In the Glorious Revolution, James II (House of Stuart) abdicates the throne under great pressure because of his policies and Roman Catholic faith.
1689
The Declaration of Rights (Feb. 13), Toleration Act (May 24), and English Bill of Rights (Dec. 16) are adopted.
1690
John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is published, as well as his Two Treatises of Government.
1692
In the period of the Salem witch trials, 20 people (14 women) are executed.
1693
The College of William and Mary is started in Williamsburg, Virginia, by the Anglicans; the second oldest institution of higher education in America, it is one of nine religion-based colonial colleges.
1697
Official repentance following the Salem witch trials; an offer of compensatory indemnities to aggrieved families for unjust punishment is made by the Massachusetts General Court.
1698
Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, which derives Locke’s position from the Bible and religious premises, is published in London and widely read in America.
1699
John Locke’s three essays on religious toleration, published separately at various times during the 1690s, are published together.
1701
Yale College is founded by conservative Congregationalists.
1702
Cotton Mather publishes the most famous of his some 400 works, Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The Ecclesiastical History of New England.
1706
Francis Makemie, the father of Presbyterianism in America, organizes his first American presbytery.
1707
The first session of the Baptist Association, meeting in Philadelphia, involves five churches.
1708
Members of various Calvinist sects from the German Rhineland begin to arrive in large numbers in Pennsylvania.
1709
Publication of Bishop Benjamin Hoadley’s The Origin and Institute of Civil Government helps popularize John Locke’s thinking and helps make ministers in America a major conduit for Locke’s ideas.
1728
Jewish colonists erect the first American synagogue in New York.
1729
Benjamin Franklin purchases The Pennsylvania Gazette, the most popular newspaper of the colonial era.
1730
*GOVERNMENT THE PILLAR OF THE EARTH, Benjamin Colman
1731
Benjamin Franklin forms the Library Company in Philadelphia, the first circulating library in America—later to be used by members of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.
1733
Georgia (Savannah) is founded by General Oglethorpe. Georgia is the last of the 13 original American colonies to be settled.
1736
John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism, return from Georgia.
1738
George Whitefield, the great revivalist, makes his first trip to America.
1740
NINEVEH’S REPENTANCE AND DELIVERANCE, Joseph Sewall
1741
The purifying Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards, Sr., vies with a more common religious liberalism exemplified by his contemporary Benjamin Franklin. Edwards this year delivers his famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon, which is widely reprinted.
1742
Whitefield makes his second trip to America. (He will return five more times to evangelize: 1744–48, 1751–52, 1754–55, 1763–65, and 1769–70.) The Great Awakening, or revival, is led by Whitefield, Gilbert and William Tennent, Joseph Bellamy, Jonathan Edwards, Sr., Jonathan Dickinson, James Davenport, and others. The Great Awakening “clearly began a new era, not merely of American Protestantism but in the evolution of the American mind” (Alan Heimert & Perry Miller).
1744
THE ESSENTIAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF PROTESTANTS, Elisha Williams
Benjamin Franklin is prominent in the formation of the American Philosophical Society, the first learned society in America.
1746
BRITAIN’S MERCIES, AND BRITAIN’S DUTIES, George Whitefield
1747
CIVIL MAGISTRATES MUST BE JUST, RULING IN THE FEAR OF GOD, Charles Chauncy
The College of New Jersey is founded by New Side Presbyterians in response to the Great Awakening (it is renamed Princeton in 1896).
1750
Almost a third of the people of Philadelphia, the largest city in America and the second largest in the British Empire, now owe their living to a craft of some kind.
Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws is published in English.
1751
The Academy and College of Philadelphia, later to become the University of Pennsylvania, is founded by Benjamin Franklin and other laymen to be a secular institution that specializes in the teaching of utilitarian subjects.
Hume’s Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals is published.
1752
Benjamin Franklin gains worldwide fame with his kite experiment.
1754
Col. George Washington, age 22, and a force of Virginians surrender to the French at Fort Necessity (July 3).
King’s College (renamed Columbia in 1784) opens in New York. It is interdenominational and has no theological faculty.
On June 19, the Albany Convention meets as the first concerted effort to unite the colonies. The Albany “Plan of Union” is approved on July 10, written by Benjamin Franklin. It is rejected by the colonies and by England.
Jonathan Edwards, Sr., publishes his treatise On the Freedom of the Will, considered by many to be the most brilliant American theological study of the century.
1755
Francis Hutcheson’s A System of Moral Philosophy is published in London.
The French and Indian War is the American part of the Seven Year’s War (1755–63). The battles for Niagara, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point in 1759 see major contributions made by the colonists. Montreal and Quebec fall to the British. The British gain control of Detroit. During the war the American economy reaches a point of development to be internally self-sustaining.
1756
THE MEDIATORIAL KINGDOM AND GLORIES OF JESUS CHRIST, Samuel Davies
1760
THE PRESENCE OF GOD WITH HIS PEOPLE, Samuel Dunbar
George III, who will reign until 1820, takes the throne determined to “act like a king.”
1762
Benjamin Franklin publishes his Advice to a Young Tradesman, David Hume publishes the final volume of his widely read History of England in London, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau publishes A Treatise on the Social Contract in Amsterdam.
1763
By the Treaty of Paris, Britain gains all of Canada and Louisiana east of the Mississippi River (Feb. 10).
Patrick Henry argues the “Parson’s Cause” in Virginia after the British disallow a Virginia statute (Dec.).
1764
The College of Rhode Island is founded by the Baptists (it is renamed Brown University in 1804).
1765
The Stamp Act (Mar. 22) and Quartering Act (Mar. 24) are imposed. Nine of the colonies send delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York (Oct. 7–25).
Patrick Henry’s fiery “treason” speech in the Virginia House of Burgesses is published as the influential Virginia Resolves (May 29).
1766
THE SNARE BROKEN, Jonathan Mayhew
Queens College is established by the Dutch Reformed Church (it is renamed Rutgers in 1825).
1767
The Townshend Acts (June 29) impose duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, tea, etc.
Adam Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society is published in Edinburgh.
1768
John Dickinson of Pennsylvania arouses public opinion with his “Letters from a Farmer.”
Beginning in March, merchants in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston debate and adopt nonimportation agreements.
1769
AN HUMBLE INQUIRY, John Joachim Zubly
Daniel Boone leads settlers over the mountains to Kentucky.
Blackstone publishes the last volume of his four-volume work, Commentaries on the Laws of England.
Dartmouth College is founded by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock.
1770
Several Americans are killed in the Boston Massacre (Mar. 5). Samuel Adams publishes a description of the event in “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston.” The British commander’s defense attorneys John Adams and Josiah Quincy win his acquittal.
1772
The Committee of Correspondence is organized when Samuel Adams calls a Boston town meeting; other towns form similar committees (Nov. 2–Jan. 1773).
