1691 – Jacob Leisler, American colonist, was hanged for treason. He was a soldier, born in Frankfort on the Main, Germany. He came to this country in 1660 as a soldier in the service of the Dutch West India company. Leaving the army soon after his arrival, he engaged in the Indian trade, and became a comparatively wealthy man. While on a voyage to Europe in 1678 he was captured by Moorish pirates, and was compelled to pay a ransom of 2,050 pieces of eight to obtain his freedom. Previous to this voyage he was a resident of Albany, where he was a magistrate, and had incurred the displeasure of Sir Edmund Andros, the governor, by the arbitrary and high-handed measures that he and his associates had adopted to prevent the spread of popery, the political bugbear of the day. Leisler had also endeared himself to the common people by befriending a family of French Huguenots that had been landed on Manhattan island so destitute that a public tribunal had decided they should be sold into slavery in order to pay their ship-charges. Leisler prevented the sale by purchasing the freedom of the widowed mother and son before it could be held. Under Dongan’s administration in 1683 he was appointed one of the judges, or “commissioners,” of the court of admiralty in New York. In 1688 Governor Dongan was succeeded by Lieutenant-Governor Francis Nicholson. In 1689 the military force of the city of New York consisted of a regiment of five companies, of one of which Leisler was captain. He was popular with the men, and probably the only wealthy resident in the province that sympathized with the Dutch lower classes. At that time much excitement prevailed among the latter, owing to the attempts of the Jacobite office holders to retain power in spite of the revolution in England and the accession of William and Mary to the throne. On a report that the adherents of King James were about to seize the fort and massacre their Dutch fellow citizens, an armed mob gathered on the evening of 2 June, 1689, to overthrow the existing government. The cry of “Leisler” was raised, and the crowd rushed to his house. At first he refused to lead the movement, but when the demand was reiterated by the men of his regiment he acceded, and within an hour received the keys of the fort, which had meanwhile been seized. Fortunately for the revolutionists, the fort contained all the public funds, whose return the lieutenant-governor in vain demanded. Four hundred of the new party signed an agreement to hold the fort ” for the present Protestant power that reigns in England,” while a committee of safety of ten of the city freeholders assumed the powers of a provisional government, of which they declared Jacob Leisler to be the head and commissioned him as “captain of the fort.” In this capacity he at once began to repair that work, and strengthened it with a “battery” of six guns beyond its walls, which was the origin of the public park that is still known as the Battery. Nicholson and the council of the province, with the authorities of the city, headed by Stephanus van Cortlandt, the mayor, attempted by pacific means to prevent the uprising, but without effect. Finally, becoming alarmed for their own safety, the lieutenant-governor sailed for England, and the mayor, with the other officials, retired to Albany. To the latter city, where the Jacobite office holders still held control, Leisler sent his son-in-law, Milbourne, in November, with an armed force to assist in its defence against the Indians, but he was directed to withhold it unless Leisler’s authority was recognized. This was refused, and Milbourne returned unsuccessful. In December a despatch arrived from William and Mary directed “to Francis Nicholson, Esq., or in his absence to such as for the time being takes care for preserving the peace and administering the laws in his majesty’s province of New York.” This Leisler construed as an appointment of himself as the king’s lieutenant-governor. He therefore dissolved the committee of safety, swore in a council, and assumed the style of a royal lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief. In the spring of 1690, Albany, terrified by an Indian invasion, and rent by domestic factions, yielded to Milbourne. Amid distress and confusion a house of representatives was convened, and the government was constituted by the popular act. After the massacre at Schenectady in February, 1690, Leisler engaged with great vigor in the expeditions against the French, and equipped and despatched against Quebec the first fleet of men-of-war that had been sent from the port of New York. In January, 1691, Major Ingoldesby arrived with the news of Henry Sloughter’s appointment as governor, and demanded possession of the fort, which Leisler refused. On Sloughter’s own demand immediately upon his arrival in the following March, he likewise refused to surrender it until he was convinced of Sloughter’s identity and the latter had sworn in his council. As soon as the latter event occurred, he wrote the governor a letter resigning his command. Sloughter replied by arresting him and nine of his friends. The latter were subsequently released after trial, but Leisler was imprisoned, charged with treason and murder, and shortly afterward tried and condemned to death.
1745 – A force numbering about 4,200 men, all of them drawn from New England militia regiments, under the command of General William Pepperrell of Maine, opens a brisk artillery bombardment against the French fortress of Louisbourg. In a siege operation that would last 47 days before the garrison surrenders, the colonial soldiers maintain a disciplined investment of the walled city and harbor. Built in the 1720s by the French to protect the entrance to the St. Lawrence River and French Canada it was the largest fort anywhere in North America. England and France had gone to war in 1741 and French privateers used Louisbourg’s protected harbor as a base from which to prey on British and colonial fishing and merchant fleets. When colonial authorities asked England for Royal Navy assistance to stop the attacks no help was forthcoming. So the colonial governments decided to launch their own expedition to take Louisbourg and stop the raids. Militiamen from Massachusetts (which also included the present day state of Maine), Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire were gathered for the campaign. They were transported on 19 colonial ships, protected by 13 armed merchant ships. After the capitulation the militia garrisoned the fort until war’s end. Rightfully proud of their achievement the colonies were dismayed to learn that the fortress was returned to France in the peace treaty ending the war. In the next war (the French and Indian War, 1755-1763) it had to be recaptured, this time by regular British troops and ships.
1771 – The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called The “Regulators”, occurs in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina. The Battle of Alamance was the final battle of the War of the Regulation, a rebellion in colonial North Carolina over issues of taxation and local control. In the past, historians considered the battle to be the opening salvo of the American Revolution and locals agreed with this assessment. However, modern historians reject this, since there does not seem to have been any intent to rebel against the king or crown, merely to protest taxation and corrupt local government. Named for nearby Great Alamance Creek, the battle took place in what was then Orange County and has since become Alamance County in the central Piedmont about six miles south of present-day Burlington, North Carolina.
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