Putting My Book Project Aside to Participate in Connecticut-Based Events in 2026

Speaking at Beverly Public Library, October 2025.

I just want to thank everyone who periodically ask me about my book project on the Huntingtons and their long arc of time in Norwich (1660-1893) and what can be learned from that.

I want to know how they made their money and were a robust family until bad things happened and then they finally had to move. It's a saga. I like sagas--but sagas take a long time I guess, especially if you want to get it right! It'll probably be 80,000 words.

I have put the book aside for the past nine months to focus on a scholarly peer-reviewed article for the Connecticut History Review. I made a strategic decision as a researcher and writer that in order to give more "street cred" to my book, I need to STOP and slow down and make better arguments, paragraphs, and honor the theme. I also need to build on the Revolutionary War drama that was their lives for eight years in Norwich.

So I am going backward to the Norwich Huntingtons in 1776. I found a terrific archive and decided to build an article around it. The decision, however, was above all, based on the fact that I want to be a part of Connecticut's celebration of its achievements as a critical provision state, in 1776, through the lens of the Huntingtons.

The wharf area at the Head of the Nowashe or "Thames River" looking toward the Yantic. Rivers were the best way to travel and trade, not the bad roads. Just ask George Washington. Two-hundred and fifty years ago, this small wharf would have been teeming with vessels, soldiers, captains, crew, barrels, and workers.

As I prepare to speak this year about all that I know about the Huntington family directing a Norwich supply depot throughout 1776 and beyond, I need to think about WHY this kind of detail of the American Revolution matters. Why should anyone care?

Because there is more to this Revolution than just the eight years of active fighting, famous battles, outsized personalities, traitorous generals, and typical "founding fathers." There are WAY more stories to be told by all sorts of founding "fathers" and "mothers." Most, we will never know.

Up and Down the River: Informative Look at the Native American Experience During the War.

Many of our American founding fathers and mothers were Black and Brown such as Sam Huntington, soldier and manservant whose life up until 1781 was in the tenuous hands of slaver, merchant, capable military guy, and missionary, Jed Huntington.

Similarly we recognize that Hannah Ashbow, a Mohegan mother lost four patriotic sons to the war.

Click on the link below to watch the brief movie. OR, go to their website: https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/

https://www.mohegan.nsn.us/explore/video/up-and-down-the-river

Women and Textile Production During the War

Unfortunately, my work on this provisioning of troops in Norwich has not unearthed a lot about Norwich women working on the sidelines to support the war effort despite me combing the newspapers for blurbs about their tea boycotts, spinning and weaving drives, and clothing drives. But, we know they contributed.

Rebecca Bayreuther Donohoe is a Living Historian at with Dirty Blue Shirts organization. She spoke all about colonial-era textiles at the Connecticut 1776 event in New Britain last weekend. Fascinating! For more information see: https://www.dirtyblueshirts.com/

Connecticut 1776: A Revolutionary Event/New Britain

My goals for this year are to be involved with like-minded historians who also want the Rev War era sacrifice and service of Connecticut to be promoted. Last weekend I was grateful to be included in Connecticut 1776: A Revolutionary Event.

This well-run conference was run by Dr. Matt Warshauer of Central Connecticut State University and David Naumec, an independent museum professional and researcher. There is a place for aspiring scholars, like me, who do not have a Ph.D.

This was a well-attended event drawing sponsors such as the Connecticut Museum of History and Culture, the Museum of Connecticut History (at the Connecticut State Library) and ASCH (The Association for the Study of Connecticut History). I spoke on the second day, a first run of my "To Provision Washington's Army: 1776 and the Norwich Huntington Group." It went pretty well!

Probably the most interesting speaker was John Mills. A writer and historian of Black history whose own ancestors served in the military. His talk centered around the Black military experience and how Black people might think about July 4th in a different way.

Mills most thought-provoking statement, I thought, was that slavery is not our worst piece of history it's the racism that it was based on--that continues to dog our country. He has an exciting book coming out A Narrative of Primus: A Lineage Woven into American History. Primus Arms was a Black man kidnapped from Africa who lived in Norwich his whole life and was a Biblical expert.

WHERE TO NEXT?

My next stop is the Otis Library in downtown Norwich near the very spot where all the 1776 action took place.

I am revising my article and hope that it is good enough for publication this fall. The most important aspect of writing a scholarly article like this is that I get helpful FEEDBACK to make a strong thesis with better analysis. Then, I will take those pointers and re-write the Revolution chapters to make them more cohesive and persuasive.