Celebrating Black History Month: Crispus Attucks, first casualty of the Revolutionary War

Crispus Attucks, born in 1723 in Framingham, Massachusetts, which was then still part of the British Empire, is considered to be the first American killed in the American Revolutionary War.  Although born a slave, he managed to escape, and his owner at the time Deacon William Brown advertised for a runaway slave Crispas.  Attucks spent time on the sea and working around the docks on the Atlantic seaboard. 

Colonial unrest had been growing since the Stamp Act imposed by Great Britain, which significantly raised taxes.  On March 5, 1770, a scuffle between the townspeople and the 29th Regiment of Foot, after a British officer was accused of theft.  The colonialists threw snowballs and debris at the soldiers.  A group of men including Attucks approached with clubs and sticks.  

The soldiers panicked and opened fire.  Attucks was the first to die.  Four other colonists were killed and six were wounded, in what was to become known as the Boston Massacre.  John Adams defended the soldiers and although two were found guilty of manslaughter, none of the soldiers were put to death.  Adams described the colonial mob as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish Jack Tars". 

The colonists regarded Attucks and the others as heroes and buried as such in the Granary Burying Ground. Attucks' actions that night helped galvanize the colonists against the British.  It was the beginning of the Revolutionary War. 

Celebrating Black History Month: 1st Rhode Island Regiment, first black military unit

The 1st Rhode Island Regiment was a regiment raised during the American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783.  Although it is considered the first black military unit, it was not exclusively black.

It was organized on May 8, 1775 under Colonel James Varnum and became known as Varnum's Regiment.  He marched to Massachusetts in June 1775 where they took part in the siege of Boston.  The soldiers, who had signed up until the end of 1775 were discharged on New Year's Eve.

They were reorganized on January 1, 1776 as the 9th Continental Regiment.  When they were reorganized in 1777 they became known as the 1st Rhode Island Regiment.  It was one of the few units in the Continental Army to serve through the entire war, disbanding in November 1783.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month - Major George Farragut, Revolutionary War hero

George Farragut was September 29, 1755, on Minorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea.  According to an entry made by him in a family Bible, he left the island of Minorca April 2, 1772, but did not settle in America until 1776. 

When George Farragut first arrived in North Carolina the war of the Revolution was in full blast, and the patriots of the State had already struck a crushing blow against the royal cause in a battle fought at Moore's Creek Bridge on February 27, 1776. 

He saw much active service, and is said to have saved the life of Colonel William Washington at the battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781.

By the spring of 1782 Farragut had risen to the rank of captain, May 27, 1782, designating him by that title and allowing him $300 for six months' pay and subsistence money

Just before the close of the war he was promoted from captain to major of North Carolina cavalry, his commission to bear date May 1, 1782 

http://genealogytrails.com/ncar/lenoir/bio_farragut_george.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Farragut

Review of Home in Time for Christmas by Heather Graham

I enjoyed Heather Graham’s Flynn brothers trilogy because although her stories are het romance/erotica, she includes a wonderful paranormal aspect to her novels. In the Flynn brothers stories, that aspect bordered on supernatural and in one case, Deadly Harvest, almost stepped across the line.


In Home in Time for Christmas, the paranormal element is time travel. During the Revolutionary War, Jake Mallory is about to hanged by the British for his anti-British publications. His adopted sister Serena casts a strange spell with rose petals (in December!) and he suddenly finds himself in the twenty-first century.

Melody Tarleton, on her way home for the holidays nearly runs over him as he appears before her eyes and her car. Convinced he is a re-enactment actor/nut case suffering from amnesia, she takes him home to her family since she has no idea what else to do with him.

Her father, mother and brother accept Jake into their home with little questions to Melody’s explanation. Mark Hathaway, the man Melody is supposed to be getting engaged to isn’t swayed and becomes suspicious of the enigmatic gentleman, who bears more than a passing resemblance to him.

As hard as she tries to keep his secret although not believing it herself, Melody is surprised to find out that her parents have pieced together how she really came to meet Jake and they have no issue with him being from the past. In fact, they have an idea how to return him to his own time. And the revelation gives her little comfort.

Despite her misgivings, she is convinced that her mother and father know what they are doing and helps them to the novel’s final and somewhat predictable conclusion.

In the Flynn brothers trilogy, Graham put more emphasis on the paranormal aspects, but in Home in Time for Christmas, much of the story is spent on Melody trying to explain to everyone and herself Jake’s sudden appearance and their budding romance.

I prefer the stronger paranormal angle to the romance but I’m probably outnumbered in that respect. In the trilogy, the paranormal phenomenon that formed the premise for those stories was a bit more complex, more detailed than a doorway opened in time with rose petals. We’ve also seen this scenario before: a person about to be hanged is spirited away to another time in both “Dark Shadows” and “The Twilight Zone”.

But if you prefer romance to paranormal, Home in Time for Christmas isn’t too spooky to be romantic.