“Mrs. Heywood, an aged lady, and her son-in-law”

Yesterday we left Dr. Abel Prescott, Jr., trying to return home to Concord after alerting militia officers in Framingham and Sudbury that British regulars were on the march.

As Prescott rode closer, he spotted some of those soldiers, reportedly near the South Bridge. According to town minister and chronicler Ezra Ripley in 1827, this happened “A few minutes after the fight at the [North] bridge,” meaning those soldiers might have been on edge after hearing shots.

Ripley wrote:

Perceiving that he was watched, and that by pressing forward he should be likely to fall into their hands, he [Prescott] turned his horse about, on which they fired upon him, and wounded him in one arm.

He rode directly to the house of Mrs. Heywood, who with her son-in-law, now the Hon. Abiel Heywood, and living witness of this affair, quickly attended to his wound.

But observing the British advancing to the house, Mrs. Heywood, an aged lady, and her son-in-law left it, and sought a place of greater safety.—

Mr. Prescott ran up stairs and concealed himself in a dark place, behind the chimney and a dry cask. He heard them searching for him and uttering bitter threats, but they did not find him.

When I read this passage, I had questions about who “Mrs. Heywood” was and why her “son-in-law” had the same surname. Here’s what I figured out.

On 28 Aug 1744, the Rev. Daniel Bliss married Sarah Stone and Jonathan Heywood of Concord. He had been born in 1717, she around 1727. They had six children. The fifth was Abiel, born on 9 Dec 1759.

On 8 Jan 1768, Sarah Heywood died, aged forty-one. Some of her children were still young; Abiel had recently turned eight.

On 23 August of the same year, Jonathan remarried. His new wife was listed as “Rebeckah Rise, of Sudbury,” in the Concord records and as “Mrs. Rebecca Rice” in the Concord records.

Calculating from Rebecca Heywood’s reported age when she died in 1801, she had been born in 1714. So Jonathan Heywood had married an older woman as his second wife, not a younger one. Rebecca Rice might also have been a widow, but I can’t find an earlier marriage in Sudbury.

Jonathan Heywood died on 18 July 1774, short of his second sixth anniversary. According to the custom of the time, his property was to be held for the benefit of his children, but his widow could continue to live in the family house. His minor children, including fourteen-year-old Abiel, would have a guardian appointed to protect their interests.

Thus, Ripley used the term “son-in-law” in an old-fashioned sense to mean stepson. And “aged lady” to mean a widow of about sixty-one.

The “house of Mrs. Heywood” was the house where Rebecca Heywood lived for more than a quarter-century after her husband Jonathan died. Abiel Heywood, and quite possibly some of his siblings, were there with his stepmother on 19 Apr 1775 when Dr. Abel Prescott arrived, wounded in the arm and hunted by regulars.

Abiel Heywood grew up, went to Harvard, also trained as a doctor, but spent most of his time on Concord civic affairs. On the occasion of his first marriage, at age sixty-two, he bought his first pair of pantaloons, abandoning Revolutionary-style knee breeches. He lived long enough to tell stories at the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of war.

TOMORROW: Assessing Dr. Prescott’s wound.

Getting to Know Dr. Samuel Prescott

One of the questions after my online talk for the Army Heritage Center Foundation last week led me to discussing Dr. Samuel Prescott and how little we know about him. So I decided to look into what we do know.

Dr. Prescott is remembered for joining Paul Revere and William Dawes on their ride west from Lexington center in the small hours of 19 Apr 1775. Revere’s 1798 account is largely responsible for that clear identification. The silversmith wrote: “We were overtaken by a young Docter Prescot, whom we found to be a high Son of Liberty.”

Some authors have claimed that Prescott was already active in the Patriot resistance, carrying messages. I’ve never seen evidence of that beyond the fact that Revere called him “a high Son of Liberty.” But look at how that clause began, “whom we found…” Revere and Dawes, who were active in the network and in Revere’s case had been out to Concord before, didn’t know Prescott. They had to get to know him.

Note also how Revere, aged forty, recalled this rider as “a young Docter Prescot.” Samuel Prescott was only twenty-three years old. In fact, he was the fourth Dr. Prescott in Concord, after his father, Dr. Abel Prescott (1718–1805), and his brothers, Benjamin (1745–1830) and Abel, Jr., who had just turned twenty-six. (Their mother had died the previous July.)

(I’m following the dates that appear in The Prescott Memorial, published by a family member in 1870. Find-a-Grave gives a different date in 1749 for Abel, Jr.’s birth without citing a source. The family doesn’t appear in Concord’s published vital records.)

Revere warned his companions that there were British army officers on the road that night, so they should be prepared. And:

I likewise mentioned, that we had better allarm all the Inhabitents till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it, and said, he would stop with either of us, for the people between that & Concord knew him, & would give the more credit to what we said.

The elder Dr. Abel Prescott had treated people in that region for decades, succeeding his own father and elder brother. He had probably brought his sons along on calls for training.

In Lincoln, while Prescott and Dawes visited a house together, Revere spotted two riders up ahead. He thought they were behaving like the army officers who had nearly stopped him in Charlestown. He called for his companions to join him, thinking three Patriots could handle two officers. Instead, “in an Instant I was surrounded by four.”

Revere continued:

The Docter being foremost, he came up; and we tryed to git past them; but they being armed with pistols & swords, they forced us in to the pasture;—the Docter jumped his Horse over a low Stone wall, and got to Concord.

Revere had nothing more to say about Prescott. Concord sources confirm that he reached his home town with the Bostonians’ warnings and then continued on west to Acton and Stow.

Meanwhile, Dr. Abel Prescott, Jr., mounted and carried the same news to Framingham and Sudbury, south of Concord. Later in the morning he tried to return to Concord over the South Bridge, only to find regulars from the 10th Regiment of Foot guarding that position.

TOMORROW: Wounded and hiding.

“Battle of Red Horse Tavern” in Sudbury, 29 Oct.

On Saturday, 29 October, the Wayside Inn in Sudbury will host the annual Revolutionary War reenactment known as the “Battle of Red Horse Tavern.”

As organized primarily by the Sudbury Companies of Militia & Minute, this event isn’t an attempt to recreate a specific historic battle. Rather, it depicts a typical skirmish around a country tavern commanding a useful road.

The event page promises colonial music, sutlers selling stuff, handcrafts demonstrations, cannon firing, and lots of reenactors.

There are two scheduled engagements, one at 11:15 A.M. in the south field and a larger one at 1:30 P.M. beginning at the inn and moving to the east field across the street. At other times, there may be smaller scenarios for visitors and the reenactors to enjoy, and people can view the camps.

The Wayside Inn can provide sit-down meals and drinks, as well as restrooms and souvenirs. Within walking distance are are related historic buildings preserved by Henry Ford, including a chapel, schoolhouse, and grist mill.

This event is free and open to the public. There are designated parking areas to keep the roads safe. Prepare for New England fall weather, including possible damp grass.

Frank W. Coburn’s Twenty-three Towns—and Four Extra?

About a century ago, Frank Warren Coburn of Lexington set out to document the names of the militiamen who fought in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Not just the men who marched, but those in companies that exchanged fire with the British troops.

Coburn scoured the available sources to determine which towns’ companies probably saw fighting. Then he went through the Massachusetts state archives, looking for payrolls submitted from those towns. He also sought lists of militiamen from other sources, such as town histories and manuscripts.

Coburn printed all the names he found in an appendix to his 1912 history (full title: The Battle of April 19, 1775, in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown, Massachusetts). His list of towns was:

• Lexington, of course
• Concord, Acton, Bedford, Lincoln, Billerica, Chelmsford, Framingham, Reading, Sudbury, Woburn; all “entered the contest at Concord,” which could mean either at the North Bridge or later as the regulars withdrew from the town
• Cambridge, which “entered the contest at Lincoln”
• Newton, which “entered the contest at Lexington”
• Brookline, Watertown, Medford, Malden, Roxbury, Dedham, Needham, Lynn, Beverly, and Danvers, which all “entered the contest at Arlington”

Twenty-three towns—but Coburn’s appendix also included four more places.

He listed Arlington separately from Cambridge even though in 1775 Arlington was a precinct of Cambridge called Menotomy. Coburn didn’t find a militia muster roll for Capt. Benjamin Locke’s company from that area. Instead, he relied on town histories by Lucius R. Paige and Samuel A. Smith.

It’s worth noting that Coburn didn’t treat Burlington and Winchester the same way. Those towns calved off of Woburn in the 1799 and 1850, respectively, and militiamen from those areas were part of the Woburn companies. But Burlington and Winchester didn’t get their own entries as Arlington did. Likewise, Carlisle was treated as part of Concord, Wayland as part of Sudbury, and so on. 

Coburn also began his appendix with a statement setting off three more towns:

These Companies were all participants, with the exception of those of Dracut, Stow, and Westford. I have given them, as they came so nearly into the contest.

That implies Coburn decided to give the men from those towns an honorable mention for trying extra hard.

That certainly seems to be the case for Dracut, located up at the New Hampshire border. That town’s company made much better time than their neighbors. Coburn wrote, “The men of Dracut did not reach the scene of actual conflict but tried to, and came so near the British rear guard as to deserve a place in this record.” Good effort, Dracut! Way to hustle!

In similar fashion, Coburn wrote, “The men from Westford did not reach Concord in time to enter the engagement, but pursued the British so closely as to deserve especial mention.” And the same sentence about Stow.

As I noted yesterday, Stow actually suffered a casualty in the battle: Daniel Conant, wounded. However, he lived in the part of the Stow that became Maynard in 1871. The Stow Independent reported in 2014:

Conant wasn’t on the [William] Whitcomb company’s list, where he should have been. The theory is he lived closer to North Maynard—and, hence, Concord—at the time, so he marched ahead on his own…

In that case, Conant’s position within shooting range wouldn’t say anything about how close the Stow companies got.

At another point in his book, Coburn wrote that one Stow company “did not reach North Bridge until about noon, too late to be in the action there, but in ample time to be active in the pursuit.” And the three companies from Westford also “reached the North Bridge too late, but were active afterwards.”

What did Coburn mean by “active” or “active in the pursuit”? Especially when he concluded that those same companies were not “participants” but “came…nearly into the contest”? Did they come in sight of the redcoat column, but not within firing range? If so, did they conceivably affect the British soldiers’ behavior? And what about the Salem regiment, which also reportedly came close enough to see the redcoats?

TOMORROW: Another analysis, skirmish by skirmish.

Fifes and Drums in Sudbury, 25 Sept.

I took this photograph at the 2003 Sudbury Colonial Faire and Muster of Fyfe & Drum. It was the first time I’d seen the William Diamond Junior Fife & Drums Corps, which had formed the previous year.

Since then that corps’ repertoire and uniforms have both become more elaborate. For all I know some of the musicians above are in concert halls or operating rooms or Congress.

The 2021 Sudbury Colonial Faire is scheduled to take place this Saturday, 25 September, from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. It will be hosted as usual by the Sudbury Companies of Militia & Minute and the Sudbury Ancient Fyfe & Drum Companie on the grounds of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn. Admission is $3 for adults, free for children.

The outdoor fair features dozens of fife and drums corps, sutlers, crafts demonstrations, games, contra dances, and lots more, including food vendors for the hungry. The Grand Parade of music will begin at noon, and then each group will perform on the field over the course of the afternoon.

More to See at History Camp America 2021

Yesterday I shared the video preview of my presentation at History Camp America 2021, coming up on 10 July.

There are seven more video previews of sessions at this page, ranging from Fort Ticonderoga in the north to the Buffalo Soldier National Museum in ths south.

Here are more scheduled History Camp America sessions with some link to Revolutionary New England:

• Video tour of Fort Ticonderoga
• Video tour of Buckman Tavern in Lexington
• “Reimagining America: The Maps of Lewis and Clark” by Carolyn Gilman
• “The Amphibious Assault on Long Island August 1776” by Ross Schwalm
• “Saunkskwa, Sachem, Minister: native kinship and settler church kinship in 17th and 18th-century New England” by Lori Rogers-Stokes
• “‘Thrown into pits’: how were the bodies of the nineteen hanged Salem ‘witches’ really treated?” by Marilynne K. Roach
• “Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates” by Eric Jay Dolin
• “Inconvenient Founders: Thomas Young and the Forgotten Disrupters of the American Revolution” by Scott Nadler
• “Slaves in the Puritan Village: The Untold History of Colonial Sudbury” by Jane Sciacca
• “Surviving the Lash: Corporal Punishment and British Soldiers’ Careers” by Don Hagist
• “Saving John Quincy Adams From Alligators and Mole People” by Howard Dorre
• “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour and National Coherence – The Lafayette Trail” by Julien Icher
• “Boston’s Green Dragon Tavern: The Headquarters of the Revolution” by Andrew Cotten
• “The Fairbanks House of Dedham: The House, The Myth, The Legend” by Stuart Christie
• “First Amendment Origin Stories & James Madison Interview” by Jane Hampton Cook & Kyle Jenks
• “Historic Marblehead – A Walking Tour” by Judy Anderson
• “The Second Battle of Lexington & Concord: re-inventing the history of the opening engagements of the American Revolution” by Richard C. Wiggin
• “To Arms: How Adams, Revere, Mason, and Henry Helped to Unify their Respective Colonies” by Melissa Bryson

Plus, there are a hefty selection of other sessions about history farther afield, before and after.

Again, registration costs $94.95, and for another $30 folks can receive a box of goodies from History Camp sponsors and participating historical sites. Registrants can watch videos and participate in scheduled live online discussions on 10 July, and will have access to the entire video library for a year.

A Preview of History Camp America 2021

Via Vimeo, here’s a preview of my video presentation “Washington in Cambridge and the Siege of Boston” prepared for History Camp America 2021, an online event coming up on 10 July.

I’ve presented at History Camp Boston since its beginning and at a couple of Pioneer Valley History Camps as well. They’re fun events that bring together academic historians, public historians, living historians, independent historians, and unabashed history buffs (often overlapping categories) to learn about all sorts of topics and research.

Unfortunately, for the last two years the Covid-19 pandemic has made large public get-togethers risky. In 2020 the History Camp organizing team produced America’s Summer Road Trip instead.

This year, the team invites people to register for History Camp America, gaining access to over two dozen video presentations covering a wide range of subjects (listed here). Registration costs $94.95, and for another $30 folks can receive a box of goodies from History Camp sponsors and participating historical sites. Households who register can watch videos and participate in scheduled live online discussions on 10 July, and they’ll have access to the entire video library for a year.

When I first thought about presenting at History Camp America, I pictured another live Zoom talk. But we’ve seen a lot of those, right? Then Lee Wright of History Camp and I developed a way to take better advantage of the video format by recording segments at more than half a dozen historical sites linked to Gen. George Washington’s mission in Massachusetts in 1775 and 1776.

We still have stuff to learn about making such videos, from wardrobe choice and collecting good sound next to traffic to remembering which of the four lessons I talk about is number two. But overall I’m pleased with the way this video turned out. I’ll tune in on 10 July to offer commentary and answer questions in the session chat room. I hope you folks will join me!

Wayside Inn Foundation Events, 26 Jan. and 2 Feb.

The Wayside Inn Foundation, the nonprofit wing of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury, will host two online events in the next couple of weeks.

Tuesday, 26 January, 7:00 P.M.
“Sudbury’s Patriots of Color and the World of the American Revolution”

Benjamin Remillard, a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire, will discuss his most recent research about the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the enlistment of men of color representing Sudbury after those battles, and the later lives of veterans of color.

Remillard has taught history at several universities throughout New England, including Regis College, Mass. Bay Community College, and U.N.H., and has co-led service trips to the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. He has also published and presented papers on various aspects of early American history, including indigenous memorialization efforts on Boston Harbor’s Deer Island and in Mystic, Connecticut.

Access to this program costs $10, or $5 for Wayside Inn Foundation members. Register online here.

Tuesday, 2 February, 7:00 P.M.
“Taverns of the American Revolution”

This event is a book talk, a cocktail-making demonstration, and a virtual road trip to the surviving taverns of the thirteen original colonies.

Adrian Covert, author of Taverns of the American Revolution: The Battles, Booze, and Barrooms of the Revolutionary War, will present the research that led to his book about the public houses that played a role in shaping the American Revolution and can still be visited today, including Longfellow’s Wayside Inn.

“To drink at a surviving tavern of the American Revolution is to interact with history on an entirely different level,” says Covert. In discovering these places, he adds, “The best part of surviving taverns of the American Revolution is that for them history hasn’t stopped. These aren’t museums, these are 250-year-old conversations about politics, culture, food and life.” Several of those historic places are within a short driving distance of Boston.

Via video, attendees will also learn from bartender David Gordon how to make the Wayside Inn’s signature historic cocktails, the Coow Woow and Stonewall, or a new non-alcoholic beverage, the Prancing Red Horse.

‍Access to this program costs $10, or $5 for Wayside Inn Foundation members, students, and restaurant workers and bartenders. People aged 21 or older may purchase Cocktail Kits for $15. People may also purchase Mocktail kits for $5. Those kits include the recipes and ingredients needed to make the beverages. Beverage kits may be picked up from the Wayside Inn on Saturday, 30 January, between 10:00 A.M. and noon, or by appointment. Register online here.

Copies of Adrian Covert’s Taverns of the American Revolution may be purchased in advance via online booksellers or the Mount Vernon Gift Shop.

For more information about the Wayside Inn Foundation, including membership and its Fund for Diverse Programming, e-mail [email protected].

Women Who Voted in a Colonial Massachusetts Town Meeting

Ten years ago, I noted the legend of Lydia Taft, a widow in Uxbridge who was said to have voted in a town meeting in 1756.

That statement appeared in print in 1881, in the publication of a speech delivered seventeen years before. That book cited no records from 1756 to support the claim.

I opined that it would have been very unlikely for no one to comment on a woman voting, especially when she supposedly broke a tie on a controversial tax. “It would be nice to see the official records,” I wrote.

Last month an unknown commenter stated: “Uxbridge records for the period are extant both as physical documents in the possession of the Town Clerk and as part of the Holbrook group's microfiche collection. There is no mention of Lydia having voted.”

Just now I came across this Mental Floss article by Jocelyn Sears, also based on a look at actual town records:

But according to records from Uxbridge’s town meetings, there wasn’t any meeting on October 30, 1756, and the town did not appropriate any funds that year for the war or for unspecified colonial purposes. (They did vote to raise money for the local schools, to repair the roads, and to pay the town minister’s salary.) Further, even if Lydia Taft had voted, we’d have no way of knowing, since the official minutes for the town meetings do not list the names of people voting or their votes. The minutes simply state when a vote happened and that a given measure passed or failed.

So we can file the story of Lydia Taft voting under myths.

Sears’s article also discusses a documented case of women’s votes being recorded in Sudbury in 1655. At issue was whether the selectmen had apportioned new land fairly in 1649, and whether common grazing rights should depend on the amount of (unfairly?) apportioned land. Sears writes:

Jane Goodenow and Mary Loker were both widows of men who received land in the original division of the meadow. As their husbands’ heirs, each had a stake in this question of sizing the commons. Jane Goodenow owned 25 acres of meadow land, and thus benefited from any policies that favored those with a large acreage. Mary Loker, on the other hand, only owned 5 acres of meadow, and she recognized that tying grazing rights to meadow acreage would disadvantage her. As landowners, both women were theoretically eligible to vote in Sudbury, where the access to the franchise depended on property, though according to custom, women did not vote. But on January 22, 1655, Goodenow and Loker packed into the Sudbury meeting house with over 50 other people to determine how the town commons would be sized.

Acting for herself and as a proxy for a (male) neighbor, Goodenow issued two votes in favor of tying grazing rights to meadow ownership, while Loker issued two votes against the measure (it’s unclear if she was also acting as a proxy).

The good news is that Sears’s article included links to images of Sudbury town records. The bad news is that those links have broken.

But—good news again—I found a new link through Digital Commonwealth. This is actually a handwritten transcription of the seventeenth-century original, mandated by a vote in 1857. Which is why we can, you know, read it.

The preceding page records an official town meeting on 22 Jan 1655 (1654 as British colonies dated years then) and concludes with this call for a vote:

You that judge the act of the select men, for sizing the commons to be a righteous act, and do consent with them in their act, discover it by drawing yourselves together, in the one end of the meeting house, to this vote there appeared, those that follow. (see the other side of this leaf.)

On the left side of the next page spread are the lists of people for and against the measure. Halfway down the first column is “Jane Goodenow widow for herself and Andrew Belcher.” In the right column at the same line is “Mary Luker widow two votes.”

Following the division, there were disputes about whether all the people listed were eligible to vote. As Sears points out, no one objected to the widows Goodenow and Luker participating.

In 1656, the year after this protest, three of the men who had voted against the Sudbury selectmen’s action led some families a few miles west and organized a petition to the Massachusetts General Court to start a new town. That soon became Marlborough.

I tried to find more information about Jane Goodenow and Mary Luker in the Sudbury town records. Unfortunately, because it was a young town, formed in 1638, an older couple that moved there with their children already born wouldn’t show up in the local records of marriages and births.

I believe that Jane Goodenow was the widow who died on 15 July 1666. Her will identified her late husband as named John. John Goodenow, Sr., died on 28 Mar 1654, in the crucial window between the granting of the land and the vote on the common. His will was abstracted here. The Goodenows had a daughter Jane, who married Henry Wait or Wight by 1654, and they had a son named John by the time widow Goodenow died. (This genealogy webpage contains entries for the Goodenows, but I think some of the identifications are mistaken and can’t verify others.)

Mary Luker’s husband was also named John. They had a daughter named Mary on 28 Sept 1653. Sometime in that year, John died. I can’t find any further information about Mary Luker in either Sudbury or Marlborough.

But we can remember the names of Jane Goodenow and Mary Luker as women who, by virtue of being unmarried widows with property, participated in a protest vote in the Sudbury meetinghouse in January 1655.

Getting Out of Marlborough in 1775

When we left Capt. William Brown and Ens. Henry DeBerniere, they were in a back room of Henry Barnes’s house in Marlborough, listening as he tried to send away a member of the local committee of correspondence.

Dr. Samuel Curtis had shown up that evening of 1 Mar 1775, uninvited and asking to stay to supper. Barnes told him the doctor that he couldn’t stay because the family already had company.

Dr. Curtis then turned to a child—DeBerniere wrongly understood the girl to be Barnes’s daughter—and asked “who her father had got with him.”

According to the ensign, “the child innocently answered that she had asked her pappa, but he told her it was not her business.”

Still suspicious but unable to learn more, the doctor left. Brown and DeBerniere decided he was probably going to gather his political allies, so they should stay only a couple of hours to rest. They would leave at midnight, regardless of the snowy weather.

But even that was too leisurely, DeBerniere later wrote:

we got some supper on the table and were just beginning to eat, when Barnes (who had been making enquiry of his servants) found they [local Patriots] intended to attack us, and then he told us plainly he was very uneasy for us, that we could be no longer in safety in that town: upon which we resolved to set off immediately

The two officers had been inside for only twenty minutes, they estimated. Barnes took them “out of his house by the stables, and directed us a bye road which was to lead us a quarter of a mile from the town.”

Brown and DeBerniere hiked through the blowing snow until they reached “the hills that command the causeway at Sudbury, and went into a little wood where we eat a bit of bread that we took from Mr. Barnes’s, and eat a little snow to wash it down.”

At the next house, a man came out and asked Brown, “What do you think will become of you now?” By this time the officers were totally on edge, unable to tell whether the people they met recognized who they were and were helping to plan an assault or just thought it strange for two strangers to be out walking in the night during a snowstorm.

In Sudbury the officers encountered “three or four horsemen.” Those riders moved to either side of the road, letting the strangers pass between them while they watched silently.

Brown and DeBerniere reached the safety of Isaac Jones’s Golden Ball Tavern in Weston about 10:30 P.M., having walked 32 miles that day. The next day, the officers got into Boston, where they were safe. They wrote out a detailed report for Gen. Thomas Gage, which is our source for all this information. They turned over sketches and maps of the route out of Worcester in case the general planned a march that way.

Meanwhile, back in Marlborough, soon after the British scouts left, there was yet another knock on Henry Barnes’s door. This time the whole Marlborough committee of correspondence showed up and “demanded” to see the visitors. Barnes insisted those two men were not army officers “but relations of his wife’s, from Penobscot, and were gone to Lancaster.” According to DeBerniere’s report:

they then searched his house from top to bottom, looked under the beds and in their cellars and when they found we were gone, they told him if they had caught us in his house they would have pulled it about his ears.

Among the Marlborough committee-men was Alpheus Woods. Five years earlier, Woods had also been on the town committee to make Barnes follow the non-importation agreement. Barnes’s supporters had accused Woods of sending the merchant a letter threatening to burn down his potash works and house. Now Woods had nearly caught Barnes harboring British army spies.

Henry Barnes departed Marlborough a few days after his busy evening. His wife Christian Barnes went to stay with her friend Elizabeth Inman until past the actual outbreak of fighting in April. Taking refuge in Boston, hey left the Marlborough estate in the hands of Henry’s adult niece, Catharine Goldthwait.

Under Massachusetts committee of safety guidelines, local committees weren’t supposed to confiscate property from Loyalists as long as some family members were still living peacefully on it. But the Marlborough committee including Alpheus Woods did take property from the Barnes estate, including furniture they loaned to Col. Henry Knox. Catharine Goldthwait complained about that to the General Court, to no avail.

In February 1776, Henry Barnes learned that a bequest worth almost £2,000 was awaiting him in London. He and Christian sailed that month, ahead of the end of the siege. Catharine Goldthwait followed a few years later, and Massachusetts confiscated her uncle’s property. Henry and Christian Barnes received a small Loyalist pension until he died in 1808.

“Drive them British from that bridge”

As I discussed yesterday, the militia companies from the western side of Sudbury were better equipped than those on the east side. Under Lt. Col. Ezekiel How, Capt. Aaron Haynes, and Capt. John Nixon, they responded first when the alarm arrived on 19 Apr 1775.

Among those west Sudbury men was Josiah Haynes, a farmer born in 1696. He had served as a selectman and became a deacon in 1733. At age seventy-eight, Haynes no longer required to do militia duty—he was getting too old for that stuff. Nevertheless, on the morning of 19 April he turned out with his neighbors.

According to Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 history of Concord, the two companies “received orders from a person stationed at the entrance of the town for the purpose of a guide, to proceed to the north instead of the south bridge.” That Concord man was later identified as Stephen Barrett (1750-1824), son of Col. James Barrett, commander of a Middlesex County militia regiment.

J. H. Temple’s 1887 History of Framingham said that the first order for Capt. Nixon’s Sudbury minutemen was to halt within sight of the South Bridge. At mid-morning British regulars showed up to hold that choke point as others searched designated properties in town.

Some Sudbury men wanted to attack those soldiers. Deacon Haynes reportedly told the captain, “If you don’t go and drive them British from that bridge, I shall call you a coward!” Nixon replied, “I should rather be called a coward by you, than called to account by my superior officer, for disobedience of orders.” Eventually orders arrived for the Sudbury men to march on the North Bridge by a roundabout route that took them past the Barrett farm.

Stephen Barrett’s father was on horseback with the Concord companies, which had withdrawn as the British column arrived and massed on the far side of the North Bridge on Punkatasset Hill. Barrett was also the principal custodian of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s artillery and other supplies in town. [See The Road to Concord for more details.]

Stephen’s mother, Rebeckah, was at the family home, watching British soldiers search the place for those weapons. Thanks to hard work by the Barretts and their neighbors in recent days, all of that ordnance had been hauled away and hidden. The regulars found only some carriage wheels, which they set about burning.

The Sudbury companies passed within sight of the Barrett farm while the British were at work. Lt. Col. How reportedly looked at the scene and said, “If any blood has been shed, not one of the rascals shall escape.” Shattuck wrote that he rode on alone to find out for sure, “disguising himself”—which might just have meant leaving his weapons behind so he looked like an ordinary farmer.

According to an 1875 account in Harper’s Magazine, How went all the way to Barrett’s farm and even talked with some of the British officers. Stephen Barrett also returned home around this time. Soldiers realized he was a Barrett and put him under arrest. Rebeckah Barrett intervened, pointing out that Stephen was her son, not her husband.

How rejoined the Sudbury men and they moved on, avoiding a clash with British troops for the second time that morning. But as they neared Punkatasset Hill, the provincials and the regulars started trading shots. The Sudbury companies hurried forward and joined in pushing the regulars away from the North Bridge before withdrawing again.

All the provincial companies that had arrived in Concord moved east, skirting the town center and taking positions to attack the British soldiers as soon as they left the populated area. That was the real start of the battle. The Sudbury militiamen joined in that fight, following the regulars east.

Somewhere in Lexington, old Deacon Haynes was shot and died. Here is his gravestone in Sudbury, courtesy of Find-a-Grave.

The inscription reads:

In Memory of
DEACON JOSIAH HAYNES
who died
in Freedoms Cause ye
19th of April, 1775.
In the 79th
Year of his Age.

Come listen all unto this call
Which God doth make today
For You must die as well as I
And pass from hence away

A Snapshot of the Sudbury Militia in Spring 1775

I’m cleverly using yesterday’s break for event announcements to segue away from Lexington on 19 Apr 1775 and on to Concord. Or, actually, to Sudbury.

Ezekiel How (1720-1796) was a veteran of the Seven Years’ War and a lieutenant colonel in the Middlesex County militia based in Sudbury. He was also the proprietor of a tavern that eventually grew into Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, shown here during a reenactment.

On 27 March, How made out a report about the readiness of the militia companies in his town. According to Alfred Sereno Hudson’s History of Sudbury, the innkeeper listed:

Capt. Moses Stone’s Company — 92 men of them, 18 no guns, at Least one third part ye. firelocks unfit for Sarvis others wais un a quipt.

Capt. Aaron Hayns Company — 60 men well provided With Arms the most of them Provided with Bayonets or hatchets a boute one quarter Part with Catrige Boxes.

Capt. Joseph Smith’s Company consisting of 75 able Bodied men forty well a quipt twenty Promis to find and a quip themselves Emedetly fifteen no guns and other wais un a quipt

The Troop [of horse] Capt. Isaac Locer — 21 Besides what are on the minit Role well a quipt

The “minit Role” covered two more companies under the command of Capt. John Nixon and Capt. Nathaniel Cudworth. Those men were well equipped and engaged in extra training. In addition, there was an “Alarm list” of older men under Jabez Puffer not required to train but expected to turn out in an emergency.

The militia companies were organized by region. Haynes and Nixon commanded men from the west side of Sudbury, Smith and Cudworth men from the east side (which split off in 1780 and eventually became Wayland), and Stone men from the “Lanham District” in the south.

According to Lt. Col. How, about half of the men in Stone’s and Smith’s companies weren’t equipped for fighting. Stone had the largest company at 92, but 20% of those men had “no guns” and “at Least one third” of the remainder had guns “unfit for Sarvis.” Of Smith’s men, a little more than half were “well a quipt” with another quarter promising to get right on that task.

Less than three weeks after How’s report, people in Sudbury heard that British soldiers were headed to the neighboring town of Concord. And it’s no surprise that Capt. Haynes’s well equipped company, along with Capt. Nixon’s minutemen, responded faster than their closer but more poorly armed neighbors to the east.

All the Sudbury militia and minute companies, and the troop of horse, eventually did go into action on 19 April. But only Haynes and Nixon’s men, along with Lt. Col. How, arrived in time for the fight at the North Bridge.

TOMORROW: The West Sudbury men arrive at the South Bridge.

A Sampling of the 2019 Battle Road Season

The Patriots’ Day season starts this Saturday, 6 April, with three annual events in three towns:

• Bedford Pole Capping in Bedford, 10:30 A.M.
• Meriam’s Corner Exercise in Concord, 1:00 P.M.
• Paul Revere Capture Ceremony in Lincoln, 3:00 P.M.

Two of the events thus commemorated took place on 19 Apr 1775. The pole capping is a more recent community celebration, though Liberty Poles were undoubtedly part of the Revolutionary landscape.

Here’s something I don’t recall seeing before: The town of Lexington has the domain name patriotsday.com. It redirects to the town website, which includes this page of local events from Saturday, 13 April, to Monday, 15 April—legally Patriots’ Day. These opportunities include tours of the Lexington Historical Society’s museums and reenactments of the fights in Lexington.

Back to the Minute Man National Historical Park website for a listing of events it hosts, and to Battleroad.org for related events elsewhere, including:

• Parker’s Revenge, Saturday, 13 April, 1:00 P.M.
• Jason Russell House fight, Arlington, Sunday, 14 April, noon. 
• “Warlike Preparations” at the Barrett Farm, Sunday, 14 April, 1:00-4:00 P.M.
• Lincoln Fife & Drum Salute, Sunday, 14 April, 2:00-4:00 P.M.
• Robbins’s Ride in Acton, Sunday, 14 April, 5:00-6:00 P.M.
• Revere’s arrival at the Lexington parsonage, Sunday, 14 April, 11:30 P.M.
• Marches from Stow and Westford, Monday, 15 April, arriving at the bridge about 9:00 A.M.
• North Bridge Fight and Concord Parade, Monday, 15 April, 8:30-10:00 A.M.

There are also events that by tradition take place on the actual anniversaries instead of the legal holiday:

• Lantern procession and Ceremony at North Bridge, Thursday, 18 April, 7:45-8:45 P.M.
• Sudbury Militia March, Friday, 19 April, arriving at the bridge about 11:30 A.M. 

And back to Minute Man Park for “The War Has Begun” on Saturday, 20 April, reenacting how Massachusetts communities responded to the strain of the siege of Boston.

This is just a sampling of the historical events taking place around Patriots’ Day, drawn from Middlesex County. Many other communities have their own traditional commemorations.

Declaring Independence , 27 June–July 4

In connection with other historical organizations and venues, the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area and the American Antiquarian Society are presenting a series of public performances of “Declaring Independence—Then & Now.”

These are presentations about forty minutes long in which a narrator and five costumed re-enactors bring to life the Declaration of Independence as seen from the local level in the community where they are speaking.

Each presentation includes voices from the host town or city in 1776. That spring, the Massachusetts legislature invited town meetings to discuss whether it was time to declare independence from Great Britain. Those responses, as well as newspaper essays and letters, create the tapestry of public debate.

“Declaring Independence” presentations then proceed to a complete reading of the Continental Congress’s Declaration of July 1776 (with the obscure bits explained). Finally, the presenters and audience engaged in a moderated discussion of the issues that the Declaration raises today.

The upcoming performances of “Declaring Independence” are:

27 June, 7:00-8:30 P.M.
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester

29 June, 6:00-8:00 P.M.
Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, Sudbury, with the Sudbury Historical Society

1 July, 7:00-8:30 P.M.
First Parish Church, Fitchburg, with the Fitchburg Public Library & Fitchburg Historical Society

1-4 July, 10:00 A.M. & 12:00 noon
Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge

2 July, 1:00, 3:00 & 5:00 P.M.
Old North Church, Boston, with Boston’s Harborfest

4 July, 7:00-8:30 P.M.
The Depot, Lexington, with the Lexington Historical Society

Contact the host organizations for more information about each event. “Declaring Independence” is an outgrowth of the Patriots’ Paths project, in which Freedom’s Way historian Mary Fuhrer works with members of a community to explore its primary documents about America’s move toward independence. If you want your local historical organization to help create and host a future presentation, contact Freedom’s Way.

“A good bit of adventure, audacity, and downright Yankee ingenuity”

When I was in Williamsburg last week, George Wildrick kindly alerted me to the fact that Muzzleloader magazine had reviewed The Road to Concord in its September-October 2016 issue.

So I really must share some choice extracts from Joshua Shepherd’s “For the Bookshelf” review:

One of the pleasant aspects of studying history is the realization that new discoveries can either challenge or further illuminate our understanding of the past. With the release of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War, author J. L. Bell has chronicled a little-known episode in the turbulent months preceding the outbreak of colonial rebellion. . . .

For this volume, author J. L. Bell narrowly focuses his attention on the tense struggle for control of four particular pieces of artillery: specifically, four brass guns—state of the art weapon systems for the 18th century—which had previously been purchased by the Massachusetts legislature for the use of her militia. As both sides prepared for the possibility of armed confrontation, they scrambled to get control of all available armaments, and British General Thomas Gage anxiously placed the four Massachusetts guns under Redcoat guard. Boston Patriots, naturally, had other plans, and surreptitiously seized all four cannons, which were then smuggled out of town. The obscure story of the cannons’ “theft” is a suspenseful tale that treats readers to a good bit of adventure, audacity, and downright Yankee ingenuity. . . .

Few writers are as qualified to cover this topic as author J. L. Bell. A prolific researcher and author, Bell operates the historical blog [www.boston1775.net] and focuses his work on Massachusetts during the War for Independence. He’s a skilled historian with a deep command of his subject matter. The book was, at least for this reviewer, difficult to put down. This will likely be the experience of anyone with a serious interest in early America, the Revolutionary War, and the epic fight for Liberty that erupted on The Road to Concord.

Thanks to Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Wildrick, and Muzzleloader magazine!

(The same issue includes Vincent C. Spiotti’s article on how Sudbury celebrates its Revolutionary heritage with colonial reenactments and musters.)

The “juvenile sports” of Two Boston Boys in the Late 1750s

In 22 Dec 1788, the Rev. David McClure wrote from Windsor, Connecticut, to one of his childhood friends from Boston:

Dear Sir,—On the footing of that juvenile friendship and acquaintance with you with which I have been honored, and which was kept alive to our riper years, I now do myself the pleasure to address a line to you, to assure you of my respectful and affectionate remembrance of you, and of the satisfaction with which I sometimes call to mind those scenes of innocent amusement and play in which we were mutually engaged when we were boys.

I have often thought of our attempts to imitate the man who flew from the steeple of the North Church, by sliding down an oar from the small buildings in your father’s house-yard at Wheeler’s Point; and by letting fly little wooden men from the garret window on strings. Have you forgotten that diversion?

McClure was recalling how a traveling daredevil named John Childs had “flown” from Christ Church in the North End in September 1757, as discussed way back here. Childs actually slid face-first down a rope, which is why the boys at Wheeler’s Point tried “sliding down an oar” and “letting letting fly little wooden men from the garret window on strings” to replicate his feat.

The minister’s old playmate was Henry Knox (shown above), then in New York as Secretary of War. He replied on 25 Jan 1789:

Our juvenile sports, and the joyful sensations they excited, are fresh in my mind; and what to me renders the remembrance particularly precious is, that I always flattered myself that our hearts and minds were similarly constructed.

This is one of our few authentic glimpses of Henry Knox as a boy in the 1750s. Within a few years, Henry’s father suffered business reversals and left his family, dying in the Caribbean in 1762. Henry became indentured to a bookseller, his first career.

On Monday, 7 November, I’ll speak to the Sudbury Companies of Militia & Minute about the events that allowed the launch of Henry Knox’s second career, as an artillery officer in the Continental Army. How did Gen. George Washington come to view his artillery regiment as in dire need of a shakeup? That talk will take place at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury at 8:00 or so, and I’ll have copies of The Road to Concord for signing.

“Children of the Revolution” Tour, 17 Sept.

Saturday, 17 September, is this year’s Cambridge Discovery Day. The city’s historical commission is promoting free walking tours in several neighborhoods, as laid out in the schedule here.

I’m going to lead a tour called “Children of the Revolution: Boys & Girls in Cambridge During the Siege of Boston.” The description explains:

Hear the stories of children caught up in the start of the Revolution as political refugees, members of the army, servants in generals’ houses, and more.

This is a new tour, though still focused on the territory around Harvard Square. That was the center of Cambridge in the 1770s, after all. We’ll start at the Tory Row marker on the corner of Brattle and Mason Streets at 3:00 P.M.

One child I plan to talk about was John Greenwood, who grew up in Boston’s North End. When the war broke out, he ran away from his uncle in Maine to make his way back down toward Boston, hoping to get into the besieged town to see his parents. But the ferry from Charlestown was cut off. He later wrote:

Charlestown was at the time generally deserted by the inhabitants, and the houses were, with few exceptions, empty; so, not knowing what to do nor where to go and without a penny in my pockets, if I remember rightly, I entered a very large tavern that was filled with all descriptions of people. Here I saw three or four persons whom I knew, and, my fife sticking in the front of my coat, they asked me, after many questions, to play them a tune. I complied forthwith, but although the fife is somewhat of a noisy instrument to pay upon, it could hardly be heard for the din and confusion around.

After I had rattled off several tunes, there was one Hardy Pierce [Boston man, corporal of Capt. T. T. Bliss’s company] who, with Enoch Howard [Boston man, enlisted as private in Capt. Lemuel Trescott’s company, 24 May 1775] and three or four others, invited me to go up to Cambridge to their quarters, as they called it. When there they tried to persuade me to enlist as a fifer, telling me it was only for eight months, and that I would receive eight dollars a month and be found in provisions; moreover, they calculated to quickly drive the British from Boston, when I would have an opportunity of seeing my parents.

Greenwood’s name as fifer appears on the roll of Capt. Bliss’s company dated 1 Aug 1775, which records his service so far as two months and six days—i.e., since the last week of May. He ended up serving almost two years.

[The photograph above shows the William Diamond Junior Fife & Drum Corps about fifteen years ago at the Sudbury Muster. That event is coming up again on 24 September.]

Saturday Events at Minute Man Park and the Wayside Inn

On this Saturday, 26 September, Minute Man National Historical Park is hosting open houses at its Battle Road Homes in Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord.

At the Captain William Smith House, the Lincoln Minute Men will conduct drill and musket-firing programs between 10:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. As I noted a year ago, the group helped to refurnish the house in genteel fashion.

At Hartwell Tavern, members of the Hive will demonstrate methods of food preservation: pickling; making relishes and ketchups; stringing beans; and potting, brining, and smoking meats. And of course, they’ll review of what every housewife knew about using her root cellar.

Other open-house sites in the park will include the Whittemore House in Lexington, the Merriam House in Concord, and the Col. James Barrett House in Concord.

Meanwhile, Saturday is also the date of the Sudbury Colonial Faire & Muster at the field across from Longfellow’s Wayside Inn. As sponsored by the Sudbury Companies of Militia & Minute and the Sudbury Ancient Fyfe & Drum Companie, this event will feature dozens of fife & drum bands, demonstrations of musket fire and contra-dance, farm animals, and games for kids. Admission is $2 for adults.

(I’ll be at the Wayside myself, speaking to a private group about the events of 1774.)

Reuben Brown, the Link Between Lexington and Concord

Reuben Brown was born in Sudbury in 1748. In 1770, soon after coming of age, he moved to Concord and established himself as a saddler. Three years later, on 12 May 1773, he married a girl from his old town, Mary (Polly) How. Their daughter Hepzibath arrived four months later on 15 September, and their second daughter Sally on 9 Mar 1775.

Also in early 1775, according to Concord historian Lemuel Shattuck, Brown made “cartouch-boxes, holsters, belts, and other articles of saddlery” for local militiamen. The town’s Liberty Pole stood in a field behind his shop.

But those weren’t Brown’s most significant contributions to the Battle of Lexington and Concord. He had a unique perspective on the action, as described in his highly wrought obituary in the 3 Oct 1832 The New England Farmer (reprinted from the Boston Courier):

Died at Concord, Mass. on the 25th ult. [i.e., of last month] Mr Reuben Brown, a rare specimen of that hardy, industrious, intelligent and fearless yeomanry which, fifty years ago, was the glory of the Commonwealth and the bulwark of the Union.

Mr Brown, who was a native of Sudbury and a grandson of the first minister of that ancient settlement, removed to Concord about the year 1771, and was of course just in season to witness the earliest scenes of the great Drama of the Age. He did witness them literally, indeed, for on the eventful morning of the 19th of April, long before day-break, he was on his way, alone, at the request of some of the Concord authorities, to reconnoitre the advance of the British to Lexington.

He reached the “Common” just as they were seen marching up the Boston road. He advised the American officers, who were wholly unprepared to meet an enemy, to withdraw; but they declined, chiefly from the firm belief, which their men shared with them, that the British would never think of firing upon them at all events.

Mr Brown waited to see the issue of the meeting—the blood of the first martyrs of American liberty—and he then returned rapidly to Concord and reported progress.

His work had now but commenced. His shop was closed—a large saddler’s establishment in which he had already fitted out several companies of cavalry and infantry—and then his house—standing on the main road in the village—and his wife with her infant children instructed to manage for herself in the woods north of the town, with many other females and infirm people of the place—

Mr. Brown then mounted his horse again, it being now about day-break, and commenced the task of alarming the neighboring country. And his efforts will need no comment when we say that he rode that day about 120 miles in the performance of this noble duty. The result of the exertions in which no single man probably bore so active a part as himself, is well known to all readers of a history which “the world has by heart.” On many other occasions he was equally efficient, though he did not happen to be at any time engaged in fighting the enemy in the field. Two of his brothers were at Bunker Hill.

Universally respected by his fellow citizens for his sound judgment, his energy, his industry, his public spirit, his cordial benevolence, and, above all, for that staunch old fashioned honesty which knew no shadow of turning—his gray hairs were crowned with the praise of a Patriot, and his death with the peace of a Christian. He came to his grave at the venerable age of 84.

Brown was thus the communication link between Lexington and Concord at the start of the fight. His report that the British troops were willing to shoot warned his own neighbors to be cautious about confronting those soldiers, putting off the confrontation in Concord for a few hours until more militia units arrived.

Reportedly, before leaving town the regulars took a chaise from Brown’s shop, perhaps to transport a wounded man. That man might well have been Lt. Edward Thoroton Gould—at least, men in Cambridge later took control of both Gould and Brown’s chaise. Reuben Brown also had a connection to another prisoner, Lt. Isaac Potter of the Marines: the provincials held him for a while in Brown’s house.

Here is an old photograph of that house from the collection of the Boston Public Library. Brown’s account books from a couple of decades later are at the Concord library.

“Red Horse Tavern” Reenactment in Sudbury, 1 Nov.

On Saturday, 1 November, Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury will host the annual “Battle of the Red Horse Tavern” reenactment. This event isn’t designed to recreate any specific fight in the Revolutionary War. Rather, it offers a chance to explore a typical skirmish scenario.

The host organization, the Sudbury Company of Militia and Minute, offers a program for this year’s event:

Start the day by listening to colonial music, talking with re-enactors, visiting sutlers, observing cannon firing demonstrations and more. Then watch as the Colonial and British armies battle for control of the Red Horse Tavern.

Eighteenth-century taverns were important in the Colonies as a place to hear the news and other current events, engage in commerce, conduct militia drills and provide respite for weary travelers. The Red Horse Tavern sitting along the Boston Post Road, the major east-west route to and from Boston and New York, was crucial in that anyone or anything travelling into or out of Boston to/from the west would have to pass by its door. Whichever side controlled the Tavern could control the flow of supplies, troops and information.

The Redcoats are determined to wrest control, no matter the cost, while the Colonists will do all they can to stop them and send them back to Boston.

Who will control the tavern? Come and find out.

11:45 A.M.-12:45 P.M.: Cannon demonstration, fyfe & drum music, 18th century fashion show, sutlers, mix-n-mingle with the re-enactors

1:00 P.M.: Formation & inspection of troops

1:15 P.M.: Battle of the Red Horse Tavern – near grist mill

2:30 P.M.: Battle of the Red Horse Tavern II – south field

Of course, in real life, rural Massachusetts wasn’t contested territory after 19 Apr 1775. The only British army to traverse that countryside was the Convention Army of P.O.W.’s after Gen. John Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga. But there were plenty of skirmishes over taverns, crossroads, and other key points elsewhere in the young U.S. of A.