History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 42

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III > Part 42

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

The troops whose sudden appearance gave Gerry and his friends so rude an awakening were about eight hundred in number, made up of light infantry, marines and grenadiers. Lieutenant-Colonel Smith commanded them. Embarking at the foot of Boston Common in boats which carried them to what is now East Cambridge, they had there landed, and after floun- dering across the marshes struck into the old Charles- town road. They entered the Concord road in North Cambridge, and from that point their way lay straight before them through Menotomy and Lexing- ton to their destination-the stores of supplies col- lected by the patriots at Concord. The destruction of these was the object of the expedition. To effect that object, secrecy and despatch were absolutely es- sential, and the column moved rapidly and noise- lessly on.

Notwithstanding their caution, the movement of so considerable a body of men conld not escape notice. An hour or two earlier Paul Revere had galloped across from Medford and given the alarm in the upper part of the precinct as he rode towards Lexington. Some of the Menotomy people were aroused by the stir in the street as the soldiers marched by. Solomon Bowman, the lieutenant of Captain Locke's company, upon going to his door, was asked by one of the Brit- ish soldiers for a drink of water. He refused, asking in turn, " What are you out at this time of night for?" He spent the rest of the night in warning his com- pany.

When the troops reached the centre of Menotomy, their commander was convinced that a sudden and secret attack could no longer be hoped for. The night was already astir with the sound of distant guns and bells that told him the country was rising. He sent back a messenger to General Gage, at Boston, asking for reinforcements, and sent forward Major Pitcairn with six companies of light infantry to secure the bridges at Concord, while he followed more leis- urely with the rest of the detachment.

The column marched on through the parish unmo- lesting and unmolested. At one place their approach broke up a very untimely game of cards. At another they opened a stable, but, fortunately for the owner, the horse had been lent. At another house, where a light was burning, a soldier who inquired the reason was given the satisfactory explanation that the wife was making some herb tea for her sick husband. In fact, the dose was of a far different kind; for pewter- plates were there being melted into bullets.

The soldiers disappeared up the Lexington road, but they left behind them in Menotomy a com- munity that was fully aroused and ready for its work. At daybreak Captain Locke's company met on the green beside the meeting-house and straightway marched to Lexington. The women and children were sent to places at a distance from the Concord road. Many persons concealed their silver and pewter.

The morning wore away quietly enough. Towards noon the road was again glittering with British bayonets. Smith's appeal for aid had been answered : Lord Percy was sent at the head of three regiments of infantry and two divisions of marioes-in all about twelve hundred men-to reinforce the first de- tachment. Marching out through Roxbury, he was delayed for a little while at Brighton Bridge until the planks, which had been taken up, could he replaced. Then he kept on without further hindrance through Cambridge and Menotomy. But the injury to the bridge gave more serious trouble to a convoy of supplies and provisions that followed his column. Before the wagons could be brought over, the soldiers were far ahead. The convoy was further delayed by a mistake as to the road, so that by the time it reached Menotomy, Lord Percy was a considerable distance in advance. News of its approach preceded it. A few of the Menotomy men met in Cooper's Tavern and resolved that these supplies should be captured. There were about a dozen men in all-exempts, as they were called, too old to he included among the minute- men, although, so far as appears, by no means of very advanced years. The two Belknaps were there-Jason and Joseph-James Budge, Israel Mead, Ammi Cutter and David Lamson. The latter, our traditions say, commanded the party. Others have it that Rev. Phillips Payson, of Chelsea, was the leader. It seems not improbable that in such a band, collected at a moment's notice, no man was captain more than another. They hastened to take their position behind a bank wall of earth and stones just opposite the meeting-house. When the convoy arrived opposite, escorted by a guard of soldiers, our men ordered them to surrender. The drivers whipped up their horses. The exempts fired, killing several horses and one or two of the men and wonnding others. The drivers and surviving soldiers scattered and ran across the fields to Spy Pond, and local tradition delights to tell how six of them surrendered to one Mother Batherick, whom they encountered near Spring Valley. The party at the road took possession of the abandoned wagons. They had done a greater thing than they thought; for they had made the first cap- ture of the War of the Revolution. But as they looked at the matter, they had been engaged in. shooting down the King's soldiers upon his highway, and they felt a not unreasonable dread of what might happen if any signs of the conflict should be left when the British came back. Accordingly they dragged the wagons into the hollow behind Capt. William Adams' house. The living horses were driven to Medford and the dead ones carried to a field near Spring Valley.

The adventures of the exempts were by no means over. As some of them were going liome they met and captured, near Mill Street, Lient. Edward Thorn- ton Gould, of the " King's Own " regiment, who had received a wound in the ankle at Concord Bridge,

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and was riding back alone. And not long after, the approaching sounds of battle announced that the British were again entering Menotomy.

It is the duty of others to tell what happened that day in Lexington and Concord. Captain Locke's men were there, with their comrades from the other towns, taking their part in the hard fighting that made the retreat of the regulars through Lexington so full of peril. Lord Percy's reinforcement met Smith's exhausted men at about two o'clock, and, after half an hour's respite, the march was resumed, and the borders of Menotomy were soon reached.

Any one who looks down upon the town from Ar- lington Heights or Turkey Hill can understand how the fight was fought. From the Lexington line to the Foot of the Rocks the land rises to a consider- able height on each side of the road. Farther down, until nearly to the centre of the town, the hills on the right rise more gently, while to the left the land falls away to Vine Brook. Below the centre is level Jand-Menotomy Plains they then called it-stretch- ing to the eastern boundary.

All through the first part of the afternoon's fight- ing our people were generally on ground higher than the road, and came into hand-to-hand conflict only with the British flanking-parties. Later they did not have this advantage of position, and the fighting that took place below the centre of the town seems gene- rally to have been sharper and at closer quarters than that above.

It could not have been long after three o'clock when the British re-entered Menotomy. The fire to which they had been exposed slackened a good deal as they marched through the wooded country above the Foot of the Rocks. But as they reached the com- paratively open ground at that point the battle was resumed. Other enemies than those who had fol- lowed them so persistently were at hand. All that morning had men been hurrying in from every side toward the scene of the conflict. Not merely from Woburn and Medford, from Old Cambridge and Charlestown, but from Roxbury and Dorchester, Danvers, Salem, Beverly and Lynn and other distant places had they come; and from behind houses and barns, stone-walls and fences they poured in their fire upon the column that was hastening down the highway.

Percy showed himself a worthy descendant of the race of soldiers from whom he came. He was now in command of the whole British force. He had placed at the head of the column the grenadiers and light infantry,-the remnant of Smith's detachment. Next came his wounded, carried in wagons, and finally, in the rear, his own fresh troops. From the latter, also, were made up strong flanking-parties, that marched to right and left of the road, parallel with the main body, and protected it by threatening the flank of the par- ties of Provincials that skirted the highway.

The plundering and setting on fire of houses had

begun in Lexington and was continued through Men- otomy. Worn out with many miles of marching and fighting, exposed to a murderous fire which they could not return with effect, with the number of their enemies increasing and safety still far distant, it is not surprising that the soldiers forgot discipline and indiscriminately plundered and destroyed. They en - tered the Great Tavern, as it was then called, belong- ing to William Cutler,-a part of the present Rus- sell's Tavern,-tonk what they could carry, broke furniture, let the contents of the casks of spirits and molasses run to waste, and ended by setting the house on fire. They burst into the house of Deacon .Joseph Adams, where they found his wife lying in bed with her youngest child beside her,-an infant not much more than two weeks old. One of the soldiers threat- ened to kill her, but was restrained by a more merci- ful comrade. They allowed her to crawl to a neighbor- ing corn barn, while they proceeded to plunder the house. It was here that they found the communion service of the church, one of the pieces of which, a silver tankard, was recovered after the evacuation of Boston, and still forms a precious possession of the First Parish. This house also they set on fire, but, as happened in the case of all the other buildings in Menotomy which they attempted to burn, their haste prevented them from making thorough work of it, and the flames were soon extinguished.

About opposite Mill Street stood, and still stands, the house then occupied by Jason Russell. He was one of the principal citizens of the precinct. His land extended from the property of Deacon Joseph Adams to the Common by the meeting house, and stretched along the Watertown road beyond Parson Cooke's house, as far as to what we know as the Gray estate. Being a man of fifty-eight years of age and lame, he at first intended to accompany his family to the house of George Prentiss, which was at a distance from the road, and served as a place of refuge for many non-combatants. But, after starting with them, he made up his mind to stand his ground at his own home. He fortified his gate with bundles of shingles, thinking that these would make a good breastwork. Ammi Cutter, who had been taking part in the affair of the supply-wagons, and to whose house Lieutenant Gould was first taken, found time to cross the brook and urge his neighbor to go to a safer place. Rus- sell's blood was up. He replied : "An Englishman's house is his castle," and refused to abandon his post. Meanwhile, a body of Americans-mostly Danvers men-had taken up their position in the rear of Rus- sell's house, some in a walled enclosure, which they strengthened with bundles of shingles, others behind trees on the hillside. Apparently Russell joined them there. They did not have long to wait. As Cutter was returning home he was fired upon by the British flankers on the north side of the road. As he ran he tripped and rolled among the logs of the mill and wisely lay quiet while the bullets whizzed over

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS,

him and scattered the bark upon him. Across the highway, bloody work was going on. As the British columns came sweeping down the road, the strong guard on their right flank came suddenly upon the rear of our ambuscade, and, after a moment of savage fighting, drove the men in the enclosure down towards the road-now filled with the main body of the enemy. Closely pursued, they hurried into Rus- sell's house. Russell himself was shot down at his own door, and was stabbed again and again with the bayonets of the pursuers as they rushed in, killing every man they could find. Eight Americans escaped to the cellar. One soldier was shot on the cellar- stairs, and his comrades dared venture no further ; they plundered the house and went on. In the south room of the blood-stained dwelling were soon laid the bodies of twelve of the dead, among them the corpse of the owner, bearing the marks of two bullet-wounds and eleven bayonet-stabs.

The fighting at Russell's house seems to have been the fiercest of the day in Menotomy; nowhere else did so many men get to close quarters. But it was by no means the end. As the British came down through the centre, they plundered houses, entered the store of Thomas Russell, now occupied by his descendant, where they followed their customary plan of theft and destruction, and treated the meeting-house, the old Adams house and the dwelling of the minister to a fusilade. They next burst into Cooper's tavern at the corner of the Medford road, where, unluckily, they fonnd other than lifeless objects for their wrath. Cooper and his wife, warned by the storm of bullets that came beating against the house, as the enemy drew near, succeeded in reaching the cellar and escaped, but Jabez Wyman and Jason Winship, the only other occupants, were not as fortunate. They were unarmed, and the soldiers at once despatched them with blows and bayonet-thrusts.

At about the same time Samuel Whittemore met with an experience unique among the events of the day. He was then not far from eighty years of age. He had known of the British expedition very early, for he lived near the eastern edge of the town and had seen the soldiers as they marched by in the moonlight. Eager to have a hand in the fray, he had put his weapons in order, and, armed with musket and horse-pistol, lay in wait behind a stone- wall as the British retreated through the centre. After firing a few times he was surprised by the flank- guard. He shot two of them and, as he was firing a third time, received a ball in the face which stretched him senseless. The soldiers beat him with their muskets, stabbed him six or eight times with their bayonets and passed on, leaving him for dead. To the astonishment of his neighbors he not only re- covered, but lived for eighteen years afterwards.

From the centre to the eastern limit of the town the fighting was continuous. The advantage of higher ground was no longer with the Americans, but their

numbers were continually growing. It was in this part of the field that Dr. Joseph Warren came so near his death-a bullet striking the pin from the hair of his ear-lock. Some of the Danvers men, who had managed to escape when their comrades were swept into Russell's house, had here taken up a new posi- tion and did fatal work. Leaving behind them many dead and wounded men, the enemy crossed the brook and continued their retreat through Cambridge and Charlestown until at last the darkness came on and the fight was ended.

Such are some of the incidents that happened in Menotomy on Wednesday, the 19th day of April, 1775. From them we can form an idea of the many like occurrences of the day that have faded out of memory. Enough remains to assure us that our fath - ers bore themselves like men, and were not unworthy to have been among the first to fight and to die for the freedom and independence of their country.

Our scattered people came back to their dismantled houses. Not less than twenty-two Americans, and prob- ably fully twice as many of the enemy, had been killed in Menotomy that April afternoon. Many of the dead were carried back to their own towns, but twelve of them, including the three Menotomy men, were buried here. With war actually begun, the ordinary decent observances were omitted. One grave was dug in the burying-ground and the dead hastily committed to it, without coffins and in the clothes they had worn when they fell. Above them was afterwards placed a slate grave-stone, still standing beside the monument, which the piety of a later generation has raised, and on it we read :

" Mr. JASON RUSSELL We8 barbarously murdered in his own House by GAGE's bloody Troops on ye 19th of April, 1775. . Etat 59. His body is quietly resting in this grave with Eleven of our friends, who in Like manner, with many others, were cruelly Slain on that fatal day. Blessed are ye dead who die in ye Lord !"

Jason Russell, Jabez Wyman and Jason Winship were three of the occupants of that bloody grave. Who the nine others were cannot now be told. Sev- enty-three years later some of the public-spirited cit- izens of West Cambridge, together with Hon. Peter C. Brooks, of Medford, joined to erect the granite shatt that now marks the place. When the workmen opened the grave to lay the foundations of the mon- ument they found the bones still in a good state of preservation, and mingled with them remnants of clothing, rusty buttons, an old shot-pouch, two flints and other remains of like nature. The British dead were buried, some in the burial-ground, near the brook, other in various parts of the town where they had fallen. On the day after the fight a company of militia was detailed from the American force al- ready under arms in Cambridge, to go over the

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ground of the previous day's fighting and inter such of the dead as might be still unburied.

There were no actual hostilities in Menotomy after April 19th, but the parish by no means escaped the burdens of the war. Its young men, under Captain Locke, formed part of the army that besieged Boston. Probably the company was in the battle of Bunker Hill; certainly its captain was, and his descendants preserve the musket that he carried on that day, and tell the story how he fired it till it grew too hotto hold, and then wound his handkerchief around it, and kept on firing. Two days after that battle an order was made that as many houses in Menotomy as should be needed, should be turned into hospitals for the sick and wounded of the American army. The taking of the house of Rev. Mr. Cooke for this purpose was es- pecially authorized.

With the evacuation of Boston the scene of hostil- ities was shifted from Massachusetts, and thencefor- ward Menotomy had to bear only its share of the sacrifices that the conflict entailed. All through the war their minister never failed to hold his people to their duty. It was only with difficulty that his son had forced him out of danger on the 19th of April ; for the old man longed to have a hand in the fight, and to prove that his hatred of oppression was as great when oppression was to be met in arms in the streets as when it was to be denounced from the pulpit. His sermons certainly show no softening of feeling or re- laxation of purpose as the gloomy years of the Revo- lution pass by. His faith never wavers, that the cause of America is the cause of God, and that in His Prov- idence it must succeed at last. The British figure as " tyrants," "unfeeling monsters," "our worse than savage enemies," "our implacable foes." The Script- ures are ransacked for comparisons, and any particu- larly odious oppressor of the olden time is pretty certain to be found to bear a striking resemblance to Lord North. Unfair and unjust much of it no doubt seems to us who lock back over the space of a century, but there is no question as to the earnestness and passion of the preacher. In him the old Puritan spirit is alive again, and it is perhaps fortunate for our country that so many of the clergy of that day, like him, believed that the war between England and Amer- ica was a war between the powers of darkness and of light.

Few entries relating to the war appear on the records of the parish. In 1778 it was voted that the inhabitants be divided into fifteen messes, in propor- tion to their valuation-the design evidently being that the " messes " should be equal in property. Each mess had to furnish or support a soldier, and the ex- pense was shared among the members according to their means. Various committees were chosen to carry out the scheme. Some light is thrown on the enormous depreciation of the currency by theamounts appropriated for the minister's salary. During the early years of the war it remains at £75. In 1778-79

£300 is voted. The next year it is £1200; and finally at the close of 1780 it is placed at £3000. After the surrender of Lord Cornwallis it falls back to £120, and then to £100.

Mr. Cooke did not live long after the war. He died June 4, 1783, and was laid to rest in the old burial-place between his meeting-house and his home. He had played a great part in the community for more than forty years ; nor was his fame confined to his own parish. He was in close relations with the other divines in and about Boston, and was often called upon to take a prominent part when a minister was to be ordained or any special solemnity observed. Rigid and unyielding where what he deemed the interests of truth were concerned, he labored to sus- tain the faith delivered to the churches in New Eng- land. False doctrine, heresy or schism found no countenance from him. As far back as 1745, as one of an association of ministers, he declared that he would not ask into his pulpit the Rev. George White- field, who was then making such a stir among clergy and laity alike. In the latter part of his life he was much troubled by the spread of new opinions that were undermining the old unity of faith among his people, and by the increasing laxity in morals and discipline. Naturally Universalism received no favor from him, or, as the obituary notice in the newspaper puts it, "As he ever opposed the introduction of errors, he was particularly concerned to bear a faitli- ful and even dying testimony against the doctrines of 'Salvation for all Men' as 'totally subversive of the Christian religion.'" But worse than all was the actual establishment of a Baptist church in his own parish two years before his death. It was a sign that the old order of things was coming to an end in Men- otomy ; that his church could no longer exist as the sole centre of religious instruction; that his teach- ings must cease to command universal assent and reverence; and it is perhaps well that he did not live to a time when the disintegrating process had gone on still farther.

I make no apology for having devoted what may seem undue space to the first minister of the parish ; for the history of the parish centres about him, and the better we know him the better we can under- stand the character of the people among whom he labored.

For several years after Mr. Cooke's death the parish was in difficulty. The people shared in the general poverty that accompanied and followed the war. They owed a considerable amount of arrears of salary to the heirs of their late minister, which they did not succeed in paying off until 1786. They had trouble with the new Baptist society. Twice they unsuccess- fully attempted to settle a minister. At last, at a meeting held July 16, 1787, they chose for their min- ister Rev. Thaddeus Fiske, who had already been preaching for them several months. This time their effort did not fail, and Mr. Fiske began his long pas-

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torate of forty years. He was twenty-five years old when he came to Menotomy, and had graduated at Harvard College two years before.

There had probably been some persons in the parish inclined to Baptist views for a long period before the Revolution, but the first notice we find of them in the records as a distinct class is in March, 1775. Appar- ently some of them felt a not unreasonable dislike to being taxed for the support of a church with which they differed, and desired that the injustice might be remedied, but they found the majority of their neigh- bors uncompromising, for the record of a meeting held March 22, 1775, reads that it was voted "not to excuse the people called antipedobaptists from pay- ing ministerial taxes for the year 1773-74." Then came the war and for a time theological disputes were in abeyance. In 1780 the Baptist people got together and began to take steps to organize a society.

In the following year the society and church were regularly formed and received the fellowship of the denomination. Thomas Green was the first pastor. Originally appointed to preach in Menotomy by the Association of which the newly-formed church was a member, his ministrations proved so acceptable to his people that he was ordained as minister in November, 1783. His pastorate continued for ten years. In 1790 a church was built-still standing- at the corner of Brattle Street, and showing, notwith- standing the alterations made to convert it into a dwelling-house, evident traces of its original pur- pose. At about this time an agreement was made whereby persons of the Baptist faith living in Woburn were enabled to unite with the church in Menotomy, the minister preaching half the time in each place. This turned out to be an unfortunate arrangement for the original society, for the Woburn branch increased much more rapidly than did the society in Menotomy, and became the principal organization. The people here were no longer able to support regular preach- ing, but they held services from time to time, as they found opportunity, and prevented the enterprise in which they believed from coming to an end.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 42

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278