As the capital city and seat of government, Williamsburg featured prominently in the Virginia colony’s road to revolution. In 1765 the House of Burgesses adopted Patrick Henry’s condemnation of the Stamp Act, and the city saw its own Stamp Act protest on Duke of Gloucester Street. In 1769 residents attended a ball in honor of then-governor Norborne Berkeley, clad in homespun clothing to protest taxes on imported goods.

Patriots clashed with colonial governor John Murray, earl of Dunmore. In 1774 Dunmore dissolved the General Assembly after they passed a resolution in support of the city and residents of Boston after that city’s Tea Party protest resulted in Parliament levying the Coercive Acts as punishment. In April 1775, Dunmore ordered the removal of the city’s stores of gunpowder from the powder magazine. Colonists saw this as an outright affront to their protection and liberties and immediately demanded its return. Later that summer Dunmore abandoned the city. With the royal-appointed governor out of the capital, Williamsburg set its sights on supporting the Revolutionary War.

As the main theater of war moved to the south, Williamsburg became vulnerable to enemy attack.Prior to the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781, important but lesser-known skirmishes took place on the outskirts of Williamsburg as allied patriot troops met loyalists and Cornwallis’ army. At the Battle of Spencer’s Ordinary on June 26, 1781, John Graves Simcoe engaged patriots under Colonel Richard Butler with an inconclusive result. In July 1781 the Battle of Green Springs saw a victory for General Charles Cornwallis and Banastre Tarleton over patriot troops commanded by General Anthony Wayneand the Marquis de Lafayette.