In letters, commerce, e’en in strife,
Remember, it is yours and ours!
—Richard Monckton Milnes.
FIRST THINGS
First Marriage in the American Colonies
In 1609, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first Christian marriage ceremony was performed, according to English rites, when Anne Burras became Mrs. John Leyden. This was eleven years before Mary Chilton—as Mr. Winthrop relates—was the first person to set foot on Plymouth Rock.
First Blood of the Revolution
The “First Blood of the Revolution” has been commonly supposed to have been shed at Lexington, April 19, 1775, but Westminster, Vermont, files a prior claim in favor of one William French, who, it is asserted, was killed on the night of March 13, 1775, at the king’s court-house, in what is now Westminster. At that time Vermont was a part of New York, and the king’s court officers, together with a body of troops, were sent on to Westminster to hold the usual session of the court. The people, however, were exasperated, and assembled in the court-house to resist. A little before midnight the troops of George III. advanced and fired indiscriminately upon the crowd, instantly killing William French, whose head was pierced by a musket ball. He was buried in the church-yard, and a stone was erected to his memory, with this quaint inscription:
“In Memory of William French Who Was Shot at Westminster March ye 12th, 1775, by the hand of the Cruel Ministeral tools of Georg ye 3rd at the Courthouse at a 11 o’clock at Night in the 22d year of his age.”