HISTORY MATTERS

Some topics are born into trouble. You'll see what I mean in a moment. This week, for example, I got a letter from a reader in North Carolina who upbraided me for daring to suggest that the Portsmouth Powder Alarm of 1774 was the first armed conflict of the American Revolution. That's how this all got started. (Continued below)

HISTORY MATTERS

On the brink of a new year my hard drive died. Ten times I rebooted the beast and all I got was the dreaded blue screen that makes PC owners weep and beat their chests while Apple owners laugh. A kinder man might have said a thankful prayer for a loyal computer that has served me for years, executing my every command without a single day or night of rest. Instead I cursed the wretched beast like a doomed farmer whose exhausted mule falls to its knees at the height of planting season. (Continued below)

HISTORY MATTERS

Don’t ask what Captain John Deane and his shipwrecked crew of the Nottingham Galley ate for Christmas dinner in 1710. It’s a menu beyond imagining. And yet we cannot look away from the most horrifying tale in the annals of local maritime history.  (Continued below)

HISTORY MATTERS

They’re plotting again. A small group of patriotic insurgents are meeting secretly to plan another raid on the king’s fort at New Castle. As any true Seacoast resident knows by now, a mob of some 400 locals stormed Fort William and Mary in New Castle on December 14, 1774. They attacked the royal militia, stole the king’s gunpowder, tore down the British flag, and generally thumbed their noses at authority. (Continued below)