Documents in Year 1775                     

Links of Interest:

• King George III, British Monarch over American Colonies

• American Revolution:

19 April 1775 "The Shot Heard Round the World" - First shot of the American Revolution fired in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts between the British and the Colonists. Forty-nine colonists were killed.

American Revolution 1775-1783

All about the American Revolution from battles and commanders to documents and timeline

American Revolutionary War Reenactment organization

Field Guide has drawings of Continental forces uniforms

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

In March 1775 Benjamin Franklin left London, England to return to Philadelphia in a 6 week voyage during which time the famous ride of Paul Revere and "the shot heard around the world" occurred. Upon Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia he was unanimously chosen by the Assembly a delegate to the new Colonial Congress. 

• Westward Expansion / American Frontier:

10 March 1775 Daniel Boone leads 30 axe-men through the Cumberland Gap and blazes the Wilderness Road over 400 miles. They arrive at Henderson's land two weeks before the American Revolution starts in Massachusetts. The axe-men build Fort Boonesborough in four weeks. Daniel Boone brings his wife and eight children to Fort Boonesborough. Over 300,000 pioneers follow the Wilderness Road over the next four decades.

Sources:

The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen

This 2018 four-episode, high-quality documentary offered on Amazon Prime or the History Channel is well worth watching. The episode titled "Into the Wilderness" covers the time period from 1773-1783. It compares and contrasts the frontiersmen's efforts led by Daniel Boone to fight off the Native Americans led by Chief Black Fish, allies of the British, during the American Revolution. It ends with the Treaty of Paris signed in 1783 where the British conceded control from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River. Although the British surrendered, the Native Americans did not.

My Father, Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone

This free ebook preview provides a major portion of an interview of Nathan Boone, the youngest son of frontiersman, Daniel Boone. He and his wife recollect interesting stories they knew about his father's exploits on the American frontier.

• Kentucky County formed as part of Virginia

Fincastle County divided  "into other counties, which included Kentucky County, to prevent recognition of Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company by the Continental Congress."

"Kentucky County Boundaries: Ohio River to the north, Big Sandy River to the east, Virginia and North Carolina borders to the south, and the Tennessee River to the west."

Source: "Lincoln County Kentucky" by Turner Publishing Company 2002 pages 10-11

• Science: Gunpowder and more Elements

Antoine Lavoisier, French Chemist, Father of Modern Chemistry (1743-1794)

"At the beginning of the American Revolutionary conflict, all thirteen colonies had between them only 80,000 pounds of gunpowder, a supply that wouldn't last half a year of fighting. Englishman, Joseph Priestly (see 1774) and Frenchman Lavoisier's chemical revolution in discovering oxygen and combustion, and Ben Franklin's diplomatic skills ultimately turned the tide as Lavoisier's innovations in gunpowder production gave the French a stockpile of top-quality powder and the colonies imported 200 tons in late 1776 and 800 tons by 1779."

Johnson, Steven. The Invention of Air. New York: Riverhead, 2008.

Five New Elements Discovered in One Decade

As chemists began to use scientific methods to search for elements, the rate of discovery increased. In one decade (1765-1775) chemists had isolated: Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Chlorine and Manganese.