Was there already a distinct or stereotypical “American accent” by the time of the American Revolution?

by Berserker87a

Basically when Ben Franklin or other American delegations were in London, or when British people where in America towards the end of the British colonial era, would their accents have still sounded like generally British English to them, or were they already noting different distinct accents had started developing?

Were they already noting that Americans were actually pronouncing the “r” sound at the end of words and doing weird stuff with “a” sounds by the time they rebellion happened?

gynnis-scholasticus

There were differences already, though there appears to be some debate on whether one distinct American accent had formed yet. We must also remember that speech changes all the time, and the "original" English accent (of let us say the 1600s) was pretty different from any modern accent. See for instance: