Agreement Before Independence

What’s the story?

Before Britain’s thirteen North American colonies could declare independence and form the United States, ordinary people had to agree to act together toward a common cause.

On 24 November 1774, local men in Newburgh, New York, signed these articles of agreement to raise a “Troop of Horse,” a mounted militia unit, amid a widening imperial crisis. The document denounces recent acts of Parliament, especially “shutting up the Port of Boston,” and warns that colonial “Rights and Privileges” might be reduced to “Bondage and Slavery.”

The military context matters. Months before Lexington and Concord, colonists were preparing outside formal British military structures. In Newburgh, readiness became practical and local: subscribers agreed to choose officers by majority vote, obey those officers, provide “a good Carbine or Gun,” pistols, a sword, bullets, flints, and powder, wear a prescribed uniform, ride according to age, and pay fines for nonappearance.

The manuscript’s form reinforces its purpose. Written primarily in one hand and signed by many, the page converts private concern into public obligation. The crowded signatures at the bottom—some bold, some uneven, some squeezed around stains and folds—make collective action visible as a material record.

Held within the Rosenbach’s collection, this Revolutionary-era manuscript reflects the kind of documentary evidence the Rosenbach brothers worked to preserve and share with public audiences. After World War II, when Americans were again confronting the meaning of freedom, democracy, and national responsibility, projects such as the Freedom Train and the nascent Rosenbach Foundation placed historic documents before the public as civic objects, not private treasures. The Newburgh articles of agreement continue that work today. Their signatures, obligations, and material survival invite each generation to reconsider how collective commitments are formed, recorded, preserved, and judged.

This interpretation was written by Thomas Loglisci, Jr., as part of Rosenbach Museum & Library’s spring 2026 course “The Curator’s Toolkit.”

More details

theme: Unfinished Revolutions
subjects: Militia
contributing repository: Rosenbach Museum & Library
submitted by: Thomas Loglisci, Jr.
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