[Ads-l] "minuteman", one month antedating (and another by 18 days)

[Joel Berson]

But from the horse's mouth.

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1774 Journals of each provincial congress 24 Nov. (1838) 50.

The petition from the officers of the minute men, in the northwest part of the county of Worcester, [was] read and committed to the committee on the state of the province.

[Brackets in original.]----------

1774 [ditto]  10 Dec. (1838) 71.

We now. think that particular care should be taken by the towns and districts in this colony, that each of the minute men, not already provided therewith, should be immediately equipped with an effective fire arm, bayonet, pouch, knapsack, thirty
rounds of cartridges and balls, and that they be disciplined three times a week, and oftener, as opportunity may offer.


[This is within "To the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Towns and Districts of Massachusetts Bay".  Date from p. 68, not running header.  It is the same text as the OED's quotation, but 18 days earlier.]

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Antedate OED3  1774 28 Dec. [Pennsylvania Gazette].


In The journals of each Provincial congress of Massachusetts -- in 1774 and 1775, ... .  Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, Printers to the State, 1838.  Google Books.


Joel

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