Chris Carosa

Samuel Nicholas, First Commissioned Marine Officer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Happy 250^th U.S. Marines! Two hundred fifty years of storied tradition and patriotic inspiration. Wow. If only they made a movie about them. Or a TV series.

I always wanted to be a Marine. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the dress blues. That’s the uniform I wanted for my G.I. Joe. I was just the right age to get the first run of G.I. Joe action figures. Mine was the “Action Soldier.” It came in Government Issue regular army green fatigues, not the camo fatigues of the Marine version. Still, I insisted he was a Marine. My family allowed it; after all, I was only five years old. (FYI: My uncles and great uncles were in the Army and Air Force. They didn’t seem to mind.)

Naturally, I still have my Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. lunchbox. The thermos was broken when we purchased it. Those were the days when it was hard to return things. Besides, I would never use it as the school sold milk for lunch. To prevent confusion, my brother got the Rat Patrol lunchbox. His thermos worked. Maybe he used it once or twice.

Back then, the Marines weren’t yet 200 years old. This year, on November 10, 2025, will be the 250^th birthday of the Marines. At least that’s the official birthday according to the official website of the United States Marine Corps.¹

It’s true that the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution establishing the “American Marines” on the cold afternoon of Friday, November 10, 1775. The resolution reads plain as day (from the official journal):

“Resolved, That two Battalions of marines be raised, consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or enlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required; that they be enlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.”²

Two entries just before that order hint at a bolder strategy. They reveal an intriguing story that, if it worked, might have shortened the war and pushed America’s border farther north.

The committee responsible for offering the resolution spent a week working on it. It was in response to a letter received from the inhabitants of Passamaquoddy, Nova Scotia, who “applied to the Congress to be admitted into the association of the North Americans, for the preservation of their rights and liberties”³

The first resolution authorized sending two persons “to Nova Scotia to enquire into the state of that colony, the disposition of the inhabitants towards the American cause…”⁴ The second directed General George Washington to attack Nova Scotia should he judge it “practicable and expedient.”⁵ Congress then ordered a copy of the three resolutions to be sent to Washington.

The General was miffed. As politely as possible, he returned his reply to Congress on November 19, 1775. He wrote, “I beg leave to submit it to the consideration of Congress, if those two battalions can be formed out of this army, whether this is a time to weaken our lines, by employing any of the officers appointed to defend them on any other service? … would it not be eligible to raise two battalions of marines in New York and Philadelphia, where there must be numbers of sailors now unemployed?”⁶

Congress received and read the letter on November 27. By November 30, they agreed with Washington and passed a resolution to suspend the raising of two battalions of Marines from the army.⁷ Oddly, they likely made their decision on November 28. That was the day they commissioned Samuel Nicholas as the first officer of the Marines.⁸

With an amphibious assault of Nova Scotia off the books, attention turned elsewhere. The British suspected the Marines would target New York or Boston. The Marines made the move in Nassau. Not the one in Long Island, but the one in the Bahamas. They seized the British armaments there without firing a single shot.

Legend has it that Nicholas was responsible for recruiting the first few companies of Marines at Tun Tavern. It’s more likely he used his connections with the Schuykill Fishing Company and the Fox Hunting Club to recruit. A look at the membership rolls of those two organizations shows some overlap with the first group of Marines.⁹

After the success of Nassau, Nicholas returned to Philadelphia. In the summer of 1776, Congress tasked him to recruit four companies of Marines. He did something smart. He recruited the recruiters. One of those men, Robert Mullen, inherited Tun Tavern (a.k.a. “sign of the Old Tun”¹⁰) from his father in 1775, Thomas “Mullan” (yes, the names were spelled differently in the primary source material).¹¹ Other contemporary sources spell Robert’s last name as “Mullan.”¹²

Mullen (or “Mullan”) not only ran the Tun, but he was also a member of the Masonic lodge that met there. Between being an innkeeper and active in a fraternal organization with more than 300 members, Mullen was the perfect man to recruit Marines. ¹³

Many histories (including that of the Marine Corps itself) incorrectly associate Mullen and the Tun Tavern with the November 10, 1775, birthdate of the Marines. Some even place Nicholas at the Tun, but he clearly recruited from his sportsman clubs. He may have also recruited from the Tun, especially since it was located on Water Street and frequented by the many sailors from the nearby docks.

While the Tun may be legend—or, more accurately, misplaced history—the shores of Tripoli ring true. Following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783, Congress disbanded the Continental Marines. Their retirement was brief due to the harassment by the French; Congress reestablished the Marines as the United States Marine Corps on July 11, 1798.

The U.S.M.C. earned its stripes—actually, its sword—during the Barbary Wars in 1805. 1st Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon and only eight Marines (but with 500 mercenaries), captured the city of Derna, just outside of Tripoli. Following that battle, the defeated Ottoman Prince presented O’Bannon with a Mameluke sword. Twenty years later, a replica of that sword became part of the ceremonial dress of all Marine officers.

That victory also inspired the line “shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn (which wasn’t made official until 1929). Speaking of songs, “Semper Fidelis” is not only the motto of the U.S.M.C. (adopted in 1883), but it is also the title of the official Marine march. Composed by John Philip Sousa in 1889, it’s featured prominently during the movie Patton. Ironically, the movie is about the Third Army, not about Marines.

It’s funny. I recently shared the Tun Tavern story with an audience. I started by asking any Marines to raise their hands. No one did. Among the several dozen sitting before me, there were plenty of veterans, just no Marines. I guess they really are “the few.”

I never became a Marine. The closest I came—vicariously at least—was my freshman year college roommate. I was such a great roommate that he left school and joined the Marines. He served in Lebanon (but was reassigned before the Beirut barracks attack). Got his picture in Newsweek in some anonymous B-roll shot.

He’s one of the few.

And he’s proud of it.

¹ https://www.marines.mil/Marines250/ [Retrieved November 1, 2025]
² Journals of the Continental Congress 1174-1789, Volume III. 1775 September 21 – December 30, Washington, 1905, p.348 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 [Retrieved November 1, 2025]
³ Ibid., p. 316
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ford, Worthington Chauncey, ed., The Writings of George Washington Vol. III. 1775-1776, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1889, p225-226
⁷ Journals of the Continental Congress 1174-1789, Volume III. 1775 September 21 – December 30, p.393
⁸ Image of actual commission letter from the Marine Corps Museum. https://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/0_449nicholas/commission.html [Retrieved November 2, 2025]
⁹ A History of the Schuylkill Fishing Company of the State in Schuylkill, 1732-1888, Philadelphia: Members of the State in Schuylkill, 1889, pp. 367, 407.
¹⁰ The Pennsylvania Gazette, Wednesday, September 6, 1770, p.4
¹¹ The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, Wednesday, April 26, 1775, p.4
¹² The Pennsylvania Gazette, Wednesday, May 10, 1775, p.5
¹³ Moore, Rev. Henry D., The Masonic Review, Vol. 77 No. 1, February 1892, p.154