americans producing saltpeter to make into gunpowder.​
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Pins: Straight pins were widely used to fasten all kinds of clothing, from women's bodices to infant's diapers, and also used in hand sewing. They were absolutely essential to 18th century life.
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​Abigail Adams probably really needed them for her work; moreover, the British trade embargoes against American colonists during the Revolution had made the price of pins skyrocket in Boston and other colonial cities.
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Abigail to John, June 16, 1775: "I have a request to make you. Something like the Barrel of Sand suppose you will think it, but really of much more importance to me. It is that you would send out Mr. Bass and purchase me a bundle of pins and put in your trunk for me. The cry for pins is so great that what we used to Buy for 7.6 are now 20 Shillings and not to be had for that. A bundle contains 6 thousand for which I used to give a Dollor, but if you can procure them for 50 [shillings] or 3 pound, pray let me have them."
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The Mall
Pg 2-9
A three-block section of the park that lies directly north of Independence Hall (the building where the Second Continental Congress convened, and where the Declaration of Independence was debated and adopted).
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Aerial photos of the area from the time
Aerial view of Independence Mall in the 1960s (click to enlarge)
Secretary of the Second Continental Congress
Pg 3-17
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The only secretary of Continental Congress for all 15 years
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Prepared the Journals of Continental Congress (the records/minutes of the meetings)
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His and John Hancock's names were the only two to appear on the first printing of the United States Declaration of Independence
June 7, 1776
Pg 3-17
On this day in history: Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced the Lee Resolution proposing independence for the American colonies.
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Record: Full notes
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No evidence that Lyman Hall (Georgia) or John Witherspoon (NJ) was actually late to Congress on June 7th, 1776
Original document of the Lee Resolution (click for full image)
"Brother"
Pg 3-35
On this page, Roger Sherman refers to John Dickinson as "brother." It's a Christian reference, implying that the person is a child of God and is family to the extent that all Christians are children of God.
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Why it might appear here:
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Contextually, Dickinson is using very religious language on the page (on pg. 3:35, he calls the Declaration an "evil measure" that "is the work of the devil"); historically, while Dickinson never formally attended a Quaker meeting, he was very steeped in Quaker beliefs.
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Sherman is historically a pretty devout Calvinist. His use of the word in the musical is really setting him up to hold a religion-oriented view.
William Franklin
Pg 3-41
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Benjamin Franklin’s acknowledged illegitimate son, raised by Franklin and his common-law wife, Deborah Read
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Became Governor of New Jersey in 1762
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A Loyalist who believed that America’s best chance of success lay in remaining with Britain. He urged the New Jersey legislature to refuse to endorse the Continental Congress, and he secretly informed the British of revolutionary activities.
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June 24, 1776: Congress ordered that “William Franklin be sent under guard to [Connecticut] Governor Trumbull”
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June 25, 1776: William Franklin was arrested and jailed in Connecticut
High St
Pg 4-54
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Market St: Originated as High St in the 1682 city plan
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Jefferson had been renting the top two floors of Jacob Graff’s house on 7th and Market Streets
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Jefferson lived there with his enslaved valet, Robert Hemmings
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​Jefferson lived and worked in a parlor and bedchamber
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Hemmings most likely slept in the garrett (a habitable attic or storage space at the top of the house)
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Where Jefferson wrote the Declaration in June 1776
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"Franklin did this, Franklin did that..."
Pg 4-61
This speech borrows a bit from John Adams's April 4, 1790 letter to Benjamin Rush:​
​"The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one End to the other. The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Spring General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his Rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War."
“Never leave till tomorrow that which you can do today”
Pg 5-71
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Commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin
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Ostensibly first published in Poor Richard’s Almanack (alternative source), a yearly almanac published by Franklin from 1732-1758 under the pseudonym “Poor Richard” or “Richard Saunders”
Poor Richard's Almanack (1773 - click to enlarge)
New Brunswick
Pg 5-74
Howe's second declaration, which posits that the Declaration of Independence is an "extravagant and inadmissible claim", is the first official British response to American independence. (1776 - click to enlarge)
Sherman Edwards writes: "Adams, Franklin, and Chase are shown leaving for New Brunswick, New Jersey, for an inspection of the military. This particular trip did not actually take place, though a similar one was made to New York after the vote on independence, during which Adams and Franklin had to share a single bed in an inn."​
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For this imagined trip, Edwards incorporated details from the trip that Adams, Franklin, and Edward Rutledge made to Staten Island in September 1776 for their summit with Lord Howe.
On September 9, Adams recorded that, "At Brunswick, but one bed could be procured for Dr. Franklin and me, in a Chamber little larger than the bed, without a Chimney and with only one small Window."
Washington's dispatch
Pg 5-77
Washington's letters are fictionalized to a degree, but part of this one does borrow from an actual letter.
Here in the musical, he is quoted as saying:
"Oh, how I wish I had never seen the Continental Army. I would have done better to retire to the back country and live in a wigwam."
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This echoes a part of his letter to Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Reed from January 14, 1776:
"I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if, instead of accepting of a command under such Circumstances I had taken my Musket upon my Shoulder & enterd the Ranks, or, if I could have justified the Measure to Posterity, & my own Conscience, had retir'd to the back Country, & lived in a Wig-wam..."
British occupation of New York City
Pg 5-77
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July 2, 1776: The first ships of the armada carrying Howe’s army sailed unopposed into New York Harbor
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August 22, 1776: Britain makes its opening gambit​
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August 29, 1776: George Washington's troops were saved from total destruction by a stroke of “Providence” — a well-timed fog and a favorable wind covered their retreat
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The British occupied New York City for seven years after. (Obviously, the musical fudges this timeline.)
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Both George Washington (America) and William Howe (Britain) saw New York as a “post of infinite importance.” John Adams described both the city and state as “a kind of key to the whole continent,” for which “no effort to secure it ought to be omitted.”
For Howe, capturing New York meant:
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The ability to extricate his army from the hostile American position and populace of Boston
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An ideal base of operations for the Royal Navy — New York harbor had deep, sheltered waters, and command of the Hudson River would effectively cut off New England, the hotbed of the Revolution.
Gen. Howe
Pg 5-77
William Howe led Great Britain's Army during the American Revolutionary War, becoming commander in chief in Massachusetts in 1775. He was selected because of a combination of his experience, his family name within the Court of King George III, and because of his attachment to his brother’s legacy.
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​Howe’s strategy during the time he was commander in chief has been ridiculed and highly debated among historians. While it is clear he was a capable leader, it is also clear that he gave Washington too many chances to retreat or regroup at precious moments where a more aggressive British response could have produced a drastically different outcome. Whether this is legitimately fair to Howe remains up for debate; the British commander was fighting a war based on eighteenth century military principles. He was also unprepared, as was nearly the entire British command, to fight an insurgency and guerilla war on a vast continent that would be nearly impossible to contain from an ocean away.
Admiral Lord Howe
Pg 5-77
Richard Howe commanded the Royal Navy's North American Station during the American Revolutionary War.
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"the aroma of hy-pocrisy?"
Pg 7-96
This speech, which is given to Edward Rutledge in the musical, actually borrows from a sentiment expressed by Thomas Jefferson:
"Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."
"Unalienable" vs "inalienable"
Pg 7-114
Academic Julian Boyd:
"This alteration may possibly have been made by the printer rather than at the suggestion of Congress. The Rough Draft reads 'inalienable' without any indication of change made in Congress. None of the copies made by Jefferson has the form 'unalienable'... The copy printed by Dunlap and inserted in the Rough Journal of Congress is the first official copy that has the form 'unalienable,' though it will be noticed that the copy taken by John Adams used that spelling. Both forms were apparently current in the eighteenth century but, since this is the only change in Jefferson's spelling made by Congress—or by any of the Committee—and since none of Jefferson's copies indicate a change made by Congress, it may possibly be that we are indebted to John Dunlap, or a faulty proofreader, for this one."
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But all of this is conjecture, and as Boyd notes, both spellings were technically correct at the time.