About Christian McBurney

Hostilities between the New England colonies and Great Britain did not break out until April 19, 1775, at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. But Rhode Island’s government took a …
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I love history firsts. The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. This was the sharp beginning of America on its road …
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I recently came across the recollections of Simeon Thayer, who served from 1777 to 1781 as a major in Rhode Island Continental Army regiments. He was one of the outstanding …
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This is a most welcome book. Books on Roger Williams can be hard for the average reader to read. In part, this is because sixteenth century English language is so …
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I was going through the colonial records of South Kingstown at the South Kingstown Town Hall last year when I stumbled across a census document with decent detail that wound …
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[The following is the main text from my article “The South Kingstown Planters: Country Gentry in Colonial Rhode Island,” Rhode Island History, Volume 45, Number 3 (August 1986), pages 81-93. …
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In the past fifteen years or so, there has been, happily, an explosion of books published on battles and other military aspects of the American Revolutionary War. In the same …
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[From the editor: This article quotes at length from chapter 8 of the following book published in 1904: Half a Century with the Providence Journal, Being a Record of the …
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[From the editor: This article quotes at length from a chapter on child newspaper carriers from the early years of the Providence Journal. The children were required to appear early …
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Bostonian merchants, sailors and dockworkers hated the Stamp Act enacted by Parliament in early 1765.  What right did Parliament have to tax Americans when they were not represented in Parliament?

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