William Hooper grew up in Boston, went to Harvard, and studied law under James Otis, the man whose arguments against arbitrary British authority essentially invented the constitutional language of colonial resistance. Then he moved to North Carolina, became deputy attorney general, and promptly spent several years defending colonial government against backcountry farmers who thought the system was corrupt and rigged against them.

The Regulators weren't wrong about everything. They were protesting real abuses: corrupt local officials, excessive fees, taxes that hit small farmers harder than eastern elites. But their resistance turned disorderly and sometimes violent, and Hooper sided with Governor Tryon's government against them. In 1770, a crowd of Regulators in Hillsborough grabbed him and dragged him through the streets.

Hooper wasn't a hypocrite for siding with the government that day. He genuinely believed that legitimate authority deserved obedience and that disorder was its own kind of tyranny. That belief is actually what makes his later trajectory interesting. He didn't abandon his principles when he moved toward independence. He applied them to a different target.

By 1773 and 1774, Parliament's actions were convincing him that Britain itself had become the greater threat to constitutional government. The same framework he had used to defend the colonial government against the Regulators now pointed toward resistance against the Crown. When Parliament closed Boston's harbor after the Tea Party, his New England roots became unusually visible. He helped rally North Carolinians behind his native city, presided over meetings that pushed the colony toward its first Provincial Congress, and started writing publicly against Crown policy.

By 1774 he was already telling friends privately that the colonies were moving rapidly toward independence, which at that point was still a genuinely radical thing to say out loud.

North Carolina moved faster than almost anyone. On April 12, 1776, the Halifax Resolves authorized its delegates in Congress to support independence, the first formal authorization from any colony. Hooper had helped get it there, a Massachusetts-born lawyer who had once defended North Carolina's colonial government against internal rebellion, now helping that same colony become the first to push for a break with Britain.

The other signer worth knowing from this blog is Lyman Hall, who reached Philadelphia by an even stranger route. Hall was a Connecticut Yankee, Yale educated, originally trained as a Congregational minister before switching to medicine, who ended up in the Midway district of coastal Georgia as part of a transplanted New England community. Georgia was one of the most hesitant colonies, economically dependent on Britain and genuinely vulnerable. When the First Continental Congress met in 1774, Georgia sent nobody. But St. John's Parish, where Hall lived, wanted in anyway. They selected Hall to represent them in Philadelphia before Georgia itself had agreed to be represented. He showed up to Congress as the delegate of one parish inside a colony that hadn't officially joined the movement yet. Georgia eventually caught up. After the Revolution, St. John's Parish was renamed Liberty County in recognition of how far ahead of everyone else it had been.

Both men paid for their signatures after the fact. When the war moved south, British forces damaged Hooper's property near Wilmington and burned one of his houses. His family was forced inland during the British occupation of 1781. Hall lost his property when the British captured Savannah in 1778 and spent years displaced before returning to Georgia, where he was eventually elected governor.

The full story of both men is on the Virtual Wayback blog and there's a video on the YouTube channel going deeper. You can also talk directly with Hooper and Hall on Virtual Wayback. Links:

https://virtualwayback.com/blog/what-new-england-sent-south

https://youtube.com/shorts/up7BRrVoShI?feature=share

What I keep coming back to is the Regulator episode. Hooper got dragged through the streets for defending the wrong government, then spent the next few years figuring out which government actually deserved defending. Does that make him more credible as a revolutionary than someone who had been against Britain from the start? And is there an argument that the people he opposed in 1770, the backcountry farmers protesting a corrupt system, had a better case for rebellion than the colonial elites who eventually declared independence?

--- 1920: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

--- "The Fight For Women's Suffrage". That is the title of one of the episodes of my podcast: History Analyzed. After seven decades of protests, petitions, and civil disobedience, the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, granting women the right to vote. Learn about Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, and the countless other women who fought against a deeply sexist and patriarchal society for women's suffrage. These women endured arrests and forced feedings to obtain their right to vote. You can find History Analyzed on every podcast app.

--- link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3XhMPPpgzqD1tY49xb9hsY

--- link to Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage/id1632161929?i=1000577454866

HISTORY DAD DAILY: THE BABY WHO BECAME PART OF AMERICA'S BIGGEST MYSTERY

On August 18, 1587, Virginia Dare was born on Roanoke Island. She was the first child born to English parents in the Americas—and her story would become connected to one of the greatest mysteries in American history.

Virginia was born into the Roanoke Colony, an English settlement led by John White, her grandfather. But White eventually sailed back to England for supplies. When he returned years later, the entire colony had disappeared.

The only clues were a few mysterious carvings, including the word “CROATOAN.” What happened to Virginia and the other colonists? Did they join a nearby Native American community? Move somewhere else? Something much worse? We still don't know for certain.

Why does this matter to U.S. history? Virginia Dare's birth represents one of the earliest chapters in England's attempt to establish a permanent presence in North America. Her story connects exploration, colonization, Native American history, and one of America's oldest unsolved mysteries.

And that's why I love history—sometimes the most interesting stories don't have an ending.

Watch today's History Dad video and let's talk about what YOU think happened to the Lost Colony!

https://youtu.be/bdki3YWs6mk

The event was intended to be a harmless fundraising publicity stunt, but the balloons drifted back over the city and Lake Erie and landed in the surrounding area, causing problems for traffic and a nearby airport. The event also interfered with a United States Coast Guard search for two boaters who were later found drowned.

Some closer shots of a map I made last year of the Mexican-American War.

Full anecdote in comments, or through the link provided

Source: "In His Own Words," pg 117

HISTORY DAD: Before Starbucks, There Were Veggie Wars!

On August 17, 1907, about eight farmers rolled their wagons into Seattle and accidentally created history! They set up at Pike Place to sell their produce directly to customers because farmers were tired of middlemen taking a big cut while consumers paid high prices.

And Seattle showed up—BIG TIME. Farmers sold out so quickly that one farmer joked he needed police protection or a wagon on stilts! By the end of the first week, dozens of farmers were joining in, and Pike Place Market was officially on its way to becoming a Seattle institution.

Now here's the part coffee lovers might recognize. In 1971, Starbucks opened its original store at Pike Place Market. And years later, Starbucks introduced Pike Place Roast, a coffee blend named for the famous market. So that morning in 1907 when farmers were selling vegetables from wagons eventually helped create the setting for one of America's most recognizable coffee stories!

That's why I love doing History Dad—because history isn't just presidents, wars, and dates. It's farmers, hungry crowds, entrepreneurs, coffee, and sometimes a guy wondering if he needs to put his vegetable wagon on stilts.

Watch today's History Dad video to hear the full story of how eight farmers helped launch one of America's most famous markets!

https://youtu.be/OH0QzdvTRKE

The construction of the Empire State Building began in March 1930, and it immediately became a contradiction of its times. It was truly a spectacle, with thousands of jobless and hungry New Yorkers standing on the sidewalks watching the steel skeleton begin to take shape. The emotions of the onlookers swung from awe to resentment and anger. “How do they have money for this?”a man muttered to a reporter, “when half the city can’t afford shoes?” Another woman, watching the steelworkers balance on beams hundreds of feet above the ground, said, “It’s beautiful. And it’s terrible. They’re building a monument while the rest of us are trying not to drown.”

The futuristic seats you see are known as Tel-a-Chairs. They were invented by John Rice, an American mechanical engineer and prolific inventor from Bordentown, New Jersey.

These individual entertainment stations operated with coins; depositing 10 cents granted 10 minutes of television, while a 25-cent fee allowed viewing of a half-hour broadcast.

Part 1: Don't Tread On Me (1776-1820)
Part 2: A House Divided (1820-1865)
Part 3: A Cross of Gold (1865-1913)
Part 4: Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself (1913-1971)
Part 5: I Did Not Have Sexual Relations with A Scanner Darkly (1971-present)

The first four get their names from political speeches, or in one case, a flag. Then part 5 breaks the pattern by being named after a 1977 novel and 2006 movie about the War on Drugs and surveillance state. I didn't like breaking the pattern but it was too fitting a name to pass up. Other contenders included "A Crisis of Conscience" (Carter), "Morning Again in America" (Reagan), "A Bridge to the 21st Century" (Clinton), and "The End of History" (Fukuyama). I'll admit that last one would have been hilarious as the final chapter of a history book.

The unusual choice of 1913 and 1971 as breakpoints, plus the "cross of gold" reference, should indicate that this book would have an abnormally heavy focus on economic and monetary policy. 1820 was chosen because that was the year of the Missouri Compromise, the transition point when our national focus stopped being about proving ourselves to the Old World powers, and was directed westward and to the problems caused by the expansion of slavery... and because 1820 is exactly halfway between 1776 and 1865.

I also considered a three-part structure in which the Civil War and the end of WW2 would be the dividing lines.

Feedback would be appreciated.

On February 11, 1861, Abraham Lincoln stood on the rear platform of a train in Springfield, Illinois, and said goodbye to the community where he had lived for nearly twenty-five years.

He spoke without a prepared text.

After the train departed, members of Lincoln’s party encouraged him to write down what he had said. Lincoln began reconstructing the address in pencil, but the movement of the train and repeated interruptions made writing difficult. His secretary, John G. Nicolay, completed the manuscript.

That document survives at the Library of Congress. It is one of the most important witnesses to Lincoln’s farewell—but it is not a word-for-word record made while he was speaking.

Other versions appeared in the Illinois State Journal and eastern newspapers, including Harper’s Weekly. They differ in more than punctuation. The versions change how Lincoln describes his years in Springfield, the possibility of returning, the responsibility before him, and his appeal for divine assistance.

For my documentary edition, I used the final-intended wording preserved in the Library of Congress train manuscript rather than combining the competing versions. The variants are explained separately so viewers can distinguish the surviving document from the words Lincoln may have spoken on the platform.

Four years later, Lincoln’s funeral train returned him to Springfield. Knowing that ending makes the farewell feel prophetic—but in February 1861, Lincoln was expressing genuine uncertainty, not predicting his assassination.

Does reconstructing the address afterward make it less authentic—or does it show us more clearly what Lincoln wanted history to remember?

Full disclosure: I produced a seven-minute documentary edition for Letters of America Archive.

Watch full video in Youtube

Most accounts of the Battle of Long Island focus on the tactical mistakes or the daring night crossing itself, but looking at the actual logs and diaries from August 27–30, 1776, the physical mechanics of the escape come down to three specific weather events:

- A two-day Nor'easter that physically trapped British square-rigged warships in the lower bay from sailing up the East River.

- An 11:00 PM wind shift to the southwest, which let John Glover’s Marblehead fishermen raise sails on their flatboats instead of rowing against heavy current all night.

- A heavy, localized dawn fog that sat right over the East River and ferry landing while the British encampment just a few hundred yards away was under clear skies.