State's Role In Evolution

    The East Windsor Historical Society  will present "Connecticut in the American Revolution" May 28 at the Scantic Academy Museum, 115 Scantic Rd.,  at 7 p.m.
   The guest speaker will be Bev York, site administrator at Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry. Her slide presentation will include  some well-known and not so well-known Connecticut patriots who made significant contributions to the fight for American Independence.
 Though most of the Revolutionary War’s battles were fought elsewhere, Connecticut’s contributions were critical to the effort but often forgotten. Gen. George Washington spoke so highly of the state’s ability to bolster the fledgling nation’s troops with whatever was needed, be it beef, bread, or bullets, that he gave Connecticut the nickname “the Provision State.”
   In addition to his duties as Connecticut’s head of state, Trumbull was one of Washington’s top advisors throughout the war as well as its paymaster general. Washington reportedly remarked that “had it not been for Jonathan Trumbull, the war may have not had a successful conclusion,” she said.
   Benjamin Tallmadge, a Litchfield resident, devised the spymaster’s code book and created the Culper Ring. One of the spy ring’s most famous ware houses hosted more than 1,200 meetings of the “Council of Safety,” including such famous revolutionaries as Lafayette, Henry Knox, and John and Samuel Adams, York said.
   Tallmadge’s dragoon squad, which also conducted raids against English strongholds in New York, included East Windsor’s Elijah Churchill, who won one of the war’s three Badge of Military Merit awards from Washington for his valor in the capture of a Long Island fort.
   York will discuss other state figures in the Revolution, including Nathan Hale,  Colonel Knowlton, Joseph Plumb Martin and Sybil Ludington,
    The meeting is free and open to the public; donations are welcome.