Page 60 - Wallingford Magazine Issue 54 Late Spring 2025

George 1775

Washington

Visits Wallingford

by Marc Lendler

250 years ago this June, George Washington stopped It wasn’t. Thomas Gage, British
in Wallingford on his way to assume control of the military governor of Boston, was
given instructions to suppress any
New England militias outside Boston and turn them rebel activity, an order that led di-
into the Continental Army. rectly to the violent confrontations
at Lexington and Concord in April
What had led to his visit? 1775. A Second Continental Con-
gress was quickly convened un-
der the leadership of John Adams,
This was the period of rapidly es- lated (as they had been in during who realized that the nature of the
calating conflict between the Brit- the Tea Party). conflict had changed: “The battle
ish colonial administration and the of Lexington on the 19th of April
American colonists, especially cen- The colonists response was to con- changed the instruments of war-
tered in Boston. vene the First Continental Con- fare from the pen to the sword.”
gress. That body—regarded by
The British government had closed Britain as illegal—issued a state- The convention adopted a resolu-
the port of Boston in June 1774, in ment of grievances and the hope tion calling on colonists to take up
response to the Boston Tea Party that the increased tensions could arms. It was clear to almost all the
the previous December. It also as- be repaired. The Congress dis- delegates that an actual war was
serted its absolute right to legislate banded in October 1774, with a at hand. This demanded the cre-
for the colonies, and to respond call for a second one if no reconcil- ation of a national army, and on
with force when its laws were vio- iation were reached. June 14th, the Congress adopted a

60 WALLINGFORD MAGAZINE - LATE SPRING 2025