A Few More Tidbits from Along the Way

Here are a few more observations on the sources I examined in my hunt for traces of Dr. Samuel Prescott this month.

First, in 1835 Lemuel Shattuck, probably relying on local and family traditions in Concord, wrote that when Prescott met Paul Revere and William Dawes, he “had spent the evening at Lexington,…and having been alarmed, was hastening his return home.”

In other words, Dr. Prescott had left his fiancée, Lydia Mulliken, because he had heard about the approaching regulars. Given the timing, that news had probably reached Lexington when the Boston men arrived at the Lexington parsonage. By the time the riders met on the road, Revere and Dawes didn’t need to tell Prescott.

If Dr. Prescott had indeed already heard the alarm, that helps to explain two details:

• why he left the Mulliken house—because he wanted to get back to his home town and prepare for any necessary military or medical action. He may therefore have planned to spend the night.
• how Revere and Dawes quickly learned that Prescott was a “high Son of Liberty.” They were probably all talking about what the army might be up to.

Second, in The Road to Concord, I wrote that James Barrett’s family and friends probably took the four cannon stolen from Boston to Stow and hid them near the house of Henry Gardner, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s reciever-general (equivalent of treasurer).

I based that on a statement in a Bicentennial-era history of Stow citing a local tradition. I wished I had a stronger source, but I presented it only as a possibility.

In the 24 Apr 1824 Concord Gazette and Middlesex Yeoman article I quoted this month I spotted this sentence:

Five pieces of cannon, a quantity of ammunition had been previously conveyed to Stow, and put under the care of Mr. GARDNER.

That’s still an unsourced statement from a newspaper story published forty-nine years after the event. Nonetheless, it’s gratifying to find people in Concord believed that was true.


Finally, in the 14 Feb 1778 article from the Providence Gazette where I found Dr. Prescott’s name among the men who had died in Halifax prison, another name is “Samuel Dyre.”

Samuel Dyer (whose name was spelled other ways as well) was the subject of the two articles I wrote for the Journal of the American Revolution published earlier this month.

Early in those articles I noted how hard it is to trace that Samuel Dyer since he was a sailor, thus transient and unlikely to leave a mark on institutional records, and since there were other men with the same or similar names.

Therefore, I resist the temptation to say that sailor Samuel Dyer from 1774–75 was the same man who died in Halifax in late 1776 or early 1777, most likely after being captured on a privateer.

After all, the last time my Samuel Dyer definitely appears in the historical record, he had been working for the royal authorities as a trustie inside the Boston jail. Would he really have enlisted aboard an American privateer after that?

All I can say is, given my Samuel Dyer’s habit of switching sides and telling powerful men what they wanted to hear, I can’t rule out that possibility.

Getting to Know Dr. Samuel Prescott

One of the questions after my online talk for the Army Heritage Center Foundation last week led me to discussing Dr. Samuel Prescott and how little we know about him. So I decided to look into what we do know.

Dr. Prescott is remembered for joining Paul Revere and William Dawes on their ride west from Lexington center in the small hours of 19 Apr 1775. Revere’s 1798 account is largely responsible for that clear identification. The silversmith wrote: “We were overtaken by a young Docter Prescot, whom we found to be a high Son of Liberty.”

Some authors have claimed that Prescott was already active in the Patriot resistance, carrying messages. I’ve never seen evidence of that beyond the fact that Revere called him “a high Son of Liberty.” But look at how that clause began, “whom we found…” Revere and Dawes, who were active in the network and in Revere’s case had been out to Concord before, didn’t know Prescott. They had to get to know him.

Note also how Revere, aged forty, recalled this rider as “a young Docter Prescot.” Samuel Prescott was only twenty-three years old. In fact, he was the fourth Dr. Prescott in Concord, after his father, Dr. Abel Prescott (1718–1805), and his brothers, Benjamin (1745–1830) and Abel, Jr., who had just turned twenty-six. (Their mother had died the previous July.)

(I’m following the dates that appear in The Prescott Memorial, published by a family member in 1870. Find-a-Grave gives a different date in 1749 for Abel, Jr.’s birth without citing a source. The family doesn’t appear in Concord’s published vital records.)

Revere warned his companions that there were British army officers on the road that night, so they should be prepared. And:

I likewise mentioned, that we had better allarm all the Inhabitents till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it, and said, he would stop with either of us, for the people between that & Concord knew him, & would give the more credit to what we said.

The elder Dr. Abel Prescott had treated people in that region for decades, succeeding his own father and elder brother. He had probably brought his sons along on calls for training.

In Lincoln, while Prescott and Dawes visited a house together, Revere spotted two riders up ahead. He thought they were behaving like the army officers who had nearly stopped him in Charlestown. He called for his companions to join him, thinking three Patriots could handle two officers. Instead, “in an Instant I was surrounded by four.”

Revere continued:

The Docter being foremost, he came up; and we tryed to git past them; but they being armed with pistols & swords, they forced us in to the pasture;—the Docter jumped his Horse over a low Stone wall, and got to Concord.

Revere had nothing more to say about Prescott. Concord sources confirm that he reached his home town with the Bostonians’ warnings and then continued on west to Acton and Stow.

Meanwhile, Dr. Abel Prescott, Jr., mounted and carried the same news to Framingham and Sudbury, south of Concord. Later in the morning he tried to return to Concord over the South Bridge, only to find regulars from the 10th Regiment of Foot guarding that position.

TOMORROW: Wounded and hiding.

Frank W. Coburn’s Twenty-three Towns—and Four Extra?

About a century ago, Frank Warren Coburn of Lexington set out to document the names of the militiamen who fought in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Not just the men who marched, but those in companies that exchanged fire with the British troops.

Coburn scoured the available sources to determine which towns’ companies probably saw fighting. Then he went through the Massachusetts state archives, looking for payrolls submitted from those towns. He also sought lists of militiamen from other sources, such as town histories and manuscripts.

Coburn printed all the names he found in an appendix to his 1912 history (full title: The Battle of April 19, 1775, in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown, Massachusetts). His list of towns was:

• Lexington, of course
• Concord, Acton, Bedford, Lincoln, Billerica, Chelmsford, Framingham, Reading, Sudbury, Woburn; all “entered the contest at Concord,” which could mean either at the North Bridge or later as the regulars withdrew from the town
• Cambridge, which “entered the contest at Lincoln”
• Newton, which “entered the contest at Lexington”
• Brookline, Watertown, Medford, Malden, Roxbury, Dedham, Needham, Lynn, Beverly, and Danvers, which all “entered the contest at Arlington”

Twenty-three towns—but Coburn’s appendix also included four more places.

He listed Arlington separately from Cambridge even though in 1775 Arlington was a precinct of Cambridge called Menotomy. Coburn didn’t find a militia muster roll for Capt. Benjamin Locke’s company from that area. Instead, he relied on town histories by Lucius R. Paige and Samuel A. Smith.

It’s worth noting that Coburn didn’t treat Burlington and Winchester the same way. Those towns calved off of Woburn in the 1799 and 1850, respectively, and militiamen from those areas were part of the Woburn companies. But Burlington and Winchester didn’t get their own entries as Arlington did. Likewise, Carlisle was treated as part of Concord, Wayland as part of Sudbury, and so on. 

Coburn also began his appendix with a statement setting off three more towns:

These Companies were all participants, with the exception of those of Dracut, Stow, and Westford. I have given them, as they came so nearly into the contest.

That implies Coburn decided to give the men from those towns an honorable mention for trying extra hard.

That certainly seems to be the case for Dracut, located up at the New Hampshire border. That town’s company made much better time than their neighbors. Coburn wrote, “The men of Dracut did not reach the scene of actual conflict but tried to, and came so near the British rear guard as to deserve a place in this record.” Good effort, Dracut! Way to hustle!

In similar fashion, Coburn wrote, “The men from Westford did not reach Concord in time to enter the engagement, but pursued the British so closely as to deserve especial mention.” And the same sentence about Stow.

As I noted yesterday, Stow actually suffered a casualty in the battle: Daniel Conant, wounded. However, he lived in the part of the Stow that became Maynard in 1871. The Stow Independent reported in 2014:

Conant wasn’t on the [William] Whitcomb company’s list, where he should have been. The theory is he lived closer to North Maynard—and, hence, Concord—at the time, so he marched ahead on his own…

In that case, Conant’s position within shooting range wouldn’t say anything about how close the Stow companies got.

At another point in his book, Coburn wrote that one Stow company “did not reach North Bridge until about noon, too late to be in the action there, but in ample time to be active in the pursuit.” And the three companies from Westford also “reached the North Bridge too late, but were active afterwards.”

What did Coburn mean by “active” or “active in the pursuit”? Especially when he concluded that those same companies were not “participants” but “came…nearly into the contest”? Did they come in sight of the redcoat column, but not within firing range? If so, did they conceivably affect the British soldiers’ behavior? And what about the Salem regiment, which also reportedly came close enough to see the redcoats?

TOMORROW: Another analysis, skirmish by skirmish.

“America’s Summer Road Trip,” 1 Aug.

When History Camp Boston and then other History Camps had to be canceled this year because of the pandemic, the organizers of The Pursuit of History looked for another way to share historical information with the public.

Lee Wright and Carrie Lund have been conducting online interviews with authors every Thursday. I was the first interviewee as we all figured out what we were doing. (As a board member of The Pursuit of History, as well as a friend of Lee and Carrie, it felt fair for me to be a test pilot.)

Another new enterprise from The Pursuit of History is “America’s Summer Road Trip,” the first excursion scheduled for this Saturday, 1 August. You can watch preview videos and sign up for this streaming event here. It’s free.

For Saturday, twelve historic sites across the country have prepared longer video visits. Personnel at each site will speak live and answer questions. This should be a fun way for history fans not only to mentally get out of the house, but also to check out places and topics that you’ve never visited (yet).

Once again I’m involved, this time working with Ranger Jim Hollister at Minute Man National Historical Park to talk about the James Barrett farm in Concord. We talk about what the fighting on 19 Apr 1775 looked like from there. This property is a crucial part of that history, but it wasn’t part of the park until a few years ago and not many tours cover it. So even if you’ve been to Minute Man, this corner of the park might be new to you.

“America’s Summer Road Trip 2020” streams from 9:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. Eastern Time on Saturday at AmericasSummerRoadtrip.org and the Facebook page. The recorded content will also be archived on that Facebook page. Here’s the whole schedule.

9:00 A.M.: Historic New Bridge Landing, River Edge, New Jersey – The Bergen County Historical Society introduces this battleground, encampment, and intelligence outpost, with a building that served as Gen. George Washington’s headquarters in 1780.

10:00: Rebecca Nurse Homestead, Danvers, Massachusetts — The only home of a victim of the 1692 Salem Witch Hunt preserved and open to the public.

11:00: National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, Ohio — Opened in 2002, its mission is to “reveal stories of freedom’s heroes, from the era of the Underground Railroad to contemporary times.”

12:00 noon: Minute Man National Historical Park, Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord, Massachusetts — Site of the first fatal battle of the Revolutionary War in April 1775.

1:00 P.M.: Faneuil Hall and the Printing Office of Edes & Gill, Boston, Massachusetts — Faneuil Hall has been the site of historic meetings, speeches, and debates for 275 years. At Edes and Gill, the documents that led to the origin of the nation are recreated on a colonial-era printing press.

2:00: Molly Brown House, Denver, Colorado — Margaret “Molly” Brown was a labor activist, suffragist, and advocate for social justice who survived the tragedy of the Titanic; her ornate Victorian-era mansion interprets her story.

3:00: Thomas Edison National Historical Park, West Orange, New Jersey — Thomas Edison’s Laboratory Complex shows the development of such innovations as the phonograph, incandescent lamps, and motion picture cameras while his home, Glenmont, is a 29-room estate with verdant grounds.

4:00: Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Nageezi, New Mexico — The ruins at Chaco Culture National Historical Park are more than 1,000 years old and offer insight into the largest and most advanced ancient Pueblo villages in the Southwest.

5:00: American Heritage Museum at the Collings Foundation, Stow, Massachusetts — This museum focuses on America’s military engagements from the Revolutionary Way to today, with an extensive collection of vehicles from the World Wars.

6:00: Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, Powell, Wyoming — More than 14,000 Japanese-Americans were confined here during World War II; this site both preserves the remains of the camp and tells the stories of the people forced to move there.

7:00: Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina — The museum and grounds at this National Park Service site describe the Wrights’ methodical experimentation to achieve the first successful, sustained, powered flights.

8:00: Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, Coloma, California — This California State Historic Park marks where James Marshall discovered gold in 1848, prompting the Gold Rush to California.

A Sampling of the 2019 Battle Road Season

The Patriots’ Day season starts this Saturday, 6 April, with three annual events in three towns:

• Bedford Pole Capping in Bedford, 10:30 A.M.
• Meriam’s Corner Exercise in Concord, 1:00 P.M.
• Paul Revere Capture Ceremony in Lincoln, 3:00 P.M.

Two of the events thus commemorated took place on 19 Apr 1775. The pole capping is a more recent community celebration, though Liberty Poles were undoubtedly part of the Revolutionary landscape.

Here’s something I don’t recall seeing before: The town of Lexington has the domain name patriotsday.com. It redirects to the town website, which includes this page of local events from Saturday, 13 April, to Monday, 15 April—legally Patriots’ Day. These opportunities include tours of the Lexington Historical Society’s museums and reenactments of the fights in Lexington.

Back to the Minute Man National Historical Park website for a listing of events it hosts, and to Battleroad.org for related events elsewhere, including:

• Parker’s Revenge, Saturday, 13 April, 1:00 P.M.
• Jason Russell House fight, Arlington, Sunday, 14 April, noon. 
• “Warlike Preparations” at the Barrett Farm, Sunday, 14 April, 1:00-4:00 P.M.
• Lincoln Fife & Drum Salute, Sunday, 14 April, 2:00-4:00 P.M.
• Robbins’s Ride in Acton, Sunday, 14 April, 5:00-6:00 P.M.
• Revere’s arrival at the Lexington parsonage, Sunday, 14 April, 11:30 P.M.
• Marches from Stow and Westford, Monday, 15 April, arriving at the bridge about 9:00 A.M.
• North Bridge Fight and Concord Parade, Monday, 15 April, 8:30-10:00 A.M.

There are also events that by tradition take place on the actual anniversaries instead of the legal holiday:

• Lantern procession and Ceremony at North Bridge, Thursday, 18 April, 7:45-8:45 P.M.
• Sudbury Militia March, Friday, 19 April, arriving at the bridge about 11:30 A.M. 

And back to Minute Man Park for “The War Has Begun” on Saturday, 20 April, reenacting how Massachusetts communities responded to the strain of the siege of Boston.

This is just a sampling of the historical events taking place around Patriots’ Day, drawn from Middlesex County. Many other communities have their own traditional commemorations.

“The Road to Concord” Ends in Stow, 20 July

On Thursday, 20 July, I’ll speak about The Road to Concord at the Randall Library in Stow, Massachusetts.

For this talk I plan to stress the end of the story, as Gen. Thomas Gage strove to find the cannon that the Massachusetts Provincial Congress was accumulating in the countryside—particularly in Concord.

On 29 Oct 1774, that congress appointed Henry Gardner (1731-1782) of Stow as its “receiver general”—the shadow treasurer for a shadow government. The congress asked towns to send Gardner all the taxes they collected for Massachusetts instead of sending them to Harrison Gray, the royal government’s treasurer in Boston.

In 1907 Edward Everett Hale wrote for the Massachusetts Historical Society, “It would seem as if Henry Gardner might be called the first person who by public act was instructed to commit high treason against the King.”

Be that as it may, Gardner was responsible for managing payments for the cannon, carriages, and artillery equipment that the congress bought over the months before the war. Given how the economy worked, he may simply have kept track of the debts that tradesmen or wealthy Patriot merchants were accruing. Many towns apparently chose to keep their tax collections themselves rather than forwarding them on to either side.

Stow has another link to the story in The Road to Concord. It looks like that town was the farthest west that the Boston militia artillery company’s four brass cannon traveled in 1775. The town’s website says, “Cannon were hidden in the woods surrounding the Lower Common, gunpowder and other armaments in the Meeting House and a small powderhouse on Pilot Grove Hill.” I look forward to seeing those sites.

This talk will start at 7:00 P.M. at the Randall Library, 19 Crescent Street in Stow. It is free and open to the public. I’ll have copies of The Road to Concord and other books available for sale and signing.

John Goddard Carts Supplies to Concord

On 24 Febr 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s Committee of Safety and Committee on Supplies voted to procure these items and store them in Concord:

1000 candles; 100 hhds. [hogsheads] salt; a suitable supply of wooden spoons; 20 casks of raisins; 20 bushels of oatmeal; 1500 yards Russia linen; also 2 barrels Lisbon oil; 6 casks of Malaga wine, and 9 casks of Lisbon wine, to be lodged at Stow.

The committees had already started to amass other supplies, including some with no other purpose but to wage war. The congress needed someone to move all that stuff around, so on that same day the committees

Voted, unanimously, that Mr. John Goddard, of Brookline, be waggon master for the army, and that Capt. [Benjamin] White inform him of his choice by the province.

Goddard (1730-1816) had been one of Brookline’s three representatives to the first Massachusetts Provincial Congress, convening in October 1774, but for the February session the town had sent only White.

In 1898 the Brookline Historical Society printed John Goddard’s expense book, listing these entries for the beginning of the year 1775:

The Committee for Supplies to John Goddard of Brookline Dr. for his Expense of Time —

March 4th 1775 to one day going to Boston & engaging Team £0.. 5 .. 4
[etc. etc.]

March 8th 1775.
The Committee for Supplies to Sundry Persons under ye Direction of John Goddard Dr. —
To carting fifty five Barrels of Beef from Boston to Concord @5/ Pr Barrel £3..15..0

18th
to carting two Hogsheads of Flints & other articles from Boston to Brookline 0..6..6

20th to carting 74 C:3/4 of Rice from Boston to Concord @1/2d pr C 4..19..8

22. to carting 15 C:1/4 of weights 1..0..2
to carting sheet Lead and three Barrels of Linen 0..8..0

24. To carting 2 casks of Leaden Balls 0..2..8

April 10th 1775. to carting two Ox Cart & two horse cart loads of canteens to Concord £3..6..8
to ye assistance of 3 Men in removing canteens 0..3..0

14th to carting 1 ox cart & 1 horse cart load of Canteens to Concord 1..13..4

In Nathaniel Goddard: A Boston Merchant, 1767-1853 (1906), Henry G. Pickering wrote that on the trips to Concord, “One of these teams was driven by John Goddard himself, and another by his son Joseph, then a lad of fourteen.”