Dr. Abel Prescott and the Details

As recounted yesterday, the Concord official Abiel Heywood told the Rev. Ezra Ripley that British soldiers fired at Dr. Abel Prescott, Jr., and “wounded him in one arm.”

Ripley published that story in A History of the Fight at Concord in 1827, when Heywood was still alive, along with other survivors of the British raid who could correct the account.

Since Heywood described how as a fourteen-year-old he witnessed Prescott seeking refuge in his family home, and helping his stepmother bandage the doctor’s wound, we should rely on Heywood describing where the wound was, right?

But eight years later, Lemuel Shattuck published his History of the Town of Concord, and he summarized the same incident this way:

…they [British soldiers] fired at Mr. Abel Prescott, whom they saw returning from an excursion to alarm the neighbouring towns; but, though slightly wounded in his side, he secreted himself in Mrs. Heywood’s house and escaped.

Abiel Heywood was still alive and prominent then, too.

These days almost every description of Dr. Abel Prescott’s wound says it was in his side rather than his arm. And maybe it was, but an earlier source contradicts that.

Shattuck also wrote in a footnote: “Abel died of the dysentery in Concord, September 3, 1775, aged 25.” I think that was the first time the doctor’s death was described in print.

It’s notable how different authors have treated Prescott as a war casualty. In 1775 there was disagreement about whether to list him as wounded in battle. He wasn’t actually bearing arms against the enemy at the time, though as an alarm rider he was fulfilling a military purpose. Explaining the circumstance of his wounding, however, might say more than the Patriots wanted to about how they were prepared with an alarm system.

Disagreements over how to count Dr. Prescott may be why his name didn’t appear on Ezekiel Russell’s “Bloody Butchery” broadside, but did show up in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s official list of casualties to complain about.

The way authors described Dr. Prescott’s death continued to evolve. Shattuck stated baldly that the cause was “the dysentery.” There was an epidemic of that diarrheal disease in Massachusetts in late 1775, called “camp fever” because it was undoubtedly spread in the Continetal Army camps and brought home to rural towns by sick soldiers and others who had been in those camps.

Shattuck didn’t state that Dr. Abel Prescott contracted dysentery while treating soldiers, however, or say anything more about his military activity.

In contrast, at least since Ruth R. Wheeler in Concord: Climate for Freedom (1967), authors have connected Prescott’s injury in April with his death in the summer. Wheeler wrote: “in his weakened condition he fell a prey to dysentery and died in August.”

By stating that Dr. Abel Prescott, Jr., never recovered from his wound, recent authors have thus made him into another casualty of the battle on 19 Apr 1775. And given what we know about health, that might be accurate. But it’s also possible that Prescott recovered from his wound and contracted dysentery independently, like many other people in Massachusetts.

Finally, there’s a question about when Dr. Abel Prescott, Jr., died. As I’ve said, that household doesn’t show up in Concord’s published vital records. Shattuck stated a death date of 3 September. The Prescott Memorial (1870) echoed that date and reported his age as “26 years, 5 mos., 9 days,” but that was actually nine days short of five months. More recently somebody apparently took that count of days as exact and calculated Prescott’s death as happening on 21 September, and that date now appears on Find-a-grave, Wikipedia, and other websites. Finally, as quoted above, Wheeler wrote that young doctor “died in August.” In the absence of a contemporaneous source, I’m sticking with 3 September.

COMING UP: Back to Dr. Samuel Prescott.