What was the "Hurricane of Independence?"

This was a hurricane from North Carolina to Nova Scotia in september 1776.
It is believed that 4170 people in the U.S and Canada died in the storm

close, but not quite.

It was a hurricane that swept from North Carolina to Nova Scotia from September 2 - 9, 1775, killing over 4,000 people. It received its name because it coincided with the first stages of the American War of Independence.

I found a lot of web pages about this, and they were fairly evenly split between 1775 and 1776. Does anyone have a more authoratative source than a web page?