Paul Revere's Ride (81 page)

24
.
Ibid.

25
.
Ibid.

26
. Hurd,
Middlesex County,
II, 253.

27
.
Ibid.
II, 872; Castle
et al.
(eds.),
The Minute Men,
144.

28
. Castle
et al.
(eds.),
The Minute Men,
81.

29
. A “Revolutionary soldier” in Sudbury later remembered that “an express from Concord to Thomas Plympton Esquire who was then a member of the Provincial Congress [reported] that the British were on their way to Concord. In 35 minutes between 4 and 5 o’clock in the morning the sexton was immediately called on, the bell ringing and the discharge of musket which was to give the alarm. By sunrise the greatest part of the inhabitants were notified. The morning was remarkable fine and the inhabitants of Sudbury never can make such an important appearance probably again.” Hudson,
Sudbury,
364.

30
. Castle
et al.
(eds.),
The Minute Men,
208.

31
.
Francis Jackson,
A History of the Early Settlement of Newton, County of Middlesex, Massachusetts, from 1639 to 1800
(Boston, 1854), 184—85.

32
. Robert B. Hanson,
Dedham, Massachusetts, 1635-1890
(Dedham, 1976), 152;
History and Directory of Dedham, Mass., for 1889
(Boston, 1889), 22—23.

33
. William Heath,
Memoirs,
5.

34
. According to tradition in Watertown, the word reached town “through the messenger Paul Revere,” Hurd,
Middlesex County,
II, 385; see also
Watertown’s Military History
(Boston, 1907), 77.

35
. Samuel F. Haven,
Historical Address, Dedham, September 21,1836
(Dedham, 1836), 46; Coburn,
Battle of April 19, 1775,
45.

36
. The only accurate secondary account of Revere’s role in the alarm system is Galvin,
Minute Men,
124.

10.
The Muster

1
. Jonas Clarke, “Narrative of Events of April 19.”

2
. John Parker, Deposition, April 25, 1775,
AA4,
II, 491; Elizabeth S. Parker, “John Parker,” in LHS
Proceedings
1 (1866-89) 47.

3
. Thomas Fessenden and William Draper, Depositions, April 23-25, 1775,
AA4,
II, 496.

4
. Clarke, “Narrative of Events of April 19.”

5
. This is an undocumented hour in Paul Revere’s activities, between midnight (or a little later) when he arrived in Lexington and one o’clock or (or a little after) when he and Dawes left for Concord. Revere wrote only that they refreshed themselves. If that happened at the Buckman Tavern, it is probable that he and Dawes might have joined Captain Parker in some of the early discussions.

6
. These customs gave rise to the American expression “enlisted men,” still commonly used in the United States, but not in the United Kingdom, where enlisted men are called “other ranks.” These terms express two profoundly different systems of military stratification in the English-speaking world.

7
. Galvin,
Minute Men,
17—46; The earliest recorded use of the word “minuteman” found by Galvin was in the payroll of Abadiah Cooley’s Brookfield company and was endorsed “Minute Men on the Crown Point Expedition, 1756” (p. 41).

A large literature on the New England militia includes: John Shy, “A New Look at the Colonial Militia,”
A People Numerous and Armed
(New York, 1976), 22—33; Timothy Breen, “The Covenanted Militia of Massachusetts: English Background and New World Development,”
Puritans and Adventurers
(New York, 1980), 24-45; Fred Anderson,
A People’s Army; Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War
(Chapel Hill, 1984).

Much recent work studies the militia as a social institution, an approach very different from Galvin’s, who considers them as functioning military organizations from the perspective of a professional military officer. A major opportunity exists for a cultural historian who might wish to combine these two approaches.

8
. Francis S. Drake,
The Town of Roxbury
(Roxbury, 1878), 30. Heath in a letter to Harrison Gray Otis, April 21,1798, claimed that the first company of minutemen was raised in Roxbury.

9
. Lexington Town Records, Nov. 10-Dec. 27, 1774, Lexington Town Hall.

10
. “Training Band” is the word that appears in the Lexington Town Records, Nov. 28, 1774. Captain Parker himself, and other members of the Lexington company always described themselves as militia, not minutemen. They were part of Gardner’s Regiment of Militia, not of the various regiments of minutemen. In 1774 the town agreed to support both its “training band” and its “alarm list,” but no mention was made of “minutemen.” The town records of Lexington were reported “lost” long ago for the period from January 1 to April 19, 1775. Someone, many years ago, ripped out four pages. Their absence allowed the
myth of the Lexington minutemen to flourish. Cf. Galvin,
Minute Men,
262, and Hudson,
Lexington,
162, 177.

11
. Galvin,
Minute Men,
72.

12
. Edward Butterfield, March 1, 1775, in Hurd,
Middlesex County,
II, 751.

13
.
Boston Gazette,
Nov. 28, 1774.

14
. Castle
et al.
(eds.),
The Minute Men,
28.

15
. Amos Barrett in the letters of the Rev. Henry True (1900); Jonathan Harrington in Hudson,
Lexington,
94.

16
.
AA4,
II, 441.

17
. Abram English Brown,
Beside Old Hearthstones
(Boston, 1897), 249—50.

18
. Richard D. Brown,
“Knowledge is Power”: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700—1865
(New York, 1989), 250; “Journal of James Stevens,”
EIHC
48 (1912): 41 (April 19, 1775).

19
.
Boston Daily Advertiser,
April 20, 1886;
History and Directory of Dedham, Massachusetts
(Boston, 1889), 23.

20
. Alonzo Lewis and James R. Newhall,
History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts…
(Boston, 1865), 338; Brown,
Beside Old Hearthstones,
249—50.

21
.
Ibid.;
Hudson,
Lexington,
208.

22
. Hurd,
Middlesex County,
II, 231.

23
. W. S. Tilden, “Medfield Soldiers in the Revolution,”
Dedham Historical Register
8 (1897): 70-76.

24
.
Memoirs of Major-General William Heath by Himself,
ed. William Abbott (1798; New York, 1901), 72.

25
. George O. Trevelyan,
American Revolution,
4 vols. (London, 1909—12), I, 287.

26
. Brown,
Beside Old Hearthstones,
249—50.

27
. Garry Wills,
Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1978), 36.

28
. Erastus Worthington II,
Proceedings at the 250th Anniversary… of the Town of Dedham
(Cambridge, 1887), 78; Hurd,
Middlesex County,
II, 872.

29
. Trevelyan,
American Revolution,
I, 287.

30
. Loammi Baldwin, “Diary,” April 19, 1775, in Hurd,
Middlesex County,
I, 447; Trevelyan,
American Revolution,
I, 286.

31
. Frederic Kidder,
The History of New Ipswich
(Boston, 1852), 95; Christopher Ward,
The War of the Revolution,
2 vols. (New York, 1952), I, 78.

32
.
Ibid.

33
. “Reminiscence of Col. Aspinwall,” Hudson,
Lexington,
208.

34
. Hurd,
Middlesex County,
II, 872.

35
. Newton Town Records, Jan. 2, 1775; Francis Jackson,
A History of the Early Settlement of Newton, County of Middlesex, Massachusetts, from 1639 to 1800
(Boston, 1854), 183.

36
. Kidder,
New Ipswich,
95; Amos Baker, Affidavit, April 22, 1850, Robert Rantoul, Jr.,
Oration
(Boston, 1850), 133-35; John C. Maclean,
A Rich Harvest: The History, Buildings and People of Lincoln, Mass.
(Lincoln, 1907).

37
. Lewis and Newhall,
History of Lynn,
338.

38
. William H. Guthman,
Drums A’Beating, Trumpets Sounding; Artistically Carved Powder Horns in the Provincial Manner, 1746-1781
(Hartford, 1993), 159, 162, 167. An account of the Harrington horn is in Brown,
Buckman Tavern,
22. The assertion that it was earlier owned by Henry Dunster is probably incorrect. Another horn in the same collection has three inscriptions. The first reads, “Zapnin Sythe, His Home, April ye 17, 1774.” Later the owner added a snake and a turtle, with the words, “Home we will strife together ZS 1776.” The following year he carved, “Noe boots or bread Dec. ye 11th 1777 Valley Forge,”
ibid.,
22. I am grateful to David Wood for his advice and suggestions.

39
. Examples of this short rapier may be seen in the Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington. I am much endebted to John Hamilton, curator of the museum, for sharing his expertise on edged weapons in New England.

40
.
The flag survives today in the Bedford Library. Several iconoclasts have challenged its authenticity, but the provenance is well established and supporting documentation exists in 17th-century British sources.

41
. Mellen Chamberlain (1821-1900) was a jurist and antiquarian of high probity; the interview took place
ca.
1843, when Chamberlain was twenty-one and Preston was ninety-one. Several different versions of this interview have crept into the literature. One of them ends differently, “We always had been free and we meant to be free always!” Cf. “Why Captain Levi Preston Fought: An Interview with One of the Survivors of the Revolution by Hon. Mellen Chamberlain of Chelsea,”
Danvers Historical Collections
8 (1920): 68-70; and John S. Pancake,
1777, the Year of the Hangman
(University, Ala., 1977), 7.

11.
The Great Fear

1
. Solomon Smith, Deposition, July 10, 1835; Hannah Davis Leighton, Deposition, Aug. 14, 1835; Josiah Adams,
Centennial Address on the Founding of Acton
(Boston, 1835), 16, 19;
idem, Letter to Lemuel Shattuck, Esq.
(Boston, 1850), Allen French,
Day of Concord and Lexington
(Boston, 1925), 183-84.

2
. Georges Lefebvre,
La Grande Peur de 1789
(Paris, 1932, 1970); translated by Joan White as
The Great Fear of 1789; Rural Panic in Revolutionary France
(1973, Princeton, 1982); Henri Dinet,
La Grande Peur dans la g
é
n
é
ralit
é
de Poitiers: juillet-ao
û
t 1789
(Paris, 1951);
idem,
“Les peurs du Beauvaisis et du Valois, juilliet, 1789,”
Paris et Ile-de-France: Memoires
23-24: (1972-74): 199-392, a major work with many documents; and other works by the same author cited therein; Michel Vovelle,
De la cave au grenier: un itineraire en Provence au XVIIIe siecle
(Quebec, 1980), 221-62; Clay Ramsay,
The Ideology of the Great Fear: The Soissonnais in 1789
(Baltimore, 1992). A similar phenomenon in yet another revolutionary setting is explored in G. Chiselle, “Une panique normande en 1848,” review in
La Pensure,
April 1912.

3
. Hannah Winthrop to Mercy Warren, n.d.,
MHSP
14 (1875): 29—31.

4
.
Ibid.

5
. Obituary of Rebecca Harrington Munroe, (Boston)
Daily Advertiser,
April 11, 1834.

6
. Extract from a Petition of Jacob Rogers, Oct. 10, 1775, Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
371-72.