MA 250 Event – Plymouth in the Revolution Lecture Series 2025 (Plymouth)

Lecture Series 2025 – 5 presentations-Wednesdays April 2, 9, 30 and May 7 & 14  at 7pm – Held at The Plymouth Public Library

Two hundred years ago, on 19 April 1775, American history changed. Colonial forces faced the British army at Lexington & Concord … and won. Word spread rapidly, and two regiments of Plymouth “Minute Men,” led by Colonel Theophilus Cotton, rallied to the Patriot cause. For the next six years, Plymoutheans participated in America’s battle for independence.

Although not the site of any great battles, nor the home of any triumphant generals, Plymouth is filled with the stories of the  and lawyers whose rhetoric inspired the Patriot cause, of the men who risked their lives and livelihood in military service, and of the civilians who kept the home fires burning, as well as of the Americans who, valuing loyalty above all, continued to support the King. They illuminate the complex and fascinating history of Massachusetts’ earliest town, as it embraced the movement for American independence, and the lasting impact it made on the Town’s historical landscape.

April 2: Stephen O’Neill – Plymouth’s 1749 Courthouse: Revolution in the Courts
The  Revolution occurred in courtrooms as often as on battlefields. Plymouth’s 1749 Courthouse was the offsetting for confrontations involving Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson, Tory Justice Peter Oliver, Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine, and future President John Adams. This is the story of the Courthouse’s role in the Revolution and the restoration of its early American courtroom.
Stephen O’Neill, Director of the Hanover Historical Society and the Dyer Memorial Library in Abington, formerly Associate Director & Curator of Collections at Pilgrim Hall Museum. An author and public historian, and a consultant for Plymouth’s 1749 Courthouse, he was Senior Lecturer in History at Suffolk University and is an elected member of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

Upcoming Lectures:
April 9: Peggy Baker – Benjamin Warren’s War: A Plymouthean in the Continental Army
April 30: Patrick Browne – “Patriotism in a High Degree Zealous”: Ephraim Spooner & the Home Front
May 7: Mark Schmidt – Choosing Sides: Loyalists in the American Revolution
May 14: Donna Curtin – Dr. James Thacher & Plymouth’s Revolutionary Generation