Calendar of Historical Programs

The Institute’s library director, Thomas Lannon, discusses the orderly book of Edmund Bancroft. Initially a non-commissioned officer in Col. William Prescott’s Regiment from May-December 1775, Edmund Bancroft was likely a participant at the Battle of Bunker Hill before becoming an ensign in the Seventh Continental Infantry in 1776. He eventually became a first lieutenant in the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment before dying in service. Although his orderly book was not kept during a period of concentrated military action, Bancroft made record…

Deputy Director and Curator Emily Parsons discusses an American-made hanger sword carried during the early months of the Revolutionary War by James Taylor, a minute man from western Massachusetts. A native of Pelham, Taylor was an ensign in Capt. David Cowden’s company of minute men when it answered the Lexington Alarm—seventy-five miles east—on April 19, 1775. Two months later, Taylor participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill, a sobering victory for the British Army, which lost so many casualties that…

The Institute’s historical programs manager, Andrew Outten, discusses a 1773 register of British Army officers, annotated with casualties suffered during the first battles of the Revolution—most notably at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Beginning in 1740, the British Army published annual books listing officers serving within the army’s various regiments, along with their dates of commissions and promotions and other pertinent information. Drawing from the annotations contained within the 1773 British Army List from our library collections, this presentation will…