A Continental Congress

The Continental Congress met in one of the most conservative of the seaport towns from which the revolutionary movement stemmed. Philadelphia patriots complained that there was more Toryism in Pennsylvania than in all the colonies combined; certainly the Quakers who dominated the province were more concerned in putting down radicalism at home than resisting tyranny from abroad. The character of the delegates who assembled in Philadelphia in September 1774 was likewise a good augury to the …

…historic relationship of this tiny island and the United States. It was President Franklin Roosevelt, who in 1939, recognized Statia's importance in his country's history by presenting the plaque to its citizens to honor that first signal - the eleven-gun salute by Dutch governor de Graaff to the Andrew Doria - noting that it was "here the sovereignty of the United States of America was first formally acknowledged to a national vessel by a foreign official."