Committee of Correspondence

noun

American History.

1. an intercolonial committee organized 1772 by Samuel Adams in Massachusetts to keep colonists informed of British anticolonial actions and to plan colonial resistance or countermeasures.

2. (sometimes lowercase),  any of various similar organizations formed for the same purpose during the late colonial period.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Committee of Correspondence¹

An Americanism dating back to 1760–70

Example Sentences

As almost every school child in this country once learned, Paul Revere, who was employed by the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety as “an express rider to carry news, messages, and copies of important documents as far away as New York and Philadelphia,” played a key role in the American Revolution.

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On the night of April 18, 1775, Dr. Warren of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence told Paul Revere that the committee had learned about a secret British plan: Redcoats were going to seize the weapons stored at Concord.

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She wrote a letter, put it in an envelope along with some money, and handed it to Dr. Church, a member of the Committee of Correspondence.

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I was managing the Committee of Correspondence feature, and the topic was “Does Microsoft Play Fair?”

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The very first issue featured “Committee of Correspondence,” in which a group of policy wonks discussed the issues of the day in a series of emails that were then posted to the site.

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