Team,
As America’s 250th birthday arrives, check out my new video about American Revolution patriot Oliver Wolcott, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
President Trump posted it to Truth Social, where you can also watch it HERE.
In July of 1776, King George III still towered over New York City. Not in person. In lead.
At Bowling Green, near the tip of Manhattan, stood a gilded 4,000-pound statue of King George on horseback, dressed like a Roman emperor.
It had been erected just six years earlier as a monument to British power. But by the summer of 1776, Americans no longer saw majesty in this statue. They saw tyranny.
On July 9, 1776, George Washington gathered his troops in New York and had the newly adopted Declaration of Independence read aloud. The words had barely settled before soldiers, sailors, and patriots surged down Broadway to Bowling Green and toppled the King George statue.
While the crowd saw tyranny toppled, Connecticut patriot Oliver Wolcott saw bullets. 4,000 pounds of lead bullets for a Continental Army Wolcott knew would be desperate for ammunition.
So Wolcott had the shattered pieces of King George loaded onto boats and shipped to Connecticut. From there, ox carts hauled the remains of King George more than 60 miles over rough country roads to Wolcott’s home in Litchfield.
And in the Wolcott family orchard, a shed became a foundry. His wife Laura, his daughter Mary Ann, and local neighbors worked over melting pots, pouring the King’s lead into bullet molds. 42,088 musket balls in all.
Some of those bullets were fired two years later at the Battle of Monmouth, the brutal New Jersey showdown where Washington’s army proved it could stand in the open field against British regulars.
You have to love the irony.
Britain sent America a monument to empire. America sent it right back at muzzle velocity.
So let’s celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday as we remember patriots like Oliver Wolcott who made it all possible.
I’d love to have your comments. Please send this to fellow American patriots.
Peter
