When John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore, became royal governor of Virginia in 1771, he inherited a colony proud of its House of Burgesses. The Burgesses were not a sideshow. They were the oldest legislative body in the New World, stretching back to 1619. Virginians held them in reverence because they were the symbol of self-government, the living link between English liberty and American soil. To attack the Burgesses was to attack Virginia itself.
By 1774, Parliament had punished Massachusetts with the Boston Port Act, closing Boston Harbor until the East India Company was compensated for its lost tea. The news hit Williamsburg like a spark in dry grass. The Burgesses responded with a resolution declaring June 1st a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. They called on Virginians to pray not only for Massachusetts but also for “the restitution of the violated rights of America.” It was a bold and dangerous statement of solidarity.
Lord Dunmore saw it for what it was: a direct political challenge to royal authority. He dissolved the House of Burgesses on May 26, 1774. At that moment, whatever loyalty Virginians still felt for their governor began to curdle into hatred.
The resentment was not just about this single act. Dunmore had already earned a reputation for arrogance and imperiousness. He treated the Burgesses not as partners in governance but as a nuisance to be bullied and dismissed. His decision to dissolve them struck at their dignity. To many Virginians, it confirmed what Jefferson would later write in the Declaration — that the King and his agents were bent on “fatiguing them into compliance” by scattering their assemblies and silencing their voices.
The anger spread quickly. Dunmore had underestimated the resolve of the Burgesses. Rather than dispersing, they walked down Duke of Gloucester Street and entered the Raleigh Tavern. In the Apollo Room, under the glow of candles and the clatter of tankards, they carried on their work. It was here that they adopted the Virginia Association and called for a Continental Congress. Dunmore’s attempt to silence them had only amplified their voice.
Hatred of Dunmore grew as his governorship dragged on. Virginians remembered the insult of May 26. They remembered that their governor treated their assembly as an enemy. Over the next year, Dunmore made matters worse, seizing colonial gunpowder from the magazine in Williamsburg and threatening to arm enslaved people against their masters. By then, his name was poison across Virginia.
But it began in May of 1774. The dissolution of the House of Burgesses was a turning point, the moment when many Virginians realized they could not trust royal authority to respect their rights. It turned men like Benjamin Harrison, George Washington, and Patrick Henry into hardened opponents of the Crown. It sent the Burgesses into the Apollo Room and into history. And it left Lord Dunmore with a legacy in Virginia that would be remembered with contempt long after he sailed away.
BREAK
On May 26, 1774, Virginia’s capitol fell silent. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, had dissolved the House of Burgesses after they dared to declare a day of fasting and prayer in sympathy with Boston. The Boston Port Act had closed the harbor, choking the lifeblood of that city. The Burgesses had spoken boldly, aligning Virginia with Massachusetts. Dunmore answered with the governor’s most powerful weapon—shutting them down.
But the Burgesses did not go home.
The next morning, May 27, they left the locked chamber on one end of Duke of Gloucester Street and walked together down its length to the Raleigh Tavern. It was a short walk, just a few minutes, but it was heavy with symbolism. The capitol belonged to the King, its authority borrowed from royal charters. The Raleigh belonged to the people, a place of clattering tankards, smoke, and laughter. Inside was the Apollo Room, paneled in oak, where banquets and celebrations were usually held. On this day, it became a legislature in exile.
The walk itself was an act of defiance. They had been dismissed by the Crown, yet they kept their assembly alive by simply changing the room in which it sat. What had been dissolved at the governor’s pleasure was reborn on the people’s will.
Among the men who entered that tavern was Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley Plantation. Harrison was a man hard to miss. Broad of frame, known for his booming laugh and good humor, he carried himself with the easy confidence of one of Virginia’s oldest and wealthiest families. He was no wild-eyed radical, no young lawyer chasing notoriety. He was the son of a dynasty, a planter of stature, and the father of future presidents. When Benjamin Harrison took his seat in the Apollo Room, it signaled something important: resistance was not confined to the fringes. The old order was now part of the fight.
Harrison’s presence lent legitimacy to what might otherwise have seemed an informal gathering. A legislature in a tavern could have been dismissed as a rump body, little more than a group of disgruntled men. But with Harrison there—alongside Peyton Randolph, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson—it was clear that Virginia was still speaking with its full voice. His laugh, echoing in the smoky room, reminded them that they were not beaten. Even in exile, they could carry on the work of government.
This is where Jefferson’s fourth grievance in the Declaration finds its roots. Two years later, he would write that the King had forced assemblies into “unusual, uncomfortable, and distant” places in order to fatigue them into compliance. The Apollo Room was unusual for a legislature, it was uncomfortable compared to the capitol, and it was certainly distant from the authority of the King’s seal. Yet instead of breaking the Burgesses’ will, the move hardened it.
The tactic was meant to silence. In Massachusetts, in North Carolina, in New York, governors had scattered assemblies into remote towns or prorogued them until they lost momentum. But Virginia’s Burgesses showed that exile could be turned into resistance. The Apollo Room was not a defeat—it was a rebirth.
Harrison’s role in this moment is more than colorful detail. His presence shows that the Revolution in Virginia was not just a movement of fiery orators or young radicals. It was embraced by men who had the most to lose—wealth, land, and influence—and who nonetheless walked into a tavern to govern when the King denied them their chamber.
The short walk down Duke of Gloucester Street marked a long step toward independence. A legislature reborn in exile, a planter’s laughter ringing over tankards and parchment, and the first living example of Jefferson’s grievance—proof that tyranny could not silence free men by forcing them into uncomfortable rooms.
SEGMENT II
The Apollo Room was hot with candlelight and noise. Mugs of ale clattered on the tables. Quills scratched. Smoke from pipes hung in the air. This was no quiet prayer meeting; it was a legislature in exile. The Burgesses, driven out of the capitol by Lord Dunmore, were determined not to be silenced. They had come here to decide what Virginia’s answer would be to the crisis in Boston.
The Boston Port Act had closed the harbor, effective June 1, 1774. Massachusetts would suffer, cut off from trade and provision until the East India Company was repaid for the lost tea. For Virginians, the question was stark: do we stand with Boston, or do we protect our own prosperity and hope Parliament stops with Massachusetts?
The debate was sharp. Some worried about the cost of resistance. Virginia was a wealthy colony, tied by trade and debt to British merchants. But others spoke with clarity about the stakes. Edmund Pendleton rose, his voice carrying across the smoke and the hubbub. “An attack made on one of our sister colonies,” he declared, “is an attack made on all British America, and threatens ruin to the rights of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied.”
That principle settled the matter. Virginia would not abandon Boston.
The men turned to the task of drafting a compact—an agreement that bound them all. They wrote that Virginians would stop importing British goods, stop consuming them, and, if necessary, stop exporting their own tobacco. It was more than symbolic. Virginia’s tobacco was the lifeblood of transatlantic commerce. Merchants in London and Glasgow lived on the leaf grown along the James and York Rivers. To withhold it was to strike at Britain’s pocketbook.
The compact became known as the Virginia Association. It was, in effect, a contract of sacrifice. Merchants would lose profits, planters would risk debt and hardship, and ordinary families would give up goods that had long filled their homes. Tea, cloth, luxury items—all would be denied. Liberty would be defended not just with words but with abstinence and self-denial.
At the table sat Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley. His presence was a signal to all. Harrison was not a radical like Patrick Henry, whose fiery tongue could rattle even his friends. He was not a young philosopher like Jefferson, full of principles and pamphlets. Harrison was a planter of stature, a man whose family had been in Virginia for generations, a man whose wealth and influence tied him firmly to the old order. When Harrison picked up the quill to sign the Association, he lent the weight of Virginia’s great families to the cause.
It mattered deeply that Harrison signed. His plantation depended on tobacco, and tobacco depended on British trade. The leaf harvested by enslaved laborers on his land was packed into hogsheads and shipped across the Atlantic, its sale underwriting the lifestyle of Virginia’s elite. By pledging to withhold that crop, Harrison was pledging to risk his family’s livelihood, his own comfort, and his colony’s prosperity. His signature was more than ink—it was a gamble with his fortune.
And yet, Harrison did it with laughter. As the compact passed from hand to hand, the atmosphere could have been heavy with fear. Treason carries weight. To bind oneself against the Crown was no small act. But Harrison’s booming laugh rang out in the Apollo Room, turning tension into fellowship. He had a way of breaking the grimness, reminding his colleagues that resistance did not need to be joyless. Humor became a kind of shield. If Harrison could laugh while signing what amounted to rebellion, so could they.
The Association was signed, and with it came another resolution: a call for a Continental Congress. The men in the Apollo Room knew that Virginia alone could not stand against Parliament. Nor could Massachusetts. Unity was the only path. They wrote that the colonies must convene together, to form “one uniform plan of conduct.” Out of exile in a Williamsburg tavern came the first call for what would soon become the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
This was the genius of the moment. Lord Dunmore had dissolved the House of Burgesses to silence it. Instead, he pushed it into a tavern where it found new life and new ambition. In that smoky room, Virginia bound itself to Boston, pledged economic warfare against Britain, and reached out to every other colony with a hand of unity. The Revolution was not yet declared, but its foundation was being laid in oak and candlelight.
Harrison’s role shines in retrospect. He was not the most eloquent man in the room. He was not the one whose words would be printed and passed hand to hand. But his presence, his wealth, his family’s name, and his humor gave the moment ballast. He proved that Virginia’s establishment was willing to risk comfort for liberty. He showed that resistance was not only the passion of fiery radicals but also the decision of men who had the most to lose.
The Virginia Association was bold, but it was also fragile. It depended on ordinary Virginians to give up goods they wanted, to stand firm even when merchants pressed them with temptation. It depended on planters to sacrifice their staple crop. It depended on a unity that had never been tested before. But its adoption in the Apollo Room sent ripples across the colonies.
When Jefferson wrote two years later of a King who forced assemblies into “unusual and uncomfortable places,” he might have been thinking of that tavern. What Dunmore meant as punishment had become the birthplace of unity.
Picture the scene once more: quills scratching, mugs clinking, voices raised in debate. And Benjamin Harrison, big and booming, laughing as he signed away his wealth for the sake of liberty. That laughter was not frivolous—it was defiance. It was the sound of Virginia stepping onto the path of Revolution.
Segment III
In 1776 Thomas Jefferson took up his pen to explain to the world why the colonies were breaking with Britain. He built his case not only on principle but on memory. The grievances he listed were not imagined insults. They were lived experiences. Among them was the charge that the King had forced legislatures into unusual and uncomfortable places for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance. Jefferson knew exactly what that meant. He had seen it in Virginia.
Fatigue was a weapon of tyranny. It was not the clash of soldiers but the grind of inconvenience. Governors dissolved assemblies or moved them to remote towns. Records were left behind, comfort was denied, and members were scattered until the work of government became misery. The Crown believed free men could be worn down, that exhaustion would lead to silence. In Massachusetts the legislature was forced out of Boston and into Salem. John Adams remembered that the design was to starve the town, to humble its pride, to break its spirit. In North Carolina the governor dissolved the assembly and fled when resistance grew too bold. In New York, prorogations and suspensions left representatives idle. The pattern was clear. Silence could be achieved through fatigue.
The colonial response was not submission. In taverns, churches, and private homes assemblies were reborn. The Raleigh Tavern’s Apollo Room in Williamsburg is the best remembered but it was not alone. In New England town halls took the place of formal chambers. In the Carolinas conventions sprang up where governors had ordered dispersal. In New York committees of correspondence kept politics alive. These places lacked the seals and trappings of authority. They were smoky, noisy, even uncomfortable. Yet they belonged to the people. What was meant as insult became a source of strength.
The Apollo Room on May 27, 1774 showed the principle in action. The Burgesses of Virginia walked out of the locked capitol and into a tavern. The governor had dismissed them. They kept governing anyway. The air was heavy with candle smoke and the smell of ale. Voices overlapped as men argued and drafted their response to the Boston Port Act. Among them was Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley. He was a broad man, impossible to ignore, with a booming laugh that carried across the room. His family was old, his plantation vast, his fortune tied to tobacco. When Harrison sat at that table, resistance carried legitimacy. This was not only the cause of fiery young men like Patrick Henry or Jefferson. It was the cause of Virginia’s establishment.
Harrison signed the Virginia Association, pledging non-importation, non-consumption, and, if necessary, non-exportation. For a planter whose wealth came from tobacco, it was no idle gesture. He risked his livelihood when he put his name to that document. Yet he did it with humor. His laughter rolled over the room, turning fear into fellowship. Treason seemed less grim when Harrison treated it with good humor. His presence made others stronger.
Two years later he would sit in Philadelphia as a delegate to the Continental Congress. Again his laughter became his weapon. As men hesitated to sign the Declaration, worried about the gallows, Harrison jested with Elbridge Gerry that his own bulk would ensure a swift end on the rope, while Gerry’s lighter frame would leave him kicking in the air. The joke rippled through the hall, easing the tension. Behind the humor was defiance. Harrison was not blind to the danger. He simply refused to let fear master him.
Jefferson’s word fatigue captured both the insult and the failure of British policy. Governors believed they could wear down resistance with inconvenience. Instead they taught Americans that liberty did not require a formal chamber or a royal seal. It could survive in a tavern, in a church, in any place where free men gathered to act together. Fatigue did not silence them. It hardened them.
Picture the Apollo Room one last time. The night grows late. Candles burn low, dripping wax across rough tables. Tankards are half empty. Sheets of parchment lie covered with signatures. Smoke hangs heavy in the air. Down the street the governor’s palace is quiet and dark. But here the assembly is alive. Benjamin Harrison leans back in his chair, his laugh booming over the murmur of voices. The King’s tactic has failed. What was meant to weary men into submission has bred unity instead. In that laugh, in that smoke filled tavern, America’s Revolution found its voice.
In the end, Jefferson’s fourth grievance was about more than a locked chamber or a forced march into an uncomfortable room. It was about a tactic of power that feels just as familiar in our own day as it did in 1774. He called it fatiguing them into compliance. It meant wearing people down with inconvenience until they finally yielded.
Look around, and you’ll see echoes of that same tactic. It shows up when a citizen tries to get a permit or a license, and finds themselves lost in endless paperwork, phone trees, and websites that send them in circles. It shows up when laws are written in such dense, tangled language that you need a lawyer just to understand your rights. It shows up when agencies bury records behind paywalls or slow-walk Freedom of Information requests until the story has gone cold.
Sometimes the fatigue comes from distance. Jefferson complained of legislatures being pushed away from their records. Today it might look like a public meeting scheduled at a time and place most people can’t attend. Sometimes it’s delay — hearings rescheduled, cases dragged out, deadlines moved — until all but the most determined give up. Sometimes it’s the constant demand to comply with new reporting requirements, new audits, new checks, until the act of living feels like pushing against a tide of forms.
The strategy hasn’t changed much in two hundred and fifty years. If you can’t silence the people outright, you can drown them in inconvenience. If you can’t forbid them to speak, you can bury them under rules and red tape until they fall quiet on their own.
The lesson of the Apollo Room is that fatigue can be resisted. The Burgesses of Virginia could have gone home when Dunmore dissolved them. Instead they walked into a tavern and kept governing. Benjamin Harrison, with his booming laugh and his easy courage, showed that the answer to fatigue was persistence. He made it plain that freedom lives wherever people are willing to endure the grind rather than surrender to it.
That is still the challenge before us. We can let ourselves be worn down, or we can do what Harrison and his colleagues did in 1774 — gather together, however unusual or uncomfortable the place, and refuse to be silenced.
DAVE DOES HISTORY 
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