Cy Nicholas Attendees Learn From W&M History Grant Fellows
Ph.D. Candidate Annie Powell and Master’s candidate Pierce Monahan of the College of William and Mary’s Department of Historywere featured speakers for the Cy Nicholas Luncheon, on February 22, 2024, at the Commonwealth Club of Richmond.
They were accompanied by Dr. Tuska Benes, chair of the Department of History at W&M, the nation’s leading school for historical research and education on the Colonial Period, according to U.S. News and World Report rankings. There were thirty-nine Warriors and Guests at the luncheon.
Annie Powell (photo at right), doctoral candidate at William & Mary and the current Samuel Victor Constant Fellow, gave some details on her views of the Conflict of 1637, which she explained was the combination of religious and political controversies in Massachusetts at the time of the Pequot War. The result of these three upheavals was a solidifying of New England’s position as a seat of English colonial puritan authority – the colonial New England that we imagine today. The Samuel Victor Constant Society is funded by the General Society of Colonial Wars to honor the ideals and principles of those who served with distinction during the Colonial Period in building these United States of America.
Pierce Monahan (photo at left), the recipient of the Virginia Society of Colonial Wars 2023 Masters level grant at the William & Mary History department, explained how his research into the Barbary Wars and the ways they shaped Americans’ collective conscience and foreign policy priorities informed the abolitionist movement in America’s earliest days.
Two new Warriors (photo below), Taylor F. Turner IV and James D. Patton, were welcomed with rosettes and copies of the General Society’s Honoring Our Colonial History, a catalog of tablets, monuments and memorials the Society has placed or commissioned. The luncheon followed a brief reception. Prior to the event, the Council of Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Virginia met on Society business.
