He did what??
Virginia’s colonists—especially those in and around Williamsburg, because it took a while for word to spread in those days—were buzzing in anger 250 years ago.
Their royal governor John Murray, known through history as Lord Dunmore, had ordered the removal of gunpowder from the magazine in Williamsburg to a Royal Navy ship.
He did this April 21, 1775, several weeks after Patrick Henry had made his “liberty or death” speech at St. John’s Church in Richmond, and two days after the battles of Lexington and Concord far to the north.
Dunmore took this action, historians said, in response to rising unrest in the colony and hoping to deprive the Virginia militia of its supplies—in case those riflemen turned their muskets against the British soldiers. It was a spring of discontent in the colonies. The battles of Lexington and Concord, Paul Revere’s ride, and Patrick Henry’s speech all happened within a space of weeks.
Historians said he took the action to be prudent, and early on...