From September to May, mid-day meetings are held on the third Thursday of the month (except December) at the Union Club of Boston and include a lecture on an historical subject or other topic of interest. The number of Business Courts the Society has held from its founding to the end of calendar year 2014 was in the vicinity of 750. This page lists lectures given at previous luncheons of the society with links to the fliers for those events.
2023
Daniel Shays' Honorable RebellionDaniel Bullen, Ph.D.
January
North of America: Loyalists, Indigenous Nations, And the Borders of the Long American Revolution
Jeffers Lennox, Ph.D.
February
French & Indian Wars In Maine
Michael Dekker
April
Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War On Britain’s African Slave Trade
Christian M. Mcburney
May
The Chosen Spot: Contested Land, Sovereignty, and Teaching History in the 21st Century
Charles Latta Newhall
September
The Stable At Shirley Place: Preservation as Reckoning
Suzanne T. Buchanan
October
Polly Sumner–Witness to the Boston Tea Party
Richard Culver Wiggin
November
2022
King PhilipMichael J. Tougias
January
Loyalists, Indigenous Nations, and the Borders of the Long American Revolution
Jeffers Lennox, Ph.D.
February
Great Leaders I Have Known and Leadership Lessons I Have Learned
Major General Susan Y. Desjardins, USAF (ret.)
March
Reading the Gravestones of Old New England
John G. S. Hanson
April
Introducing Revolutionary Spaces
Nathaniel Sheidley, Ph.D.
May
Country Colonial Dinner Dance
Society of Colonial Wars in Massachusetts
September
The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse
Daniel A. Gagnon
October
Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America
Eric Jay Dolin
November
2021
Dunmores War: The last Conflict of the Americans Colonial EraGlenn F. Williams. Ph.D.
January
Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers who fought the American Revolution
Don N. Hagist
February
Popular Music in 18th-century English North America, or What’s on Dr. Franklin’s Spotify?
Colonial Fiddler Tobias Tripp
March
The Two Sieges of Quebec and the Fate of New France
D. Peter MacLeod, Ph.D.
April
All Canada in the hand of the British: General Jeffery Amherst and the 1760 Campaign to conquer New France
Douglas R. Cubbison
May
Great Gunns! Marbleheads Fort Sewall 375th Anniversary Research
Frederic C. Detwiller, AIA
June
With Fire and Sword: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Beginning of the American Revolution
James L. Nelson
September
Saving Captains Row
J. Duncan Berry, Ph.D.
October
Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates
Eric Jay Dolin
November
2020
The Boston Massacre Turns 250Nathaniel Sheidley, Ph.D.
January
All Necessary and Useful Knowledge: Thomas Bray's Libraries
John Buchtel, Ph.D.
February
Images of Poser and Gender: The Campaign for Women's Sufferage
Allison K. Lane, Ph.D.
March
From Plimouth Colon to Pilgrim Forefathers: How 1620 Became a Cornerstoe of the American Story
Mark A. Peterson, Ph.D.
October
Memory Lands: King Philip's War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast
Christine M. Delucia, Ph.D.
November
Britain, America, and the Special Relationship: Some Personal Reflections
Peter Abbott, Ph.D.
December
2019
HMS Diana and the Battle of Chelsea CreekVictor T. Mastone, Ph.D.
January
Puritan Pedigrees: The Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England
Robert Charles Anderson, FAGS
February
First Lady Penelope Winslow: Reconstructing a Life through Material Culture
Michelle Marchetti Coughlin
March
Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America's Founding Fathers
Peter Stark
April
Rendezvous at the Flynt Center of Early New England Life
Philip Zea, President
May
Henry Bouquet: Swiss Huguenot on his Majesty?s Service
Peter Drummey, Librarian
September
The Indian World of George Washington
Colin G. Calloway, Ph.D.
October
Plimoth Plantation, and Captain, Mayflower Ii, Mayflower
Whit Perry, Director
November
2018
The Career and Accomplishments of General Henry KnoxMatthew J. Hansbury
January
Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen
Christopher Capozzola, Ph.D.
February
What is the Future of the 'Special Relationship' between Britain and its Former Colonies?
The Honorable Harriet Cross
March
Viewing of the Mayflower II in Restoration in Drydock
Mystic Seaport
April
The Art of The Con: Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries
Anthony Amore
May
On the Restoration of Mayflower II
Ellie Donovan
September
Thomas Sully's The Passage of the Delaware
Elliot Bostwick Davis, Ph.D.
October
The Past, Present, and Future f the War to end all Wars - WWI
Jessie Tumblin, Ph.D.
November
2017
The Not-so-Good Life of the Colonial GoodwifeVelya Jancz-Urban
January
Agents of Empire: Huguenots in the 18th-Century British Atlantic World
Associate Professor Owen Stanwood
February
The Boston Trustee: The Lives, Laws, and Legacy of a Vital Institution
Thomas E. Bator
March
Naval Rivalry and the Road to the Great War
Professor Erik Goldstein
April
Governor Shirley and the Fight for Louisbourg, 1745
Robert J. Allison, Ph.D.
May
In The Eye of The Storm: The Great Hurricane of 1635 and the Pequot War
Katherine Grandjean, Ph.D.
September
Hodges' Scout: A Lost Patrol of the French and Indian War
Len Travers , Ph.D.
October
First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama
Joshua C. Kendall
November
2016
Revolutionary Politics Beneath the Boughs of Boston's Liberty TreeNathaniel Sheidley, Ph.D.
January
The Unanticipated Economic Consequences of the American Revolution
Jonathan M. Chu, Ph.D.
February
The Other War: Benedict Arnold and the Northern Campaign, from Quebec to Saratoga
James L.Nelson
March
Massacre on the Merrimack: Hannah Duston's Captivity and Revenge in Colonial America
Jay Atkinson
April
Uncovering The Story of 'Parker's revenge'
Margaret Watters, Ph.D. and Robert J. Morris
May
Lessons from an Eighteenth-Century Library
Benedict Leca, Ph.D., FRSA
September
Three Months Before the Stack
Warrior Michael Robbins
October
A Rainbow Division Lieutenant In France
Stephen H.Taber
November
2015
Lost BostonAnthony Mitchell Sammarco
January
The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding
Eric Nelson, Ph.D.
February
Sail Away Ladies: Stories of Cape Cod Women in the Age of Sail
Jim Coogan
March
Liberty's Captives: George Washington and the Problem of Prisoners of War
Trenton Cole Jones, Ph.D.
April
The Cost of Battles Not Fought: War and Rumor in Early New England
Walter W. Woodward, Ph.D.
May
Why Boston Erupted In August 1765
John L. Bell
September
A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
Emerson W. Baker, Ph.D.
October
Curley And Coolidge : A Study in Contrasts
Warrior Michael Robbins
November
2014
Cities and Revolution: the Cases of Boston's Waterfront and Newport's ChurchesBenjamin L. Carp , Ph.D.
January
America's Obsessives: the Compulsive Energy that Built a Nation
Joshua C. Kendall
February
The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World
Lincoln Paine
March
The Art of Memory: Boston?s Mount Auburn Cemetery
Meg L. Winslow
April
Indispensable Men? Freemasonry and the American Revolution
Steven C. Bullock, Ph.D.
May
The Apples that Made America
Rowan Jacobsen
September
Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site
Curtis White
November
2013
War, News, and the Rise of the Colonial New England PressKatherine Grandjean, Ph.D.
January
The Fortieth General Assembly in Boston: A Preview of Attractions to Come
Council of the Massachusetts Society
February
Anglicans in Colonial Boston
Ross Newton
March
Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis
Tamsen Evans George
March
The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-1840
David Armitage, Ph.D.
April
A Tale of Two Cities: Louisbourg and Halifax in the Contest for Empire
Donald R. Friary, Ph.D.
September
The Shining Sea: David Porter and the Epic Voyage of the U.S.S. Essex during the War of 1812
George C. Daughan, Ph.D.
October
One Colonial Woman's World: The Life and Writings of Mehetabel Chandler Coit
Michelle Marchetti Coughlin
November
2012
Muskets to Machine Guns: Researching Massachusetts Veterans from the Pequot War to World War OneDavid Allen Lambert
January
Celebrating Monarchy in Colonial Massachusetts
Brendan J. Mcconville, Ph.D.
February
Crimes and Misdemeanors in Old New England
Diane Rapaport
March
Colonel Barrett's Farm?in Defense of American Liberty
Frederic C. Detwiller, AIA
April
The 1812 Bicentennial and Boston's Favorite Frigate
Anne Grimes Rand
May
Invading Cuba in the Early '60s
Nicholas Steward
September
Furnishing the Frontier: The Deerfield Raid and the Material World of 1704
Philip Zea
November
2011
Fundamentally Democratic? Reflections on the Revolution in Massachusetts, 1765-1788Pauline Maier, Ph.D.
January
Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America
Benjamin L. Carp, Ph.D.
February
The Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum
Irene Axelrod
March
Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in a Revolutionary World
Maya Jasanoff, Ph.D.
April
From 1763 to 1783: War, Peace, and the Law of Nations in the Revolutionary Atlantic
Eliga H. Gould, Ph.D.
May
Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War
Michael Kranish
September
Freedom's Cost: The Story of General Nathanael Greene
Jane T. Uhlar
October
The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture
Joshua C. Kendall
November
2010
Champlain's DreamDavid Hackett Fischer, Ph.D
January
Douglass and Lincoln
Reverend Stephen Kendrick
February
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Katherine Bygrave Howe
March
1763 to 2013: a 250th Annivers ary Worth Commemorating
Donald C. Carleton, Jr.
April
Boston Beheld: Antique Town & Country Views
D. Brenton Simons
May
The Cabal of the Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower
David S. Brody
September
Betsy Ross and the Making of America
Marla R. Miller, Ph.D.
October
Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America
Eric Jay Dolin, Ph.D.
November
2009
Up From The Mud: Salvaging the U.S. Navy Battleships Sunk at Pearl HarborLt. Commander Nicholas Priest Holder, USCGR
January
Aviation Security: Show or Substance?
Captain Peter Webster Harris, USRN (Ret.)
February
Military Commissions: Rhetoric versus Reality
The Honorable Susan J.Crawford, OSD, OMC
March
U.S.S. Constitution versus H.M.S. Guerriere
Commander William A. Bullard III, USN
April
In Words and Deeds: Battle Speeches in History
Richard F. Miller
May
The State of Jones
Professor John Stauffer
September
Atlantic Harvest: Ellery Sedgwick & the Atlantic Monthly, 1909-1938
Peter Drummey
October
Pilgrim Hall: America's Oldest AND Newest Museum
Peg And Jim Baker
November
2008
1763: The Year that Changed AmericaColin G. Calloway
May
Boston Idealist and Civil War Martyr Charles Russell Lowell, Jr.
Carol Bundy
September
The Life and Exemplary Public Service of General George C. Marshall, Jr.
Brigadier General John W. Carlson, USA (Ret.)
October
Impersonation of Captain Silas Talbot
Kim Carroll
November