The Places of Revolutionary Choices

Below is an alphabetical listing of the cities, battle sites and geographic locations featured in Revolutionary Choices.

 

THE PLACES OF <em>REVOLUTIONARY CHOICES</em>

ALBANY, NEW YORK

During the war, ships would sail 150 miles up the Hudson River to Albany, New York, a premier trade hub where goods from upriver and from the surrounding farms were bought and shipped back down the river.

Boston, Massachusetts

New England’s largest city and most important port, Boston was the center of resistance to British taxes and other policies infringing on the colonists’ rights. The British sent troops to occupy the city in 1768 but were unable to subdue surrounding towns or disarm the colonists.

Charleston, south Carolina

Charleston served as the capital of South Carolina and the most important port city in the South. Charleston merchants sold rice and other foodstuffs in the West Indies and imported fabric, tools, and luxury goods for sale in the Carolinas and Georgia.

Derryfield, New Hampshire

Derryfield (now Mansfield) is situated along the Merrimack River, which flows through New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts. The Merrimack Valley provided timber for shipbuilding and was home to a growing number of farms. A blockhouse fort, called Stark’s Fort, was built there in 1746.

Dover, Delaware

Dover’s situation relatively inland from other towns along the Delaware coast made it difficult for the British to attack.

Falmouth, Maine

Falmouth (today suburban Portland) was a small deep-water port in a protected harbor off Casco Bay on the coast of Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts. The people of Falmouth sent supplies to the Patriot army surrounding Boston.

Fort Niagara, New York

French-built Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario was captured by the British in the French and Indian War. It was the most important British fort on the Great Lakes and the center of British trade and diplomacy with the very powerful Iroquois Confederacy on the northern frontier.

Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania

During the French and Indian War, the British built Fort Pitt where two rivers join to form the Ohio River—today modern-day Pittsburgh. During the American Revolution, Fort Pitt’s location made it one of the most important points on the Western frontier.

Fort Stanwix, New York

Fort Stanwix protected important waterways throughout western New York. Abandoned prior to the war, the fort was reoccupied and rebuilt by Continental forces, who renamed it Fort Schuyler.

Fort Ticonderoga, New York

Fort Ticonderoga, armed with heavy cannon, was situated south of Lake Champlain. The fort commanded the water route between Canada and New York’s Hudson River Valley. Built in the 1750s by France, the British captured it during the French and Indian War.

Fort Western, Maine

Colonists built Fort Western at the northern limit of navigation on the Kennebec River, the most important river In Maine (then part of Massachusetts). The trading post served trappers and others who lived upriver, and eventually became Maine’s capital, Augusta, in 1820.

Hartford, Connecticut

Hartford was one of the most important inland towns in New England. Located in the broad and fertile valley of the Connecticut River, Hartford was a major market town for a rich farming region that supplied food to George Washington’s army.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Lancaster was an important market town west of Philadelphia. Surrounded by well-cultivated farms the area also included many iron furnaces, where cannonballs and cannon barrels could be manufactured. Lancaster also became a center for gun manufacturing.

Montreal, Canada

Montreal, located on the St. Lawrence River between Quebec and Lake Ontario, was a center of the fur trade with the indigenous tribes of the Great Lakes and western New York.

New York, New York

New York was the most important port along the North American coast, with a large natural harbor that drew in goods from the Hudson River Valley, Long Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Surrounded by a maze of waterways, it was difficult to defend from the large and powerful British Navy.

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport was one of the most important ports in New England; its protected harbor was the finest one between Boston and New York. Newport merchants traded fabrics, tools, food, and New England rum, and conducted extensive commerce in the West Indies.

Ninety Six, south Carolina

Ninety Six was a small trading village and fortified outpost at an important crossroads on the South Carolina frontier.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia was the largest city in British North America, serving as both a marketplace for the rich farming areas in Pennsylvania and a key manufacturing center. Located on the Delaware River, its central location was an ideal meeting place for representatives of the thirteen colonies.

Quebec, Canada

Quebec, a fortified city on the St. Lawrence River, connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the trade in furs and other goods from the Great Lakes needed to pass by Quebec, which made it a place of strategic importance to the British.

Savannah, Georgia

The largest town in Georgia, Savannah is located on the Savannah River about twenty miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Most of Georgia’s trade passed through Savannah, which exported deer and cow hide to Europe and rice and other food to the West Indies.

St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine contains a large stone fort built by the Spanish named Castillo de San Marcos. This town was the capital of the colony of East Florida, which the Spanish ceded to the British in exchange for Cuba and the Philippines after the French and Indian War. The town was a desired target for southern Patriots.

Staunton, Virginia

Staunton was an important frontier trading center for wheat and tobacco in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The city facilitated the economic growth of the region during the American Revolution.

Tioga Point, New York

Tioga Point was the southern gateway to the Iroquois lands of western New York. Allied with the British, the Iroquois raided the frontier. Americans marched northwest to Tioga Point in 1779 and established a fort there to use as a base to attack the Iroquois.

West Point, New York

Located at a strategic bend in the Hudson River, a fort built at West Point could control movement up and down the river and protect crossings to the north, over which food and other supplies from New England traveled to reach George Washington’s army.

Williamsburg, Virginia

The state capital at the outbreak of war, Williamsburg is located on the peninsula between the James and York Rivers. In 1775 Lord Dunmore seized Williamsburg’s gunpowder stores, a pivotal moment early in the conflict.

Wilmington, North Carolina

A small town on the Cape Fear River, Wilmington, North Carolina was the most important port between Charleston, South Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia.

Yorktown, Virginia

General Cornwallis established defenses at the tobacco port of Yorktown in 1781 while awaiting British reinforcements as generals Washington and Rochambeau besieged the city.

The Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection of the Society of the Cincinnati features a number of eighteenth-century maps chronicling the American Revolution which serve as excellent sources for further research.