History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 139

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 139

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Several British officers, well-mounted and armed, had been sent out the day before to reconnoitre the scene, and on their return in the evening to intercept any messengers from Boston who might give the alarm. They captured Revere and his companion, Ebenezer Dorr, just below the line in Lincoln, while Samuel Prescott, who had joined Revere, escaped by jumping his fleet horse over the wall of the road and taking a by-way through Lincoln, gave the alarm there, and reached Concord between one and two o'clock on the morning of the 19th.

He aroused the guard at the town-house, who fired the

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signal gun and rang out the alarm bell. This assembled the minute-men, the militia and the townsmen, old and young. Rev. William Emerson, the pastor, with his gun in his hand, was among the first to join the guard. Major John Buttrick and his son, the fifer of Captain Brown's company, were among the early arriv- als. Messengers were despatched to the adjoining towns, Samuel Prescott to Acton, William Parkman to Sudbury, and Reuben Brown was sent towards Bos- ton to report the approach of the enemy. The Com- mittee of Safety began the removal of the cannon, am- munition and stores to places of security, and the women and children, with their valuables, fled to the woods or to houses remote from the village. The min- ute-men and militia companies took position on the hill in front of the church, around the liberty pole, on which the pine-tree flag was raised, and awaited the return of the messenger, Brown. They were sup- plied with ammunition from the town-house, and about seven o'clock saw, from their post on the hill, the British approaching. It was a pleasant inorniug of an early spring, after a mild winter; the fruit trees were in bloom and the spring grain waved in the breeze, foretelling a warm day.

As the King's troops came in sight, their bayonets glistening in the sun and their solid platoons filling the wide, old highway, the officers of the Concord companies saw that they could not resist such a supe- rior force successfully. The provincials fell back to another hill, some eighty rods distant, and from this watched the movements of the regulars. The British force marched to the Common in the centre of the town, paraded there and sent out squads of soldiers to find and destroy the stores of flour, fish, salt and rice, and the magazine of arms, cannon, powder and balls the provincials had collected. The officers made the taverns their headquarters; Colonel Smith at Jones' tavern, on the main street, and Major Pit- cairn at the Wright tavern, next the church. Col. Smith finding that the early alarm bad nearly spoiled the object of his raid, and that the patriots were in- creasing in numbers, sent a company under Captain Munday Poie to guard the South Bridge, and five companies under Captain Lawrence Parsons to the North Bridge. Three of these companies remained there to guard the bridge, while two companies went two miles beyond to destroy the cannon and ammu- rition at Col. James Barrett's farm. Captain Lawrie commanded the guard at the bridge, and, while Cap- tain Parsons was absent on his errand, permitted the soldiers to seek food and drink at the neighboring houses.

Captain Parsons found but little to reward his search. He burned a few carriages for cannon, but the cannon had been hidden in a new-plowed field, and when he heard signal guns fired at the bridge his command retreated hastily towards the village.

While Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn were rest- ing and refreshing themselves at the taverns the

grenadiers sacked the store-houses, broke up sixty barrels of flour, disabled two twenty-four pound caunon, burned four gun carriages and sixteen ar- tillery wheels and some barrels of wooden spoons and plates, threw into the mill-pond about five hundred pounds of bullets and cut down the lib- erty-pole on the hill. The town-house, in which the powder was stored, was set on fire, but by the remon- strances of Martha Moulton, who pointed out the danger from the explosion, the fire was put out and the building saved with its valuable contents.

This was all the expedition accomplished. The Americans fell back, as the detachment advanced, towards the North Bridge, crossed it and took posi- tion on Punkatasset Hill, half a mile north. Here their numbers increased by squads and files of min- ute-meu from the adjoining towns, till they were in sufficient force to advance to the high ground just west of the causeway and bridge. From this point they could overlook the village and watch the guard at the bridge. Here they were joined by the compa- nies from Lincoln, Sudbury and Acton, and by Lieu- tenant-Colonel John Robinson and some minute-men from Westford. Joseph Hosmer, of Concord, acting as adjutant, formed the companies and squads into line as they arrived on the ground, while the officers held a council of war to determine what should be done.

The smoke of the burning gun carriages and other spoils in the village could be plainly seen, and it seemed as if the British were burning the town. This determined the council to march to its protec- tion, and Colonel James Barrett, as the commanding officer, gave the order "to march to the bridge and pass the same, but not to fire on the King's troops un- less they were first fired upon." Major Buttrick took the command, first offering it to Lieutenant-Col- onel Robinson, who declined the post, but went with the major as his aid, and Colonel Barrett left for his farm to take care of his family and the stores. The American force numbered more than the guard at the bridge, but the British force in the village was the larger, and an advance on this would bring Captain Parsons' detachment in their rear, and place the pro- vincials between two fires. It was a hazardous move- ment but the patriots did not flinch from the danger when the crisis came. Captain Davis' Acton com- pany, who were armed with bayonets on their guns, took the right, and the Concord company, under Capt. David Brown, came next, and thus the "embattled farmers " in double files marched down the hill to the tune of the "White Cockade." As they reached the causeway at the foot of the hill the British guard be- gan taking up the planks of the bridge to prevent their crossing it. Major Buttrick ordered them to desist, and they soon stopped this work and formed in solid column on the easterly bank of the river. The Americans pressed forward till within a hundred yards, when the British fired two signal guns and then

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a, volley at the advancing minute-men. This killed Captain Isaac Davis and private Abner Hosmer of the Acton company, and wounded two or three men of the other companies. Major Buttrick sprang from tlic ground and gave the order. "Fire, Fellow- Soldiers, for God's sake Fire l" The order was re- peatcd along the line, and the Americans fired a volley that killed two British soldiers, fatally wounded Lieutenant Kelly and a sergeant, and severely wounded several officers and many privates. This firing with sure aim from the shoulder was too effect- ive for the regulars to return with their guns only pointed from their hips without aim. They broke and retreated towards the village, bearing their wounded, bleeding and dying, in their ranks. The signal guns had given the alarm to the main body of the British on the Common, and it soon marched to the aid of the retreating detachment .;

The Americans crossed the bridge and occupied the hill on the east side of the river, from which they could see the advance of the main body to join the retreating companies. After some consultation, and before the return of Captain Parsons' command over the bridge, the Americans left this hill and passed by a bridle-road through the woods around the centre of the town to the road leading to Boston. They might have cut off the two companies returning from Col- onel Barrett's, but the risk to their force and the town was too great, and they wisely decided to reserve the attack until after the British had left the vil- lage on the retreat to Boston. The war had begun. " Major Buttrick gave the order to fire to British subjects. It was obeyed by American citizens," who " fired the shot heard round the world."

This fight proved to Col. Smith not only that the Americans would resist, but that his force must return to Boston at once. Arranging for the care of his wounded who could not be removed, and taking chaises and pillows for those unable to march, he hastily collected his troops and before noon left the village on his retreat. Throwing out flank guards on the ridge that lined the road for a mile, he kept his force in column unmolested till Merriam's Corner was reached. Here the patriots from the fight at the bridge were posted in safe positions, and were joined by companies from Reading and Chelmsford and Billerica. As the British left the protection of the ridge and called in their flank guards to cross a nar- row causeway over the meadows, the Americans poured a sharp fire on the retreating columns, causing some loss, and then passed round the next hill to re- new the attack: Another sharp skirmish took place at the foot of Hardy's Hill where a Sudbury company came up on the south flank of the regulars and the fire was hot from both sides of the road. A little farther on the woods lined the highway, and from behind trees and rocks and walls the Americans sorely galled the retreating column. The officers dismounted and sought shelter in the ranks of the soldiers. Col.

Smith's horse was shot, and Major Pitcairn's captured with his pistols in the saddle-holsters, which are still preserved as memorials of the fight. The retreat be- came a rout long before the reinforcement under Earl Percy was reached, and if any American officer could have been found in command Col. Smith would have surrendered.

It was the first and perhaps the only instance when a body of veteran soldiers of England fled before an undisciplined and unorganized armed mob of inferior numbers.

This reinforcement sent out by Gen. Gage in the forenoon with two field-pieces checked the pursuit by the Americans, and received the worn-out men of Smith's command into the shelter of their ranks, where they laid down like tired dogs with their tongues hanging out of their mouths from the heat and dust of the rout. After a short rest the British took up the march for Boston, and were again attacked by the Americans, who pursued them, and poured a hot fire into their ranks, till they reached Charlestown . Neck and were under the shelter of the guns of the ships of war in Boston Harbor.

The victorious patriotic farmers encamped that night in Cambridge, and formed the nucleus of the Continental Army around Boston, where the British were shut up till they evacuated that town early the next year.

The British loss that day, as reported by Gen. Gage, was sixty-five killed, 176 wounded, and twenty-seven missing. The American loss was forty-nine killed, thirty-six wounded and five missing.

Of this battle, which has passed into history under a new and wrong name, Senator Hoar said, in his ad- dress at the quadro-millennial celebration of the town of Concord, "the number of the slain is no necessary test of the importance of a battle. The English lost at Agincourt but four gentlemen, 'none else of name, and of all other men, but five and twenty.' Plassy, which gained India to England, cost the victors seven European and sixteen native soldiers killed, thirteen European and thirty-six native soldiers wounded. The Americans lost but twenty-seven at New Orleans. There were more Englishmen slain on the retreat from Concord than fell of Wolfe's army who captured Quebec, more than were slain on the Greek side at Marathon ; more men fell on both sides that day than at the first battle of Bull Run." Concord, the first battle-ground of the Revolution, is weil named the birth-place of American liberty ; for if in Boston was the conception, and in Lexington the agonizing throes of deadly pain, here the blessed child was born.

The British retreat begun here never ended till Yorktown, and, however it may be called in history, this is glory and honor enough for any place, any men, any generation-in this broad land or the world.

Of the many incidents of that day in Concord- whether of the large, fleshy, bulky Col. Smith being

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run against and knocked over by Ephraim Jones, the tavern-keeper, or of Major Pitcairn stirring his glass of brandy with his finger at the Wright Tavern, and hoping "to stir the damned Yankee blood so ere night," the shrewd reply of the miller, Wheeler, to preserve his meal from the spoilers, the cute Yankee answers of the women to save the property in their honses from the raid, the cool remarks of the slightly wounded, that " a little more and it wouldn't have hit me"-there is no occasion here for more detail.

Nearly 200 of the men of Concord were engaged in the fight that day. As they were volunteers, and the rolls of the companies are not preserved, all their names cannot be ascertained. A partial list only can be given, and this includes almost every Concord family name of that period. Of the prisoners cap- tured that day, Lieut. Kelly was buried in Concord, Lieut. Gould was exchanged, Lieut. Potter was con- fined at Reuben Brown's house-and his sword is still there in the Antiquarian Society's collection-several of the soldiers were confined in the old jail, and one or two of them, when released, remained during their lives in the town. The horses and other prop- erty taken from the British were advertised and sold at auction, and the leading men in the fight gave their depositions within a few days after it occurred.

No more genuine Yankee or American trait than this is recorded in history, that, after beginning a war, shooting down the King's troops, and shutting them up in Boston, the victorious leaders coolly sit down, deliberately draw up, and solemnly swear to their account of the engagement. It marks their Puritan spirit, their devotion to duty, their conscien- tious regard for truth, and carries out the honest say- ing of one of them, Captain Miles, "that he went to the battle in the same spirit that he went to Church." When a Revolution is undertaken by such men, it will be carried through and a firm government suc- cessfully established.

In the Revolution thus begun on her soil, Concord did her full part throughout the war. This town furnished, in answer to all the calls for men, over two thousand soldiers for longer and shorter terms of ser- vice. For the expenses of the war there was raised here by taxation annually more than $10,000 of silver money, an amount that made a greater burden on the property of the town at that time than twenty times as much would be now. To the expedition to Ticonderoga in 1775 a full company went from Con- cord, and her beloved minister, Rev. William Emer- son, accompanied the Middlesex Regiment as chap- lain. He fell a victim to the camp-fever and died at Rutland, Vermont, October 20, 1775, at the early age of thirty-three years.

While Boston was occupied by the British forces, Concord furnished the patriots with fuel and provis- ions to a considerable amount. So many of the in- habitants of Boston were received and sheltered here, that in July, 1775, a town-meeting of and for Boston

was duly held in Concord, a representative chosen and other votes passed-perhaps the only instance in which a town held its meeting outside its own limits.

The American Army having occupied for barracks the buildings of Harvard College at Cambridge, that institution removed to Concord in 1775 and remained here nearly a year. It held its exercises in the Court-House, its students and professors living in various houses in the town. The large dwelling-house on the Lee farm, in which the Tory Dr. Lee had been confined by order of the Committee of Safety became the Harvard Hall of that episode. The commence- ment exercises of 1776 were held in the old church, and on the return of the college to Cambridge its authorities passed votes of thanks to Concord for their reception and kind treatment.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CONCORD-(Continued).

Progress and Prosperity as a Shire-town and a Literary Centre-Celebrations- Monuments - Rebellion.

AFTER the Revolution had triumphed, and peace and independence were won, the sacrifices and bur- dens of the war were felt more fully than while it lasted. Debts had accumulated, the currency inflated, distress increased and culminated in Shays' Rebellion. Concord as a shire-town was the place of meetings and conventions to consider the state of the times, and at length, in 1786, an attempt was made by an armed mob to prevent the court from sitting here in September. Although this town had taken measures of precaution by its committees and resolutions, a mob of armed men, several hundred in number, assem- bled here to oppose the authority of the Government. They were led by Captain Job Shattuck, of Groton, and, after spending the night of September 12th in the court-house and in barns in the village, they took position on the Common and formed their lines to stop the judges from holding court. Their leader held them in some order while a committee of a con- vention called by Concord had a parley with him, and at last succeeded in persuading him to consent to the court opening and adjourning to the last of No- vember. The rain and the rum had badly demoral- ized the mob, and they dispersed to their homes with- out acts of violence or any bloodshed. The invasion created great alarm and anxiety in the town, and would have had serious consequences but for the prudence and firmness of her leading citizens. Captain Shattuck was afterwards arrested for this and other treasonable acts, was badly wounded by the officers who made the arrest, and was confined in jail till May, 1787, when he was tried in Concord, convicted of treason and sentenced to be hanged. He was, how-

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ever, pardoned in September, through the efforts of Judge Wood, of this town, and lived in Groton till 1819.

After the troubles that caused this insurrection had subsided, the cra of growth and prosperity that fol- lowed national independence was felt in Concord. Trade and manufactures increased here. As a shire- town in the centre of Middlesex County, it attracted population, capital and ability, and soon became a prominent rival with Boston for the seat of the State Government, and came near having the State- House. Mcn of character and distinction in the profession of the law settled in the town and gave it influence. In 1798, at the time of the difficulty with France, Wil- liam Jones, a lawyer here, led a detachment of forty- one men from Concord to join the Oxford army, so called, because that was the place where the troops assembled.

When the War of 1812 was declared the old hostility to England induced Concord's leading lawyer to give up his practice and his offices of county treasurer and postmaster and take command of a regiment re- cruited in the vicinity for service on the Canada fron- tier. Although political feeling at that time ran so high in Massachusetts that he did not escape sneers and reproach, yet Colonel John L. Tuttle was brave and patriotic, and deserved a better fate than death by poison for the purpose of robbery, which he met at Sackett's Harbor, N. Y. The town furnished both its military companies for the defence of Boston when in danger of an attack from the British fleet, and raised a large company of exempts to protect its homes in case of invasion. Several English prisoners of war were confined here till they were exchanged or paroled.

In this busy prosperity Concord moved even faster after the peace of 1814 without noticeable events till, in 1824, the visit of Lafayette as the nation's guest occurred. During his triumphal tour he visited this historic town and was received with all the manifesta- tions of gratitude and hospitality that could be made. Military escort, address of welcome, collation, greet- ings of old comrades of the Revolution, and of men, women and children, united to bring tears of joy from the companion of Washington. His visit revived the memory and stirred the patriotism of that generation so much that the fiftieth anniversary of Concord fight, April 19, 1825, was fitly celebrated. The corner- stone of a monument on the centre of the Common was laid with due eercmonials. Edward Everett, then in the flush of his youth and eloquence, deliver- ed an oration seldom equaled by him in his after-years. But the corner-stone never found its superstruct- ure, opposition to the site developed and the project slumbered for nearly a dozen years without fulfillment.

In the next decade various institutions started that mark the growth of the town,-the Middlesex Mu- tual Fire Insurance Company in 1826, that in its long and useful existence has developed into one of the

largest and strongest in the State; the Concord Bank in 1832, an equally successful corporation, and the Middlesex Institution for Savings that has pur- sued a steady growth to a strong financial position. An academy was founded somewhat carlier, in 1822, and under teachers of good repute a higher education than the town schools afforded was given. In 1828 a Lyccum was formed, growing out of an earlier debat- ing society. This has continued to the present time , furnishing a course of lectures cach winter from some of the best minds of New England. It is now incor- porated, lias an invested fund and increases in popu- larity every season.

A social library was established in 1821, and soon obtained a useful collection of books, reviews and pamphlets. An ornamental tree society planted many of the fine trees that shade the village streets. A public bathing-house contributed to the physical health of the community. The Concord Chapter of Royal Arch Masons was formed in 1826, and a vol- unteer engine company in 1827.

The Western Society of Husbandmen and Manu- facturers, incorporated in 1803, removed from the upper part of the county to Concord in 1821, and has held its annual cattle shows here nearly every year since. In 1852 its name was changed to the Middle- sex Agricultural Society. It has a large exhibition building, ample fair-grounds ard a good half-mile track.

More than all these, the single parish system of the town broke up, and a second religious society was formed. Rev. Ezra Ripley, who succeeded Rev. William Emerson in 1778, had grown liberal in his views and preaching with his years-had, in fact, become Uni- tarian. A Trinitarian society was organized in 1826 by those who held to the old faith. Sixteen joined the new church, and built a meeting-house and set- tled a minister the next year. By the successful result of an act of incorporation of the trustees of the old ministerial fund that money was preserved to the Unitarian Society, and the town saved from the usual lawsuit attending such divisions.

The influence of all these was shown in 1835, on the two hundredth anniversary of the settle- ment of Concord. An appropriate celebration was arranged and carried out on the twelfth of Sep- tember of that year. It was among the first of the long line that have followed, and equal to the best of these town holidays. The address by Ralph Waldo Emerson was the earliest of those that have made his words and thoughts known throughout the English-speaking world. The Gov - ernor and his staff attended ; the procession, escorted by the infantry and artillery companies, marched to the old church, through the lines of the school children, and a crowded audience listened to the eloquent words there uttered. A dinner and speeches at the table by the distinguished guests from Boston, Plym- outh, New York and other places concluded the

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celebration. The address was printed and reprinted in 1875, and may be found in the complete edition of Emerson's works.

The occasion furnished a pattern example to later towns, especially in the matter of expense. This, the committee reported, amounted to 8168.79, of which the town voted 875.00, private subscribers gave $45.50, and the balance, $48.24, was paid by the com- mittee themselves.

Shattuck's "History of Concord " was published this same year, and is one of the earliest and best of town histories, since so numerous. It gave much in- formation about the olden times, and has become very rare and valuable.

Now began the period of literature and culture which for a generation marked Concord more promi- nently than its historical, political or business traits had before.

A great awakening of thought was springing up in New England about this time. In part it had been brought over the sea by the brilliant young men who had studied abroad. In part it was the uprising of the intellect of a people who had found leisure from the sordid cares of life to seek some higher ideas. Mr. Emerson's residence here, which began on his return from Europe, attracted much of this transcendental- ism, as it was called. Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, Alcott and Channing came to Concord to live. The Dial, the organ of the new philosophy, was often mainly composed here, and from this town, as a cen- tre, many of the converts drew their inspiration, and to it made their pilgrimages, as to their Mecca.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 139

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1226

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226