Choptank River Trip - Col Richardson Revolutionary Trail

In the same year that Caroline County was formed, Americans in Boston dumped a valuable shipment of tea into the harbor to protest import taxes on tea.  The British Parliament retaliated for the Boston Tea Party by closing the port of Boston.  Like colonists elsewhere, Caroline County’s leaders met at the county’s temporary center, Melvill's Tobacco Warehouse on June 18, 1774, to express indignation and to debate colonial options.  The “Caroline Resolutions”  expressed support for the Bostonians and hope for a negotiated solution to the conflict.

William Richardson was named with other county leaders to the Maryland Convention of Delegates that met in Annapolis in 1774-1775.  The Convention authorized delegates to attend the Second Continental Congress, and it strengthened the Maryland militia.  Richardson was a member of the Convention when British troops fired on the colonial Minutemen at Lexington in April 1775. The Convention immediately called on Maryland counties to raise additional companies of minutemen to protect Maryland and the other colonies.

William Richardson resigned from his legislative post when he was elected captain of Caroline County’s East Company of the militia.  Each company consisted of 50-75 privates, plus lieutenants, an ensign, and several non-commissioned officers. Each company was to drill weekly at a location named by its commanding officer.  But circumstances often dictated that commanders such as Richardson divide their companies and drill the smaller units once a month.  Militia units in Maryland were organized and ready to deploy by September 1775.