How The Revolution Came Down: Brewster Resident Tracks Contemporary Newspaper Accounts

BREWSTER – How did the newspapers of the day cover the American Revolution?

A 50-year-old manuscript highlighting the news of each day of 1776 as reported by local papers is now available and searchable online. The "Almanac of the American Revolution, 1776" was compiled, safeguarded and recently shared by Brewster resident and award-winning author Lee Roscoe.

 Roscoe was working as an actress in New York City in the '70s as the country observed the Bicentennial of the nation's founding. Employed by her father Gerald Rosco's advertising agency, in 1975 she helped to research a year-long syndicated bicentennial minute radio series called the "Almanac of the American Revolution 1776." Narrated by NBC journalist Frank Blair, each episode aired in 1976 brought excerpts of the news of that day in 1776 to radio stations and listeners across the country.

 Roscoe researched the project using the newspapers of the era in the rare books room on the third floor of the New York Public Library, at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. 

"I recall glass doors and ormolu trim and huge folios of the newspapers," Roscoe recounted recently. "Seeing that news was so exciting!"

 "I used at least 20 papers," she noted, including the Boston Gazette, the Massachusetts Spy, the Virginia Gazette, Pennsylvania Journal, New York Mercury and the Newport Mercury. Editorially speaking, she added, "some were definitely for the Patriots and some in support of the Tories and the Crown."

 The research she did, including her original typed manuscript, is now available on the Internet Archive and Google books as a searchable database for anyone to see. 

 "It is fascinating to see Declarations of Independence, firsthand accounts of battles, advertisements, Indian involvement, privateers and more — and to see the story of the first major year of the war for freedom occur — from South Carolina and Georgia through Virginia to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Quebec." 

 Alongside accounts of the action are advertisements to "please make salt peter for gun powder," to collect rags for paper and more. Accounts of escaped enslaved people and entreaties for their return were there, too.

 From the burning of Charlestown, through the arrival of Hessian mercenaries and the formation of the French alliance, to the siege of Quebec and accounts of General Benedict Arnold's victories, news of the year rolled forward. By year's end, after the siege of New York by the British and their victory there, and the widening of the war into Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey, things were "looking bad for us," Roscoe said. "And then, around Christmas, General Washington crosses the Delaware and takes a major stronghold at Trenton, N.J.'

 Roscoe noted the role of Cape Cod and the Islands throughout the Almanac. The Cape and Martha's Vineyard (where the British took off sheep and other supplies) and even Chatham are mentioned in the Almanac, "because a preponderance of what takes place is at sea."

 In fact, a lot of what happens in April involves privateers engaging British vessels. "One of my favorites is the gallant Captain John Marley of the privateer Lee taking British vessels from Boston to Portsmouth, N.H.," Roscoe noted. 

 Specific dates offer hints of what is to come. For example, by May 13 Virginia was already declaring their independence from Britain, one of several states to do so prior to July.

 And by Aug. 20, an early draft of what was to become the Bill of Rights appears in Philadelphia newspapers as part of what Pennsylvania is considering for their state constitution. These state constitutions would ultimately become templates for the eventual creation of the Constitution of the United States, Rosco said. 

 According to Roscoe, the Almanac belies the idea that this was just a fight between Britain and its colonists. 

"Our revolution has aspects of world war as Spain, France, Portugal and even Russia became embroiled with one side or another.

 Methodically tracing the year through each day, she found herself still "incredibly moved" when she came to July 4. 

"I still cry reading the Declaration and am still moved by the events of that day," she said.

 Once the series was completed, she hung on to the two-inch-thick typed manuscript, and as the 250th birthday approached, she decided to pull it out again. With help from the librarian at Snow library, the 637 pages were scanned and translated to Optical Character Recognition (OCR) format, which would permit it to be searchable.

 Roscoe credits her research into the Almanac with kickstarting her love of history. She went on to write "Wampanoag Art for the Ages, Traditional and Transitional," which was an Eric Hoffer Prize finalist for excellence in indie publishing. Her book, "Dreaming Monomoy's Past, Walking its Present" was revised on a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (Chatham) in 2024. Both are available at Cape bookstores and Amazon.

 Roscoe hopes students, schools, historical societies and anyone who is curious will enjoy looking at the events of that year as they were reported. 

"Some entries are short, some are pages long," she said. "I didn't realize how fascinating it was until I read it again recently," she said. "I am happy to make it available."

 To read Roscoe’s compendium, visit archive.org and search for “Almanac of the American Revolution 1776.”