Commonplace History | World History
JOIN, or DIE*
*Just Kidding* *But not in 1754...

An unfinished yet elegant lyric poem about the epic dissolution of the historic friendship between John Adams and Jonathan Sewall in 1774.

A reflection on shared knowledge and memory, as expressed in a 1765 primary source from the NYC Stamp Act riot.

A short meditation upon the recent restoration and interpretation of the Williamsburg Bray School [c. 1760-1774].

A short vignette in a Shakespearean style about the moment when the frigate Edward deposited royal tax stamps in NYC in the year 1765, prefacing a lengthy period of rioting and political violence.

Nota Bene : This is a small snippet from my up-coming novel set in the days of 1765-1776 in British North America. This writing is a...

I has been nearly a decade since my old college self, with full confidence in my heart, posted on this small blog. It was like shouting...

How resolutely, how inviolably, how surprizingly we have preserv'd and pursued The Resolution we took of writing each other upon Law....

In the days of the Massachusetts Bay colony, when Boston was still but a small peninsula, seemingly tethered to the earth by a mere...

Marseille, France In the year 1720, the last great occurrence of bubonic plague struck the port city of Marseille, France, killing half...

Daniel Horsmanden, chief justice of the New York Court of Judicature, died in 1778 as an unpopular man[1]. He had presided over one of...