1775 was the real year of revolution. In Virginia, the celebrations kick off in Roanoke. Here’s why.

The year 1776 is so ingrained in our American consciousness that we overlook how the year 1775 was, in many ways, more climactic.

It was in 1775 when the British Parliament officially advised King George III that his subjects in Massachusetts were in rebellion and that “it is our fixed resolution, at the hazard of our lives and properties, to stand by your Majesty against all rebellious attempts.”

It was in 1775 when Patrick Henry famously declared, “Give me liberty or give me death!”

It was in 1775 when war broke out, with “the shot heard round the world” when Colonists and British regulars first fired upon one another at Lexington, Massachusetts, and then, later, Concord. 

It was in 1775 when Colonists and the British fought again at Bunker Hill.

It was in 1775 when Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, found himself at war with Virginians — to the point that he tried to seize their gunpowder, fled to a royal warship, offered freedom to slaves who sided with the king and then lost a decisive battle at Great Bridge that effectively sent him into exile.

The year began with Colonists unhappy with the British, but the British still in charge. The year ended with the two sides openly at war, with George Washington named commander in chief of the Continental Army and Virginia’s royal governor chased offshore. The year 1775 was the year Colonists turned the page on the British; it was the following year when they finally wrote the ink on that page, so to speak, with a formal Declaration of Independence. Those momentous words, however, essentially described a situation that had already been set in motion by the events of 1775.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of all that — and more. If you think Virginia should be memorializing its role in those events, you’re right. In fact, it already has been. Back in 2020, the General Assembly created the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission, which has been up and running for several years now — chaired by Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County — and organizing or otherwise calling attention to events across the state. (Here’s a previous column on how he wound up in charge).

By now, every state (and some U.S. territories) has its own 250 Commission, but some states have been very late to the game — two years ago, the number of states with such a commission was only 31. It’s hard to compare states because each one has a different history, but Virginia always looks enviously at North Carolina so I took a peek at their events calendar — our state’s 250 commission lists six times as many events as North Carolina through the rest of January. Just sayin’. 

The executive director of Virginia’s 250 Commission, Cheryl Wilson, says the commission recently added the 1,150th event to its calendar, “and we’re still 18 months away from what the nation sees as the 250th? Isn’t that a ‘wow’?”

Yes, it is, but first, we should point out that we’ve received a grant from the commission to contract with writers to tell the little-known stories behind Virginia’s role in those epic events. You can find those on our Cardinal 250 page and sign up for our monthly Cardinal 250 newsletter. Our next one comes out next week.

And now, back to business. It’s easy to think of the American Revolution in Virginia purely in terms of Williamsburg and Yorktown (with some obligatory references to the famous residents of Monticello and Mount Vernon thrown in). However, there’s a lot of the lead-up to the revolution that took place elsewhere in the state. The king’s Proclamation of 1763, which forbade settlement west of a certain line through the mountains, was intended as a way to avoid confrontations with Native Americans that drove up British military costs — but outraged Colonists who wanted those lands. The lead mines of modern-day Wythe County were a vital source of ammunition for the American cause. A German-born minister in modern-day Shenandoah County rallied his German congregants to support the revolution. (We’ve written about all those so far as part of our 250 project).

This month marks the 250th anniversary of another western event, one that was significant at the time but which most of us have never heard of: the Fincastle Resolutions. Those resolutions had nothing to do with the town of Fincastle; they originated from the now-defunct and short-lived Fincastle County, which started in modern-day Montgomery County and stretched west to the just-planted settlements in the future Kentucky and on to the Mississippi River. The resolutions were adopted in what today is Wythe County.

We’ll have a full story on the Fincastle Resolutions in next week’s package of Cardinal 250 stories, but here’s what you should know now. The British crackdown on truculent Massachusetts alarmed people in other Colonies — if the British could do it there, they could do the same thing elsewhere. Starting in the summer of 1774, Virginia counties started passing resolutions to protest what was going on. Fincastle County was somewhat late to that party, not getting around to a resolution until Jan. 20, 1775, but many of those responsible had also been busy — they’d been off in modern-day West Virginia and Ohio fighting Native Americans in what history remembers as Lord Dunmore’s War. That war made Dunmore temporarily popular, but that popularity plummeted as the events of 1775 went on. Political approval, then as now, was fleeting.

The significance of the Fincastle Resolutions is that they mark the first time a formal group of Colonists declared their willingness to die for the cause of American liberty — this two months before Patrick Henry delivered his dramatic “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech in Richmond. Fun fact: In fourth grade in Rockingham County, we had to memorize and recite this speech. Henry, though, was just delivering a pithier sound bite than what those frontiersmen in Fincastle County had already done. 

This weekend, the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission holds its first big event of 1775, in Roanoke. The event marks the upcoming anniversary of the Fincastle Resolutions, with a dramatic reading, and also includes the debut of something the commission has been working on for several years: its mobile museum. “We’re very deliberately doing that in Southwest Virginia,” Wilson says, to emphasize the statewide nature of the revolution story. “You can’t walk a foot in Virginia without being where founding stories of our nation were.” 

Another western connection: The Volvo plant in Pulaski County is donating the truck to haul the mobile museum around the state over the next three years. The goal, Wilson says, is for every middle school student in the state to have a chance to tour the exhibit, whether that’s by taking the mobile unit to a school or to some central location where multiple schools can participate. That free mobile museum will be in Roanoke for a week before heading off to other locations (see schedule at right for tour dates and times).

Wilson has some advice for adults, too: You can relive the events of 1775 (and, next year, 1776). 

She urges people to visit the sites connected with some of these upcoming anniversaries. “There’s something about being at a place of significance on the anniversary of the event,” she says. “It’s the power of place, when you’re only separated by the thin veil of time.”

Alas, it’s hard to do that for the Fincastle Resolutions because the tavern in Wythe County where the men behind it are believed to have met burned in 1901. But you can, at least, come to Roanoke and relive the event that way.

And now, back to the politics of 2025

Those revolutionaries 250 years ago were willing to fight for our right to make our own decisions today, so it would be practically unpatriotic if we didn’t have things to say about those, wouldn’t it? I write a weekly political newsletter that goes out Friday afternoons. You can sign up for West of the Capital or any of our other free newsletters below:

• The Daily All of our latest stories, plus public notices, obituaries and opinion pieces. Sent every morning at 5 a.m.
• The Roundup A roundup of our most popular stories each week, plus word puzzles and obituaries. Sent Saturdays at 7 a.m.
• Cardinal Weather In-depth weather forecasts and updates, plus analysis on our region by Kevin Myatt. Sent Wednesdays.
• West of the Capital A weekly round-up of politics, with a focus on our region. Sent Fridays.
• Your Weekend Plan your weekend ahead of time with our go-to guide for celebrations, festivities and other events happening in our region, sent every Thursday at noon.
• Cardinal 250 Dive into history with exclusive stories uncovering Virginia’s role in America’s path to independence. Sent monthly.

Sign up