USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Acton > Acton in history > Part 6
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It cost Davis, Hosmer and Hayward and hundreds ofothers, equally brave and worthy, their hearts' blood. It cost many an aged father and mother their darling son, many a wife her husband, many a Middlesex maid lier lover.
Oh, what a glorious, but oh, what a bloody day it was! That was the day which split in twain the Brit- ish empire never again to be united. What was the battle of Waterloo? What question did it settle? Why, simply who, of several kings, should wear the crown. Well, I always thought, ever since I read it, when a boy, that if I had fought on either side it would have been with Napoleon against the allied forces. But what is the question to me, or what is the question to you, or to any of us, or our children after us, if we are to be ruled over by crowned heads and hereditary monarchs ? What matters it who they are, or which one it shall be ?
In ancient times three hundred Greeks, under Le- onidas, stood in the pass of Thermopyla and for three successive days beat back and kept at bay five million Persians, led on by Xerxes, the Great. It was a gal- lant act, but did it preserve the blood-bought liberties of Greece? No. In time they were cloven down, and the land of Demosthenes and Solon marked for ages by the footsteps of the slave.
We weep over it, but we cannot alter it. But not so, thank God ! with " Concord fight," and by " Con-
THE BRONZE STATUE WHICH STANDS UPON THE SPOT WHERE CAPT. ISAAC DAVIS AND PRIVATE ABNER HOSMER FELL IN THE CONCORD FIGHT.
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cord fight," I say here, for fear of being misunderstood, I mean by "Concord " all the transactions of that day.
I regard them as one great drama, scene first of which was at Lexington early in the morning, when old Mrs. Harrington ealled up her son Jonathan, who alone, while I speak, survives of all that host on either side iu arms that day. He lives, blessed be God, he still lives ; I know him well, a trembling, but still breathing memento of the renowned past; yet linger- ing by mercy of God on these " mortal shores," if for nothing else, to wake up your sleeping sympathies and induee you, if anything could, to aid in the noble work of building over the bones of his slaughtered companions-in-arms, Davis, Hosmer and Hayward, such a monument as they deserve. Oh, I wish he was here. I wish he only stood on yonder platform, noble man !
"Concord fight " broke the iee. "Concord fight," the rush from the heights at North Bridge was the first open marshaled resistance to the King. Our fathers, cautious men, took there a step that they could not take back if they would, and would not if they could. Till they made that attack probably no British blood had been shed.
If rebels at all, it was only on paper. They had not levied war. They had not vi et armis attacked their lawful king. But by that act they passed the Rubieon ; till then they might retreat with honor ; but after that it was too late. The sword was drawn and had been made red in the blood of princes, in the person of their armed defenders.
Attacking Captain Laurie and his detachment at North Bridge was, in law, attacking King George him- self. Now they must fight or be eternally disgraced. And now they did fight in good earnest. They drew the sword and threw away, as well they might, the scabbard. Yesterday they humbly petitioued. They petitioned no longer. . Oh, what a change from the 19th to the 20th of April. They had been, up to that day, a grave, God-fearing, loyal, set of men, hon- oring the king. Now they strike for national inde- pendence and after a seven-years' war, by the help of God, they won it. They obtained nationality. It that day breathed into life; the Colony gave way to the State ; that morning Davis and all of them were British colonists. They became by that day's resist- ance either rebels doomed to die by the halter, or free, independent citizens. If the old Pine Tree flag still waved over them unchanged, they themselves were changed too, entirely and forever.
Old Middlesex was allowed the privilege of opening this war ; of first baptizing the land with her blood. God did well to select old Middlesex, and the loved and revered centre of old Middlesex, namely, Concord, as the spot not where this achievement was to be com- pleted, but where it was to be begun, and well begun ; where the troops of crowned kings were to meet, not the troops of the people, but the people themselves,
and be routed and beaten from the field, and what is more, stay beaten we hope, we doubt not to the end of time.
And let us remember that our fathers, from the first to the last in that eventful struggle, made most de- vout appeals to Ahnighty God. It was so with the whole Revolutionary War. It was all begun, con- tinued and ended in God. Every man and every boy that went from the little mountain town of Acton with its five hundred souls, went that morning from a house of prayer. A more prayerful, pious, God-fear- ing, man-loving people, I have never read or heard of ; if you have, sir, I should like to know who they are, and where they live. They were Puritans, Plymouth Roek Puritans, men who would petitiou and petition and petition, most respectfully and most courteously, and when their petition and petitioners, old Ben. Frauklin and the rest, were proudly spurned away from the foot of the throne, petition again ; and do it again for more than ten long, tedious, years ; but after all they would fight and fight as never man fought, and they did so fight.
When such men take up arms let kings and queens take care of themselves. When you have waked up such men to resistance unto blood you have waked up a lion in his den. You may kill them. They are vul- nerable besides on the heel, but, my word for it, you never can conquer them.
At old North Bridge, about nine o'clock in the fore- noon, on the memorable 19th of April, 1775, King George's troops met these men and after receiving their first fire fled, and the flight still continues-the flight of kings before the people.
Davis' minute-men were ready first and were on the ground first. They were an elite eorps, young men, volunteers, and give me young men for war. They must be ready at a moment's warning. They were soon at Davis' house and gun-shop. Here they waited till about fifty had arrived. While there some of them were powdering their hair just as the Greeks were accustomed to put garlands of flowers on their heads as they went forth to battle, and they expected a battle. They were fixing their gun-loeks and mak- ing a few cartridges, but cartridges and cartridge- boxes were rare in those days. The accoutrements of the heroes of the Revolution were the powder-horn and the bullet-pouch, at least of the militia.
And Concord fight, with all its unequaled and un- eclipsed glory was won, by help of God, by Massachu- setts militiamen. Some were laughing and joking to think that they were going to have what they had for montlis longed for, a " hit at old Gage." But Davis was a thoughtful, sedate, serious man, a genuine Puri- tan like Samuel Adams, and he rebuked them. He told them that in his opinion it was "a most eventful erisis for the colonies ; blood would be spilt, that was certain ; the crimsoned fountain would be opened, none could tell when it would close, nor with whose blood it would overflow. Let every man gird himself
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
for battle, and not be afraid, for God is on our side. He had great hopes that the country would be free, though he might not live to see it." The truth was, and it should come out.
Davis expected to die that day if he went into bat- tle. He never expected to come back alive to that house.
And no wonder that after the company started and had marched out of his lane some twenty rods to the highway he halted them and went back. He was an affectionate man. He loved that youthful wife of his and those four sick children, and he thought to see them never again and he never did. There was such a presentiment in his mind. His widow has often told me ali about it and she thought the same her- self, and no wonder he went back and took one more last lingering look of them, saying-he seemed to want to say something, but as he stood on that threshold where I have often stood and where, in my mind's eye, I have often seen his manly form, he could only say, "Take good care of the children," the feelings of the father struggling in him and for a moment almost overcoming the soldier. The ground of this presentiment was this : A few days before the fight Mr. Davis and wife had been away from home of an afternoon. On returning they noticed, as they entered, a large owl sitting on Davis' gun as it hung on the hooks-his favorite gun-the very gun he car- ried to the fight-a beautiful piece for those days- his own workmanship-the same he grasped in both hands when he was shot at the bridge, being just about to fire himself and which, when stone dead, he grasped still, his friends having, to get it away, to un- clinch his stiff fingers.
Sir, however you may view this occurrence or how- ever I may, it matters not ; I am telling how that brave man viewed it and his wife and the men of those times. It was an ill omen-a bad sign. The sober conclusion was that the first time Davis went into battle he would lose his life. This was the con- clusion, and so it turned out. The family could give no account of the creature and they knew not how it came in. The hideous bird was not allowed to be disturbed or frightened away, and there he stayed two or three days sitting upon that gun.
But mark: with this distinct impression on his mind did the heart of this Puritan patriarch quail ? No; not at all, not at all. He believed in the Puri- tan's God-the Infinite Spirit sitting on the throne of the Universe, Proprietor of all, Creator and up- holder of all, superintending and disposing of all, that the hairs of his head were all numbered and not even a sparrow could fall to the ground without his God's express notice, knowledge and consent. He took that gun from those hooks with no trembling hand or wavering heart, and with his trusty sword hanging by his side he started for North Bridge with the firm tread of a giant. Death! Davis did not fear to die. And he had the magic power, which
some men certainly have. God bestows it upon them to inspire every one around them with the same feel- ing. His soldiers to a man would have gone any- where after such a leader.
After about two miles of hurried march they came out of the woods only a few rods from Colonel James Barrett's, in Concord, and halted in the highway, whether discovered or not (this road came into the road by Barrett's some twenty rods from Barrett's house), looking with burning indignation to see Cap- tain Parsons and his detachment of British troopers with axes break up the gun-carriages and bring out hay and wood and burn them in the yard.
They had great thoughts of firing in upon them then and there to venture. But Davis was a military man, and his orders were to rendezvous at North Bridge and he knew very well that taking possession of North Bridge would cut off all retreat for this de- tachment of horse and they must be taken prisoners.
In a few minutes more he wheeled his company into line on the high lands of North Bridge, taking the extreme left of the line-that line being formed facing the river, which was his place, as the youngest commissioned officer present in the regiment-a place occupied a few days before by him at a regimental muster of the minute-men.
A council of war was immediately summoned by Colonel James Barrett and attended on the spot, made up of commissioned officers and Committees of Safety. The question was, What shall now be done ? The provincials had been talking for months, nay, for years, of the wrongs they had borne at the hands of a cruel motherland. They had passed good paper resolutions by the dozen. They had fired off their paper-bullets, but what shall now be done ? Enough had been SAID. What shall now be done? What a moment! What a crisis for the destinies of this land and of all lands, of the rights and liberties of the human race. Never was a council of war or council of peace called to meet a more important question, one on the decision of which more was at stake. Their council was divided. Some thought it best, at once, to rush down and take possession of the bridge and cut off the retreat of Captain Parsons; others thought not.
Here were probably found in battle array over six hundred troops standing there under arms. Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn were in plain sight, with their red coats on, their cocked-up hats and their spy-glasses inspecting from the old grave-yard hills the gathering foe, for they came in from all directions suddenly, unaccountably, like the gathering of a sum- mer thunder-cloud. Of course it was admitted on all hands that they could take possession of the bridge, but it was to be expected that this skirmish must bring on a general engagement with the main body in the town. The Provincials would be in greater force by twelve o'clock M. than at nine. And If the whole British Army of eight huudred men
CORD BRIDGE WHICH
DAVIS WHEN
THE CONCORD FOUND WAS THE
INE TRACK TO HEAVE
HE
CAME
ND FAME
IHAWT A MANTIIAT IS AFRAIDTO GO
CAPTDALIS
THE ACTON MINUTE-MEN.
MARCHING UNDER THE ARCH AT THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE, CONCORD. AT THE CENTENNIAL, APRIL 19, 1875.
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should take the field against them in their present number most undoubtedly the men would run-they never would " stand fire." Their officers thought so : their officers said so on the spot. They gave it as their opinion, and it is probable that no attack at that hour would have been made had it not happened that, at that moment, the smoke began to rise from the centre of the town-all in plain sight from these heights-the smoke of burning houses. And they said, Shall we stand here like cowards and see Old Concord burn ?
Colonel Barrett gave consent to make the attack. Davis came back to his company, drew his sword and commanded them to advance six paces. He then faced them to the right, and at his favorite tune of "The White Cockade " led the column of attack towards the bridge. By the side of Davis marched Major Buttrick, of Concord, as brave a man as lived, and old Colonel Robinson, of Westford. The British on this began to take up the bridge; the Americans on this quickened their pace. Immediately the firing on both sides began. Davis is at once shot dead through the heart. The ball passed quite through his body, making a very large wound, perhaps driv- ing in a button of his coat. His blood gushed out in one great stream, flying, it is said, more than ten feet, besprinkling and besmearing his own clothes, these shoe-buckles and the clothes of Orderly Sergeant David Forbush and a file leader, Thomas Thorp. Davis, when hit, as is usual with men when shot thus through the heart, leaped up his full length and fell over the causeway on the wet ground, firmly grasping all the while, with both hands, that beautiful gun; and when his weeping comrades came to take care of his youthful but bloody remains, they, with difficulty, unclutched those hands now cold and stiff in death. He was just elevating to his sure eye this gun. No man was a surer shot. What a bap- tism of blood did those soldiers then receive! The question is now, Do these men deserve this monu- ment ? One that shall speak ?
Davis' case is without a parallel and was so con- sidered by the Legislature and by Congress when they granted aid to his widow. There never can be another. There never can be but one man who headed the first column of attack on the King's troops in the Revolutionary War. And Isaac Davis was that man. Others fell, but not exactly as he fell. Give them the marble. Vote them the monument, one that shall speak to all future generations and speak to the terror of kings and to the encouragement of all who will be free and who, when the bloody crisis comes to strike for it, " are not afraid to go."
THE BIRTH-PLACE OF CAPTAIN ISAAC DAVIS .- Captain Isaac Davis was the son of Ezekiel Davis and Mary Gibson, of Stow. He was born February 23, 1745, at the place in West Acton known as the Jonathan B. Davis House, where Mr. George Hagar now lives. He was baptized, June 23, 1745. He
married Hannah Brown, of Acton, October 24, 1764. She was born in Acton in 1746. On February 10, 1765, lie covenanted with the church.
CAPTAIN ISAAC DAVIS' HOUSE AT THE TIME OF THE CONCORD FIGHT .- It lies about eighty rods southwest, from the present site of Deacon W. W. Davis, at Acton Centre. We pass through the lanc from Deacon Davis', still traveled as a private way, but at that time the old road ; then go through the pastures, then strike the avenue leading to the resi- dence of Mr. Charles Wheeler. His present house now stands very nearly where Captain Davis' house stood in 1775.
The two fine elins in front on the opposite side of the road, if permitted to stand, will help the anti- quarian to locate the grounds, destined, as the years go by, more than ever to be the centre of Acton's local interest. The house in which he lived, has been re- placed by another and that one repaired and enlarged. It was for many years the residence of Nathaniel Greene Brown, from 1812. It was occupied by Joseph Brown many years before 1812. It was known for some time as the Ward Haskell place, who recon- structed the building in later years, a noted carpenter. Elias Chaffin occupied the place in 1812. The origi- nal house was two story in front, and the back sloped down to one, the kitchen in the lower part.
An old apple-tree, a few years since, stood seven rods from Mr. Wheeler's house in his present orchard. This was the shooting mark of Captain Davis in his gun practice. The scars made by the bullets had been healed over, and what seemed like burrs covered the body of the tree when cut down. Mr. Wheeler now regrets that the wood of this tree was not at the time made into small memorial blocks, as keepsakes in memory of the noted marksman. Such relics are more in demand now that the days of the newness have passed, and the oldness has come instead.
This site must cver have a historical value, as the house of Davis, on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, where his company gathered, ready for battle, and where the funeral took place, of the three mar- tyred soldiers, Mr. Swift officiating, and where the yeomanry of this surrounding country met on that epoch day, to join with the widow and the breaved public in solemn rites of burial. The antique flat stepping-stone at the ell door of Mr. Wheeler's house is the same trodden by Captain Davis and family, and consecrated by the remembrances of that funeral occasion.
CAPTAIN ISAAC DAVIS' WIDOW AND FAMILY RECORD AND LATER RESIDENCE .- The children of Isaac and Hannah (Brown) Davis were: Isaac, born in 1765, a bachelor. He gave his father's sword to Concord. Another son whose name is not known. Hannah, born in 1768, and married Amos Noyes in 1793. She had a daughter, Harriet, who married Mr. Simon Davis, the father of Harriet and Simon Davis. Amos Noyes was the grandfather of Lucian Ephraim,
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
born in 1773, settled in Maine. Mary, born in 1774, married Noah Fitch in 1796.
The widow married for second husband Mr. Samuel Jones, a man of property, July 30, 1782. She had by Mr. Jones, Samuel and Eliza. Samuel was a lawyer and built the house adjoining the monument house, one story, where he had a law-office.
The building was built upon the stumps of the trees, without a cellar. These old stumps were found years afterwards when digging the cellar. This house was afterwards more recently raised to two stories by Simon Davis.
Samuel also built the house owned and occupied . now by Mr. John E. Cutter, and the house now owned and occupied by Rev. F. P. Wood, and where for a time Mr. Jones himself lived.
Elijah married a Mr. Waite, and lived in Groton, Massachusetts, and afterwards moved to Albany, New York. She taught school and was highly edu- cated. She secured on one of her visits to Acton a fine oil portrait of her mother in later life, which was much admired and must be a valuable painting if still preserved as an heirloom.
For her third husband she married a Mr. Francis Leighton, of Westford, November 21, 1802. After his decease she lived with her granddaughter, Mrs. Simon Davis (Harriet Noyes) occupying the house now owned by Mr. Lucian Noyes, the grandson of Amos Noyes.
There she was living when Rev. Mr. Woodbury called upon her in company with his brother Levi. When asked by Mr. Levi how she managed to live so long, she replied, " I have always lived on the best I could get."
She was a good-sized woman, well developed, and with marked features. She is well remembered by many still living in Acton.
Mr. Woodbury, in his legislative speech, thus refers to her: "These buckles were given to me by Davis' widow, when ninety years old, under very affecting circumstances. £ I had rendered her aid, in pro- curing an annuity of fifty dollars from the Common- wealth, and that being insufficient, two hundred dollars more from the United States. Before these grants she had nearly come to want. The money arrived. We were all delighted at the success almost unexpected, for advocating which before the House of Representatives I am under greater obligations to my eloquent friend on my right (General Caleb Cush- ing), then a member of the House, than to any other man, and to Honorable Daniel Webster in the United States Senate, for which, with all his recent sins on his head, I must love him as long as I live. He never employed his gigantic mind in a nobler cause."
On receiving the money, "Take your pay, Mr. Woodbury," said the old lady.
" I am fully paid already," I said ; " but, if you have any Revolutionary relic of your husband, Captain
Davis, if nothing more than a button, I should like it right well. She took her cane and hobbled along to lier old chest and drew out these shoe-buckles.
" There," said she, "I have lost everything else that belonged to him. These I had preserved for his children, but if you will accept them they are yours."
Precious relics! seventy-five years ago bathed in the heart's blood of one who, in the name of God and oppressed humanity, headed the column of the first successful attack in modern times of people re- sisting kings, of ruled against rulers, of oppressed against oppressors. Yes, the very first in these years of the world, but by the grace of God, who has de- clared himself the God of the oppressed, not the last ! no, by no means. When I have done with them I will hand them over to my children as wortlı their weight in gold. By these buckles I would swear my son, as Hamilcar, that noble African prince, swore his son Hannibal, " never to give up to Rome." I say, by these shoe-buckles, would I swear my son to be faithful unto death, as Davis was in the cause of human liberty, and the just rights of man. Handle them, sir! handle them! How at the touch of these, patriotism, like electricity, will thrill through your bones :
" And one was safe and asleep in his bed, Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball."
REVOLUTIONARY WAR .- January 20, 1776, Mid- dlesex County was ordered to raise a regiment of 571. Acton's quota was thirteen.
A new organization of militia was made in Febru- ary, 1776, and Acton was assigned to the Third Regi- ment, Francis Faulkner, of Acton, being made Lieutenant-colonel. The officers of the Acton com- pany were Simon Hunt, captain ; John Heald, Jr., first lieutenant ; Benjamin Brabrook, second lieuten- ant. A regiment raised in September,1776,commanded by Eleazer Brooks, of Lincoln, was in the battle of White Plains. Rev. Moses Adams, of Acton, was chaplain. The Acton company was in the engage- ment, Thomas Darby being killed. The regiment be- haved bravely.
Of a company of eighty-nine men at Dorchester, in the fall of 1776, Acton furnished five.
Thirteen Acton men were of the 670 Middlesex men in the three months' New York Campaign, beginning in November, 1776.
A company sent to Rhode Island in the summer of 1777 had for its first lieutenant Daniel Davis, of Acton. In October, same year, a volunteer company of sixty-three men from Acton and Concord left Con- cord for Saratoga, arriving there on the 10th and en- camping two days. On the 13th they went to Fort Edward. On the 14th and 15th they wenton a scout, and on the 16th brought in fifty-three Indians, several Tories and some women. They returned to Saratoga on the 16th, and had the pleasure to see the whole of Burgoyne's army " parade their arms," and march out
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WIFE OF CAPTAIN ISAAC DAVIS.
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of our lines. They guarded the prisoners to Cam- bridge. Captain Simon Hunt, of Acton, commanded the company that was of the guard at Cambridge, November 28, 1777.
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