The Story Behind the Story

This reference work is the product of more than 25 years of research. In 1987, the nation marked the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution. As part of those celebrations, The Miami Herald, then one of the largest newspapers in the US, printed a series of daily articles, from the start of the year until September, showing what happened day-by-day at the Constitution Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, as part of the series “‘We the People’: The Constitution—a Celebration.’” As an historian, I collected each day’s articles. During that year, doing cursory research into the events behind the Convention, I found that there was no single volume that discussed that event, the people behind it, or what other events and persons had been important at that time. I also noted that no work covered the Continental Congress. Thus, in 1987, the idea for this work was born.

Since that time, I put this work on the shelf several times as other projects took precedence. During 14 trips to the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005, including living in London for a period in 2005, I researched the Continental Congress as well as British documents relating to the colonies. The amount of the material used to research this book is stunning.

Hours spent at the British Library, the British Library Newspaper Library, the British National Archives, formerly the Public Record Office, and Oxford University was time well spent. I also spent countless hours at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the library at the US Department of the Interior, all in Washington D.C., and at the New York Public Library, Columbia University, the New-York Historical Society, and other institutions, including Arizona State University in Tempe, and the State Library of Iowa in Des Moines.

Leading up to the First Continental Congress

Even before the First Continental Congress convened in September 1774, the clash between the colonies and England was a done deal. Years of growing anger and controversy, starting after the end of the French and Indian War, plagued the relationship between Britain and her colonies. The Stamp Act, The Sugar Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party—all were momentous footsteps in a tale which led to the shooting at Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775. William Eddis, the Surveyor for Annapolis, who had a front row seat for the conflict that was about to reach a tipping point, wrote to a friend in England on 28 May 1774:

“All America is in a flame! I hear strange language every day. The colonists are ripe for any measure that will tend to the preservation of what they call their natural liberty. I enclose you the resolves of our citizens; they have caught the general contagion. Expresses are flying from province to province. It is the universal opinion here that the mother country cannot support a contention with these settlements, if they abide steady to the letter and spirit of their associations. Where will these matters end? Imagination anticipates, with horror, the most dreadful consequences. If the measures adopted at home are founded on the principles of justice, [the] administration [must] be firm and decisive. If they are not, it will be advisable, even on the score of interest, not to abandon the substance for a shadow. True policy will suggest the expediency of embracing a conciliatory system.” [1]

But no “conciliatory system” would be forthcoming . . . all that came was war.

In mid-1774, to counter the growing crisis, and have a “national meeting” of delegates from all thirteen colonies, a “General Congress” was called for in September 1774. In the first days of what would become the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Massachusetts delegate John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail, noted that he was impressed by the gathering of men from all corners of the place known as the American colonies:

“There is in the Congress a collection of the greatest men upon this continent in point of abilities, virtues, and fortunes. The magnanimity and public spirit which I see here make me blush for the sordid, venal herd which I have seen in my own Province . . . Be not under any concern for me. There is little danger from any thing we shall do at the Congress. There is such a spirit through the colonies, and the members of the Congress are such characters, that no danger can happen to us, which will not involve the whole continent in universal desolation; and in that case, who would wish to live?” [2]

We find these sentiments in the varied correspondence of the time. For instance, Joseph Warren, who was not a delegate but was an influential member of Massachusetts society (he would die at Bunker Hill), wrote to Arthur Lee on 16 May 1775:

“The Continental Congress is now sitting. I suppose before I hear from you again, a new form of Government will be established in this colony. Great Britain must not make the best she can of America. The folly of her Minister has brought [on] this situation. If she has strength sufficient even to depopulate the colonies, she has not the strength sufficient to subjugate them. However, we can yet without injuring ourselves offer much to her. The great nevertheless advantages derived from the colonies may, I hope, yet be repaed [sic] by her from us. The plan for enslaving us, if it had succeeded, would only have put it in the power of the Administration to provide for a number of their unworthy dependants [sic], whilst the nation would have been deprived of the most essential benefits which might have arisen from us by commerce; and the taxes raised in America would, instead of easing the Mother Country of her burdens, only have been employed to bring her into bondage.” [3]

While the Continental Congress was not an all-powerful body, nevertheless it was an important congregating place for the men who shaped the first years of America’s existence. In his 1888 work “The Critical Period of American History,” historian John Fiske explained:

“A remarkable body was this Continental Congress . . . for the vicissitudes through which it passed, there is perhaps no other revolutionary body, save the Long Parliament, which can be compared to it. For its origin we must look back to the committees of correspondence devised by Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel Adams, and Dabney Carr. First assembled in 1774 to meet an emergency which was generally believed to be only temporary, it continued to sit for nearly seven years before its powers were ever clearly defined; and during those seven years it exercised some of the highest functions of sovereignty which are possible to any governing body. It declared the independence of the United States; it contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with France; it raised and organized a Continental army; it borrowed large sums of money, and pledged what the lenders understood to be the national credit for their repayment; it issued an inconvertible paper currency, granted letters of marque, and built a navy. All this it did in the exercise of what in later times would have been called ‘implied war powers,’ and its authority rested upon the general acquiescence in the purposes for which it acted and in the measures which it adopted.” [4]

After a call from all of the colonies for a “General Congress” to discuss various issues relating to the relationship between England and the colonies, the delegates met at Carpenters’ Hall, near the State House, in Philadelphia, on 5 September 1774. Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was unanimously elected as President. Charles Thomson was elected as the body’s official Secretary, a position he would hold for the entire existence of the Congress, until 1789. When the Congress met, there was no war: this would not happen until the following May, when shooting began at Lexington and Concord. The Continental Congress then formed the Continental Army, established rules for the formation of units and raising monies for uniforms, guns, ammunition, and salaries for the troops. Ethan Allen, of Vermont, and his group known as “The Green Mountain Boys,” snuck up on the fortress at Ticonderoga and seized it on behalf of the American nation which existed in name only. As he later wrote:

“I ordered the commander, Captain Delaplace, to come forth instantly or I would sacrifice the whole garrison . . . when I ordered him to deliver me the fort instantly, he asked me by what authority I demanded it. I answered him, ‘In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.’” [5]

Even after Lexington and Concord and Ticonderoga, the delegates at the Continental Congress wished for reconciliation with England, calling on Allen and Benedict Arnold to return the captured cannons and arms to the British as soon as the hostilities had ended. An anonymous man in Virginia wrote to his friend in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 1 September 1775:

“As to the present state of Virginia, I refer you to them. Tears stand in my eyes when I think of this once happy land of liberty. All is anarchy and confusion. A brave people struggling in opposition to the acts of the British Parliament. We are all in arms, exercising and training old and young to the use of the gun. No person goes abroad without his sword, or gun, or pistols. The sound of war echoes from north to south. Every plain is full of armed men, who all wear a hunting shirt, on the left breast of which are sewed, in very legible letters, ‘Liberty or Death.’ May God put a speedy and happy end to this grand and important contest between the mother and her children. The Colonies do not wish to be independent; they only deny the right of taxation in the Parliament. They would freely grant the King whatever he pleases to request, of their own Assemblies, provided the Parliament has no hand in the disposing of it.” [6]

Had England been willing to offer conciliation with the colonies to end the war, it is probable that America might still be colonies of that nation. But England wanted America to surrender, and to capitulate to all of the harsh economic and social laws enacted by the British Parliament. This the colonies, and the Continental Congress, would not do. It was left for a British-born pamphleteer, Thomas Paine, to push for a complete separation of America from the land of his own birth.

In early 1776, Paine, published “An American Crisis,” in which he stated words which would ring in the ears of those pushing for independence from England:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing [sic] its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but ‘to bind us in all cases whatsoever,’ and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.” [7]

Over its 14-plus year history, the Continental Congress met in various cities, due to British military advances, additional strife, or the desire to see new vistas. From York, Pennsylvania, to Trenton, New Jersey, to its final home in New York City, the delegates shifted their movements to meet current events, although the moves imposed great hardships on men who had to travel sometimes hundreds of miles by carriage, often without pay, leaving their families for long stretches of time. While most men elected to the Continental Congress did indeed serve, many refused, or simply did not show. Cities were crowded, and some diseases, like smallpox, were rife. The war did not end until 1783, making life an uneasy series of circumstances. The men who did serve placed their lives, their fortunes, and their names, in great jeopardy.

The signing and ratification of the US Constitution in 1787 rounds out an historical period that lasted for less than 20 years but gave birth to the nation we call the United States of America. That story—the people, places and events that form the early portion of America’s history—is contained in this work.

Encyclopedia of the Continental Congresses

Despite this being a work on the Continental Congresses, not on the American Revolution, some material naturally overlaps. For example, the entry on Commodore Esek Hopkins, who commanded the Continental Navy, is included because of difficulties he had with the Continental Congress, not because he served in the American Revolution.

But while this is not a work on the American Revolution, it does include events involving that conflict that helped shape the atmosphere that established the Continental Congress. In the preface to the 1855 edition of his work, “The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution,” historian Benson J. Lossing wrote:

“The story of the American Revolution has been well and often told, and yet the most careless observer of the popular mind may perceive that a large proportion of our people are but little instructed in many of the essential details of that event, so important for every intelligent citizen to learn. Very few are ignorant of the most conspicuous circumstances of that period, and all who claim to be well-informed have a correct general knowledge of the history of our war for independence. But few even of that intelligence class are acquainted with the location of the various scenes depicted by the historian, in their relation to the lakes and rivers, towns and cities, whose names are familiar to the ears of the present generation.” [8]

In telling this story, I discovered no central repository for a history of the Continental Congress itself, of biographies of the men who served in it, or of the other people and places connected to the Continental Congress. The leading collections of historical American biographies of the twentieth century, the “Dictionary of American Biography” and the “Biographical Directory of the US Congress,” have a random collection of information, from in-depth biographies to small nuggets of information. What was not found in these sources, was found in books, dissertations, newspaper articles and historical papers. Now, in theEncyclopedia of the Continental Congresses, that central repository exists.

There was indeed a First Continental Congress and a Second Continental Congress. The first parley met from September to October 1774, issuing the “Olive Branch Petition” to try to get the British government to lessen their harsh economic measures. A “Continental Association” was also established to enforce a colony-wide boycott of English goods. The second convening conference issued a Declaration of Independence in 1776, established a framework for a national government with the Articles of Confederation drafted in 1777, and witnessed the call for a federal convention to formulate a new US Constitution in 1787. On 3 March 1789, the Continental Congress ended, giving way to the new US government with George Washington as its first President.

How did the body that we examine here come to be termed as a “Continental” Congress? Historian James Blake wrote:

“The voices of the past are frustratingly silent. Records of the deliberations at the First Continental Congress are notoriously thin, especially on the decision to adopt that title. But one delegate, James Duane, noted that in the first meeting, ‘A Question was then put what Title the Convention should assume & it was agreed that it should be called the Congress.’ Closer examination suggests that the adjective ‘continental,’ despite its widespread use, was only an unofficial part of the institution’s title. It does not appear in the majority of the Congress’ broadsides or even in the Articles of Confederation. How is it that a bunch of individuals as diverse and contentious as the delegates of the First Continental Congress, a group that began its first meeting with an argument over whether to open with a prayer, could silently accede to the notion they were a continental body? These delegates, like the colonists as a whole, faced challenging hurdles as they searched for ways to recast or sever their relationship with Britain. The diversity both among and within the colonies presented fault lines along which unified resistance could break.” [9]

To discuss how the Continental Congress worked, we turn to a letter, dated 16 August 1778, by Titus Hosmer, a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Congress. Hosmer discussed the internal workings of that body:

“I hope you are determined and preparing to come here as soon as possible [when] you give me leave to introduce you to Congress, & attempt to give you an imperfect Idea of the Course of Business in Congress and in the several Substitute divisions of Congress. We meet at nine & continue sitting till two in the after noon [sic], after prayers the States are called, nine are a quorum to proceed on Business, the public Letters are first read & disposed of. Next Reports from the Treasury & then Reports from the Board of War. These matters by a standing Order must be gone thro’ [through] before any other Business can be moved, for the Rest points are started, debated, and determined in nearly the same manner as in our Assembly, [saying] that much Time is spent, too much I think in all Conscience in debating points of Order, they are referred to the House, and the Decision does not seem to depend on any fixed or known Rules, but the present Opinion of what is decent & proper in the Case before us, which gives much the same, in deed a greater Latitude than in debating points of Common Law in our Courts. Besides the General Business which is originated & discussed in Congress, the House is subdivided into standing Committees or Boards each of which is to pay their Attention to some one [sic] Capital Branch, give Orders in the Executive part, and report to Congress where its Aid is wanted to regulate and enforce. These are as follows[:]

1. [A] Board of Treasury, this should consist of one Member from a State, five are a Quorum, they Superintend the finances, consider in the first Instance all applications for money, & Report what is to be advanced regulate the Striking of Bills, give their Opinion when Emissions are necessary, & prepare draughts of Resolves for that purpose, consult of & propose ways and means for raising Money, propose Regulations to prevent Counterfeiting, Depreciation of or to Appreciate the Currency they examine Claims, adjust Accounts & in general do every thing [sic] in this Branch, they are assisted by an Auditor General & Commissioner of Claims,- the Auditor keeps Accounts & the Comm’r [Commissioner] examine the particular Articles correct over-charges, reject improper ones & State Balances, all sums to be granted in Advance, on Account or for Ballances [sic] due are reported to Congress, granted by them, & drawn for by warrant under the Hand of the president.

2. [A] board of War, formerly consisting of Members of Congress, now of Commissioners chosen at large, assisted by some Members, the Objects of their Duty is particularly enumerated in the Resolve for Constituting & impowering [sic] them which I trust you have Seen, it extends to the superintending the Departments of the Commissary Gen.1. Quartermaster Gen1. Clothier Gen1. Adjutant General, Commissary General of Ordnance & Military stores planning Expeditions & in short every thing [sic] almost that related to the Army or Military Operations.

3. Marine Comittee [sic]. [T]his board considers of Rules and Regulations for well governing the Navy, the number of Ships & other Vessells [sic] to be built, superintend & direct the Building and employing them, examines into all mismanagement of Officers, directs Enquiries & Trials furnishes Transports & in short exercises the Office of Lord high Admiral with more extensive Powers than any Britishoner [sic] ever had & are only checked by the Necessity of obtain’g the sanction of Congress to their rules and Regulations which however in general is given of Course, as few Gentlemen have ability or Leisure to Canvass [ ?] their measures, this Observation may indeed be extended to all the other Committees General as well as the marine Comittee [sic].

4. [A] Commercial Comittee [sic]. [A]ll the Commercial Business of Congress is under their Direction & is you will find a very extensive & perplexed branch of Business[.]

5. [A] Committee of Foreign Affairs, they Correspond with our Ministers at foreign Courts, with Agents in Europe and with all such Gentlemen of Character in foreign parts as are disposed to give us Intelligence, they prepare Instructions for Ministers & propose proper Courts or States to send embassys [sic] to.

6. [T]he Committee of Foreign Applications, they are Gentlemen acquainted with the French or other European Languages, and receive Applications from foreign officers, proposals, Schemes, & projects from a Shoal of Europeans who wish to fish for Wealth or Honour [sic] in our troubled Waters

7. [A] Medical Committee, who superintend the medical Department in the Army, & are consulted by & direct the Director General.

These Committees proceed in general upon the present State of Information & decide upon the Circumstances of each particular Case without any general or established Rules, at least if they have such Rules I have not been able to find them, some of them are Temporary & will end with the War, others are in their Nature permanent, these last it is an object with Congress, when they can find Time to put into Commission & critically to limit, define & regulate their Jurisdiction.” [10]

Acknowledgments

The material in many of the biographies of the men who served in the Continental Congress come from “The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.” Printed in numerous volumes over the years to reflect the growing number of Representatives and Senators, it eventually was placed on the internet; the main page of this invaluable source is http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp.

Finally, I would like to thank The British Library, both at the old building at The British Museum, and the new one at St. Pancras, where I spent literally thousands of hours over nine years copying books, articles, papers, and spending a small fortune doing it. I would like to thank the myriad members of the staff of that noble institution, who put up with my countless questions, my numerous book and article requests, and the many times I had paper jams in the copy room in the Humanities 2 section of the building. I also thank the staff of the British National Archives at Kew (and of the former archives, the Public Record Office in London), the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, as well as the hundreds of people around the world who supported this effort. Without these magnificent institutions, their staff, and their collections, this work would still be on the drawing board.