September 5, 1774 – Opening of the First Continental Congress

From September 5 to October 26, 1774, the First Continental Congress met at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fifty-six delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies attended. Delegates included included George Washington (then a colonel of the Virginia Colony’s volunteers), Patrick Henry, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. Peyton Randolph of Virginia served as its president.

The only colony not sending a delegate was the newest one, the Province of Georgia, which felt it needed the British Army’s protection in order to contend with attacks from several Native American tribes. But in any event, most of the delegates were not yet ready to break away from Great Britain; they just wanted the King and Parliament to act in what they considered a fairer manner.

The meeting was proposed the year before by Benjamin Franklin, but he got no takers for the idea until after both the 1773 British blockade at the port of Boston in response to the Boston Tea Party, and the 1774 passage by Parliament of the Intolerable Acts. (These were a series of punitive measures meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance. In Great Britain, these laws were referred to as the Coercive Acts.)

The delegates at this congress organized an economic boycott of Great Britain in protest and petitioned the King for a redress of grievances. The colonies were not, however, united in their goals. The Pennsylvania and New York provinces had sent with their delegates firm instructions to pursue a resolution with Great Britain. The other colonies were split between those who sought legislative equality with Britain and those who instead favored independence and a break from the Crown and its excesses.

On October 26, 1774, the First Continental Congress adjourned; but it agreed to reconvene in May 1775, if Parliament still had not addressed their grievances.