The Salem Connection: A Crucial Part of Massachusetts’s Secret Drive to Collect Artillery Before the Revolutionary War

As part of a citywide commemoration, J. L. Bell’s lecture will connect the confrontation in Salem on February 26, 1775 known as “Leslie’s Retreat” to the first battle of the American Revolution starting at Concord on April 19, 1775.

J. L. BELL is the proprietor of boston1775.net, a popular website dedicated to the history of the American Revolution in New England. A Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and American Antiquarian Society, he is author of the National Park Service’s study of George Washington’s work in Cambridge, and has delivered papers to the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Organization of American Historians, and historic sites around greater Boston.  In May 2016, his first book, The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War was published as one of the first series of microhistories published by the Journal of the American Revolution. The series features meticulous, groundbreaking research and well-written narratives about unknown or lesser-known topics related to the Revolution.