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The Midnight-ish Rides of William Dawes, Samuel Prescott and Paul Revere

“Listen, my children, and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of”……William Dawes. No, that doesn’t work. “Of the midnight ride of …Samuel Prescott. No, that doesn’t work either; Oh, I have it: “Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” Thus, Paul Revere became a legend and an icon in American history, and William Dawes and Samuel Prescott were left in the dust from Paul Revere’s horse, a footnote at best, if remembered at all.

Sadly, much of the history Americans know is founded on myths and legends. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” did much to create a history rife with deliberate inaccuracies and gives all the glory to Revere. The truth, however, is almost completely different from the “history” of the poem, learned by countless generations of Americans in school, and carried through to adulthood.

Paul Revere holds his then-claim to fame.

In fact, until Longfellow wrote the poem, Revere, was known for his metalwork but not for Revolutionary War heroics anywhere in New England, let alone the rest of the country. He was locally well-known as an artisan and entrepreneur. When he died in 1818, his obituary made no mention of the “famous” ride. Just as Hollywood creates heroes, Longfellow created a heroic persona for Revere far beyond what he actually did.

Some Truth to the Story

While the events described in the poem all took place on the night of April 18, 1775, they were set in motion long before that. The possibility of a confrontation between British forces and colonists had been brewing for months. The colonist had prepared for just such an eventuality.

The most critical part of the preparation was prior warning. Paul Revere did play a part in these events, and he did arrange for the famous signal from the steeple of Christ Church (Old North Church) – one if by land and two if by sea. And it is true that he did participate in part of the ride that night to warn of British movements.

But beyond that, the majority of Longfellow’s poem amounts to fictional propaganda. He wrote it just before the start of the Civil War. Longfellow, an ardent abolitionist, designed the poem to stir up patriotic fervor, not to record history.

Straying From the Truth

“And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm…“ It didn’t take long for Longfellow to stray from the truth. Revere was not on the opposite shore in Charlestown. He was in Boston, on the shore near the Old North Church, and when he, “…with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore…” — he did it as a passenger. Two very brave and anonymous men did the rowing past the British guard boats.

“Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride, On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere…And lo! As he looks on the belfry’s height, a Glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns!” If he was impatient at all, it was on the Boston shore where he would have seen the signal, since he only crossed the water once the signal had been given. With a horse waiting for him on the “opposite shore,” he would have quickly mounted and gone on his way with little ceremony.

William Dawes, Too

It beggars belief to think the colonial leaders would assign such a critical task to just one man as Longfellow’s poem infers. Of course they didn’t. Revere was only one of at least two men specifically assigned to carry the message of the British movements to critical personnel and start the add-on affect of riders spreading out throughout the countryside.

William Dawes rode too.

They did it this way for a couple of reasons. First, one man could not possibly cover the area needed to reach all the important personnel. Secondly, they had to assume capture, so they needed redundant messengers. If one got caught, then another carried the same messages. In fact, Paul Revere and William Dawes just started a chain of riders that got bigger as the night progressed.

The idea that Revere, or any single rider, rode to warn every village and farm is staggering. In the first place, they didn’t have enough time to stop at every house to issue a warning. And that assumes they even knew how to find each house. Although Longfellow never claimed Revere rode along shouting “the British are coming, the British are coming,” this somehow got added to the legend.

Three Reasons

It doesn’t make sense for three reasons. First, not every house held patriots. Many held loyalists, and British patrols were out everywhere. Riding by shouting their presence would have amounted to a very risky proposition.

Secondly, many homes were farmhouses, and not located on any main route. Going to every one would have taken days for one or two men.

Thirdly, anyone riding around in the dead of night, when everyone slept, shouting “the British are coming” would have been thought a crackpot. Since they were all British, the warning would have seemed nonsensical. And that assumes sleeping people would even hear them at that time of night.

The Real Reason They Rode

The riders did not blindly go from place to place hoping to find everyone to pass on the news. They all had specific targets – personnel they were tasked with warning. Those personnel would then get the message out to everyone who mattered. Most of the time, the riders knocked on doors to wake the residents up. Then they’d quickly convey the message that the Regulars (or Redcoats) were out, and then ride on to the next target. The messages were brief and to the point. By Revere’s own account, his message was, “The Regulars are coming out.”

In fact, two men, Paul Revere and William Dawes, Jr., set out at about same time, along different routes that eventually converged in Lexington. Alerting specific men, those men, in turn, rode out to warn others, and so on and so on. While Revere took the water route to Charlestown, Dawes took the longer land route out of Boston. He barely cleared the city before the Regulars shut it down. Dawes would have started sooner since it took time for Revere’s slow and silent rowboat ride across to Charlestown.

“It was one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington…It was two by the village clock, When he came to the bridge at Concord town…” Revere did make it to Lexington, joined a half hour later by Dawes. It was about midnight, not one as in the poem. That meant both Revere and Dawes set out somewhere near 11 p.m. They had as their ultimate mission at Lexington to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock, spending the night in the town. Other riders then took over to spread the alarm around Lexington and the surrounding countryside. Here that they were fortuitously joined by Dr. Samuel Prescott, who just happened to be in town returning from an evening with a female friend at around 1 a.m. The three men now set off together toward Concord.

William Dawes and Samuel Prescott Escape

They never made it farther than Lincoln, 4.4 modern miles from Concord. Neither Revere nor Dawes saw Concord Bridge because a British patrol stopped them. The British captured Revere, but Dawes and Prescott managed to escape. Undoubtedly riding at breakneck speed, through unfamiliar fields and along farm roads, Dawes’ horse threw him. Apparently the horse continued on since Dawes, probably more than a little sore, had to walk back to Lexington. His night ride had ended.

Prescott, however, continued to Concord, and he, not Revere, passed the warning to Concord. Through all this, countless other nameless riders actually spread “…the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm…”

Prescott made it to Old North Bridge in Concord.

Revere and the Regulars

When questioned by the patrol, Revere seems to have had no problem bragging to the British that he knew of the army’s movement from Boston. He also knew the militia were gathering at Lexington to meet them. Revere wasn’t the only one being held by the patrol, and they all set off back toward Lexington. As the British patrol and its prisoners neared Lexington, they could hear sporadic shots and the ringing of bells. Revere told the major commanding the patrol that these were the alarms to warn the countryside of the coming of the Regulars. At this point, discretion became the better part of valor for the British. They released their prisoners and set off to warn their coming compatriots, but not before confiscating Revere’s horse.

On foot now, Revere walked back to the Rev. Jonas Clarke’s house, where Hancock and Adams stayed. The whole area was abuzz, and Clarke’s house must have been in disarray. Hancock and Adams needed to leave. They may have heard the firing on Lexington Green as they fled the area, assisted by Revere.

The Forgotten Man

Mostly forgotten in all of this: Dr. Prescott. He didn’t belong to the original plan to spread the warning. Rather than run after escaping the British patrol, he continued on to Concord,. With great courage, since he had almost been captured at the edge of town, stopped at several houses in Lincoln to raise the alarm. Other nameless riders set off from there. Reaching the sentry at Concord, Prescott further spread the word. The Concord First Parish Church bell then began the general alarm.

The memorial to the Paul Revere capture site

Prescott then rode to his brother Abel’s house and told him to ride to Sudbury with the alarm. He continued on to Acton and Stowe, continuing to spread the warning.

After the Ride

After the Lexington and Concord battles, Revere couldn’t return to Boston, now under siege. He tried to get a commission in the army but was refused. He continued to offer his services, however, and was initially used as a courier and in an effort to produce more gunpower. Nine months after Bunker Hill, Revere was involved, with others, in a successful effort to find and recover his friend Joseph Warren’s body from the battlefield. In April 1776 he was commissioned an infantry major in the Massachusetts Militia and transferred to the artillery a month later.

In November 1776 he won promotion to lieutenant colonel and stationed at Castle William, defending Boston Harbor. He spent the next two years quietly, broken only by the occasional prisoner escort and two brief deployments to Rhode Island. In the summer of 1779, he commanded an artillery detachment during the disastrous Penobscot Expedition. As one of the senior leaders of the campaign, his enemies later tried to lay blame on him. Although the hearings reached no conclusion, Revere was asked to resign. Rather than resign, however, he demanded a court-martial, which cleared him in February 1782.

After the war, already a renowned silversmith, he invested in an iron-working foundry. With its success, he expanded further into bronze casting and rolled copper. In 1801 he founded the Revere Copper Co., now called Revere Copper Products, and headquartered in Rome, N.Y.

Revere died on May 10, 1818 in his home on Charter Street, Boston. He is buried at the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street.

Paul Revere went into manufacturing after the Revolution.

Paul Revere’s home in Boston’s North End, a stone’s throw from Old North Church, is preserved as a museum. A statue of him astride his horse stands in the park in back of the church.

William Dawes, Jr.

It is not clear what William Dawes, Jr. did in the aftermath of the ride. His story picks up again on 9 Sept. 9,1776, with his commission as a major in a Boston militia regiment. He saw no action during the war, serving mostly as a quartermaster in central Massachusetts. He also served as a prisoner escort for British prisoners from the battles at Saratoga.

Dawes must have still served in the militia in some capacity after the war because he refused to join a punitive expedition against Indians. On Feb. 25, 1799, Dawes died in Marlborough, Mass. Believed to have been buried at the King’s Chapel Burying Ground where he has a tomb marker, there is some speculation that he is buried in his wife’s plot at Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain.

William Dawes has a plaque at King’s Chapel Burying Ground.

A traffic island in Cambridge, Mass., has a bronze plaque denoting the route of his ride, along with bronze horseshoes set in the pavement.

His family name did not fade from history, however. Among other notable Dawes relations, his great-grandson, William Dawes, served as a Union officer in the Civil War. One of William’s sons, Charles Gates Dawes, served as the 30th vice president of the United States under Calvin Coolidge. He also won a Nobel Prize in 1925 for his work on the Dawes Plan for World War I reparations.

Dr. Samuel Prescott

Little is known about Dr. Samuel Prescott after his ride. A man of that name is recorded at Fort Ticonderoga, and another in a British prison in Halifax. There is no evidence beyond the name to indicate that either of these men is the Dr. Samuel Prescott that rode to Concord. One account claims he died in prison in 1777 but evidence is lacking. While most have forgotten Prescott’s ride, Concord remembers it yearly at midnight on April 18 and Acton on Patriot’s Day.

Unquestionably, Paul Revere, William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott performed an extremely valuable service that night. Without their timely warning, events at Lexington and Concord may have been very different. But during their lifetime, they were never iconic Revolutionary War heroes. Without Longfellow’s assistance, Revere undoubtedly would have been remembered solely for his superb silver work and for his entrepreneurship with iron and copper. In a sense, Longfellow may have done Revere, Dawes and Prescott a favor by calling attention to the ride, which probably would have been nothing more than a minor footnote without the poem.

Charles Gates Dawes is the author’s 9th Cousin, 2 times removed. However, he did not realize his relationship to William Dawes until he researched this article. William Dawes is not a relative of his.

Images: Paul Revere Capture Site, photo taken by By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11394644.

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Six Military Routes Used During the American Revolution

You could do worse than look at fall foliage along old military routes in New England. Some of them, originally Indian trails, pass through landscapes that aren’t all that different than they were in the 18^th century. Some military routes were partially drowned by reservoirs, some paved over by interstate highways.

New Hampshire fall foliage

Today the old military routes still pass by historic taverns and cemeteries. Stone markers describe the long-ago events that transpired among colonial militiamen, French cavalry, British redcoats, Continental regulars and all their camp followers.

Here are six military routes used during the American Revolution. In some cases they pass through several states, but we confine our description to just one.

The Road to the Battle of Ridgefield

On April 25, 1777, 26 ships carrying 2,000 British troops landed at Cedar Point in Westport, Conn.

They were commanded by British New York Gov. William Tryon, who planned to destroy military supplies 20 miles north in Danbury.

The British marched north on what is now Rte. 58, ravaging the land. They set fire to provisions in the streets on their way to the supply depot in Danbury. Along a stretch of South Street just beyond Coal Pit Hill Road they destroyed an enormous cache of supplies, including 5,000 shoes, 2,000 bushels of grain and 1,600 tents. When they found barrels of rum, they drank them.

Gen. David Wooster and Benedict Arnold, who happened to be staying with family in New Haven, responded with 700 militiamen and Continental Army soldiers under their command. The British got wind the local militia was coming and retreated south from Danbury along Rte. 33, burning down houses along the way.

On April 27, Benedict Arnold barricaded the center of Ridgefield. He received reinforcements from Col. Henry Ludington, whose 16-year-old daughter Sybil had raised them during a horseback ride twice as long a Paul Revere’s. The British drove them off in a running battle down Main Street, shooting Arnold’s horse out from under him. Eight Americans and 16 British were killed during the battle. Near the sign stands a stone tablet marking their graves. (Click here for a map.)

Wooster was mortally wounded while attacking the British rearguard at the intersection of the Post Road (Route 1) and Patriots Bank. A small Masonic stone memorial marks the place where Wooster fell. It’s an evocative spot as the countryside and two-lane road haven’t changed all that much since the Redcoats marched through.

The British retreated to Westport and never tried another inland raid again. They suffered many casualties, and their harsh treatment of the colonists sentiment against them.

There are three monuments in Westport commemorating the final skirmishes. A boulder bears a plaque at the intersection of Compo Road South and Post Road East. Further down Compo Road, Westport’s Minuteman monument kneels atop a traffic circle. On Compo Beach, two cannons commemorate the fighting on and near the beach as the British returned to their ships.

The Americans camped overnight in Putnam Memorial State Park to prevent another raid on Danbury; the park has several historic features.

In Danbury there is a Sybil Ludington marker.

Click here for a map of the 61.5-mile military routes taken by the British through Westport, Redding, Danbury, Ridgefield and Norwalk

The Arnold Expedition

Detail of 1795 map overlaid with Arnold’s expedition route. A Cambridge; B Newburyport; C Fort Western; D Fort Halifax; E Great Carrying Place; F Height of Land; G Lake Megantic. Courtesy Boston Public Library.

Benedict Arnold, before he decided to switch sides, led a force of 1,100 Continental Army regulars from Massachusetts to Quebec City in the early days of the American Revolution. He hoped to bottle up the British and prevent an invasion of New England from the north.

The Arnold Expedition was a disaster. Arnold’s men traveled 350 miles – twice as far as they planned — through poorly charted wilderness in what is now Maine. The men endured grueling portages up the Kennebec River. The boats leaked, ruining precious gunpowder and food supplies. By the time Arnold reached the French settlements above the St. Lawrence River, he had only 600 starving men. The siege of Quebec failed.

The expedition began inauspiciously when fog and headwinds delayed transport ships from leaving Newburyport, Mass., in the fall of 1775.

They landed on Swan Island in what was once Perkins Township. They traveled through what are now Dresden and Pittston, where Arnold and his men stayed on property belonging to Maj. Reuben Colburn as bateaux were built for the expedition. The house now has a street address, 33 Arnold Rd., and is the headquarters of the Arnold Expedition Historical Society.

Some of Arnold’s men took bateaux up the Kennebec River, while others marched on to Fort Western, whose main house is now a National Historic Landmark in Augusta.

Then on to Fort Halifax (now Winslow), where a blockhouse also survives as a National Historic Landmark.

Parts of the route they took today – from Augusta to the Canadian border — make up US 201, now a National Scenic Byway. Along the way they camped in what is now Solon on the left side of Route 201A at what is now the Evergreen Campground and Restaurant. Two markers in Skowhegan show where they marched: at the picnic area on Rte. 2 heading to Canaan and another on the island in town.

Past the Norridgewock Falls, Arnold’s men reached a section of the Dead River they couldn’t navigate. By then they were starving and drenched with rain. They had to portage their bateaux over 12 miles of ‘The Great Carrying Place,’ which included ponds named after the expedition: East Carry Pond, Middle Carry Pond and West Carry Pond. The last pond is called Arnold Pond, and there is actually a township called Great Carrying Place Town. The Arnold Historical Society has restored the route Arnold’s men took along the Great Carrying Place as a hiking trail

Click here for a map of Arnold’s military route.

The Battle Road

On April 18, 1775, British Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Major John Pitcairn led a force of 700 British soldiers from Boston to Concord, Mass. to seize weapons. Before the troops even left on their mission, at about 11 p.m., they already knew they had lost the element of surprise. Word was spreading that the British were coming.

The soldiers would march through the night, before touching off the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord. It was on the Lexington Green that Col. John Parker assembled his 80 militia men on April 19, planning to be a protest force, not a fighting one. British troops decided not to pass quietly by, but entered the green to confront the militia.

When a shot was touched off, chaos erupted and eight militia men were killed before they fled the field and the British passed on to Concord.

The Lexington Historical Society maintains three unique sites that provided the setting for the Battle of Lexington. The Hancock-Clarke House is open to visitors. It was the home of the Rev. Jonas Clarke, who was hosting John Hancock and Samuel Adams when they were awakened by Paul Revere, warning them of the coming soldiers.

The Buckman Tavern was the site where the local militia gathered in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, to wait for the British troops. The Munroe Tavern is also preserved. This was where British troops stopped when making their return from the fighting. All the sites are open for visitors during the warm weather months.

Visitors can also tour the Lexington Green, where the actual fighting broke out. Near the edge of the Green, visitors can walk the five-and-a-half mile battle road leading to the path to Concord that British soldiers took in 1775. The Battle Road is the centerpiece of Minuteman National Park, which includes 11 “witness houses” where occupants would have seen the troops passing by on their mission to search Concord. Also in the park is the North Bridge, where the shot heard round the world was fired.

Also of note, beginning in 2016 Concord’s First Parish Church in conjunction with the Concord Museum will be opening the Wright Tavern for occasional open houses and school visits. It was at this tavern where militiamen gathered before the fighting. It also served as the British headquarters while they search the town for munitions.

As British troops returned to Cambridge, they were harassed by militia in Lexington, Lincoln and Arlington, then called Menotomy. The British soldiers ransacked much of the village of Menotomy, clearing the buildings of snipers. Jason Russell, a local man, was trying to escape to the safety of his house when soldiers bayonetted him.

Following other militia members into Russell’s house, soldiers and militia engaged in a close range shootout, signs of which still remain in the historic building. The Arlington Historical Society maintains the house today and opens it during the summer for visitors.

Crown Point Road

Col. John Stark and his colonial militia began work on the Crown Point Road in 1759 during the French and Indian War. They cut down trees and removed stumps, built bridges and causeways and corduroy sections along swampy sections.

The road was ordered by Lord Jeffrey Amherst after the British captured Fort Ticonderoga. Amherst was determined to keep control of the southern end of Lake Champlain, so he commanded his troops to build Fort Crown Point (now a National Historic Site) at a narrows on the lake. He also ordered a road to be built from Crown Point to the Fort at Number 4, now an open air museum in Charlestown, N.H.

Colonial troops carried supplies, munitions, cattle and sheep along the Crown Point Road to support the British army at Crown Point during the French and Indian War. During the American Revolution, they brought supplies and reinforcements to Fort Ticonderoga.

Between the wars, the Crown Point military route became a road by which people moved west to settle Vermont. Better roads were built, and Crown Point fell into disuse. Starting in the 19^th century, the route was commemorated with markers. (Click here for a map of the markers.) At the road’s beginning in New Hampshire, a stone tablet a half-mile north of the Cheshire Bridge over the Connecticut River marks the site of the ferry and block house.

Today, the Crown Point Road Association describes the old road this way:

Some sections of the road are marked and can be followed as trails, while other sections are barely discernible paths through the woods, marked only by the lilac-fringed cellar holes and stone walls of abandoned farms. A few short stretches of the old military road are still in use as town roads.

Part of the old road is an eight-mile hiking trail marked with blaze orange paint from Fort Number 4 to the North Springfield Lake Flood Control Reservoir. Hikers can walk along pastures, orchards and old logging roads through thick forest, sometimes treading on logs used for corduroy sections. For a guide to that section of the road, click here.

The entire, nearly 100-mile route starts in the center of Charlestown and crosses the river near Beaver Brook. It then goes north-northwest to Springfield and Weathersfield and turns west across Cavendish. The old military route bends north again in Cavendish, then turns west between Plymouth and Ludlow toward Shrewsbury. At Otter Creek in Clarendon it turns north again through Rutland, Proctor, and Pittsford, then bears northwest across the hills south of Brandon.

In northern Sudbury, a spur heads west toward Fort Ticonderoga, while the main road goes north through Whiting, Shoreham, and Bridport before reaching Lake Champlain opposite Fort Crown Point in Addison.

Washington-Rochambeau National Historic Trail

A black and white engraving by artist David Leonard, class of 1792. First published view of the campus, "A S.W. view of the College in Providence together with the President's House and Gardens." Providence, 1792.

An engraving of the President’s House, which lies along one of the military routes used by Rochambeau.

In 1780, Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau was put in charge of the Expédition Particulière, French land forces sent to America to support the Continental Army under Washington.

Rochambeau arrived in Newport, R.I., in July 1780 with seven ships of the line, four frigates and 30-odd transports with nearly 7,000 French regulars.

Then he sat for the next year.

Finally, in May 1781, Rochambeau met with Washington in Wethersfield, Conn., to map out the plan for the war. Rochambeau and his army finally left Newport for Yorktown, Va., on June 19, 1781.

Today, the Washington Rochambeau National Historic Trail runs over 680 miles of land and water from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C.

In Rhode Island, the trail begins at the campground in Newport between Broad and Plane streets. It then heads north through Middletown, Portsmouth, Bristol and Providence, then west through Coventry to Connecticut.

One regiment was left in Providence to guard the baggage and munitions stored in the Old Market House and to support the surgeons and attendants at the hospital in University Hall. University Hall now houses the office of the president of Brown University.

The trail passes the Joy Homestead in Cranston, where on June 18, 1781 Job Joy and his family watched Rochambeau lead his army down the road.

The route between Providence and Coventry generally followed Broadway in Providence to Olneyville, then Rte. 14 to the Scituate Reservoir. The reservoir submerged the original road but picks up as Old Plainfield Pike in Scituate. West of Rte. 102 in Foster, the march follows Rte. 14 into Coventry. There the army camped outside of Waterman’s Tavern, now on the National Register of Historic Places at 283 Maple Valley Ave.

The next day Rochambeau’s army marched from Coventry, through Sterling, Connecticut via Route 14A (Plainfield Pike) to the third camp in Plainfield opposite Plainfield Cemetery, arriving on June 19. A 3.6-mile portion of the march route that winds between the second and third camps is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For a map of the Rhode Island portion of the trail, click here.

Bayley Hazen Military Road

The Elkins Tavern lies along one of New England’s Revolutionary military routes

In Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, the Bayley Hazen Military Road runs 80 miles from Newbury, Vt., to Hazen’s Notch near the U.S.-Canada border. During Benedict Arnold’s difficult expedition to Quebec, some revolutionary leaders pressed George Washington for a new, shorter military road to bring supplies and reinforcements to the army.

Two proponents of the road were Joseph Bayley and Col. Moses Hazen, among the founders of Newbury and Haverhill, N.H., across the Connecticut River.

In the spring of 1776, Washington asked a local landowner to blaze a trail to St. John’s near Montreal. Jacob Bayley and 60 men built about six miles from Newbury to Peacham until the summer of 1776. Worked stopped and then started again in 1779.

Hazen, Col. Timothy Bedel and their regiments built the rest of the military rout, extending it to Cabot, Walden, Hardwick, Greensboro, Craftsbury, Albany and Lowell. When the road approached Hazen’s Notch, the Continentals heard a rumor that the British planned to attack. They stopped work.

The Americans never used the road to invade Quebec. The British did use it to raid the colonists.

The 80-mile road from Newbury, Vt., is a mix of paved and unpaved – mostly unpaved – former military routes dotted with historical markers, grave sites and monuments.

By Caspian Lake, a monument marks the spot where Indians killed Constant Bliss and Moses Sleeper: The Elkins Tavern in Peacham.

For a guide to the Bayley-Hazen Military Road, click here.

This story about Revolutionary military routes was updated in 2018.

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Six Revolutionary War Battlefields in New England

Revolutionary War battlefields abound in New England, where, after all, the whole thing began. The patriots fought the British in every colony before and during the war, and many of the sites remain undeveloped.

Here is our choice for the best six Revolutionary War battlefields in New England, with one in each state.

Fort Griswold, Connecticut

Fort Griswold, one of the most infamous Revolutionary War battlefields.

Named after Deputy Gov. Matthew Griswold, the Connecticut Colony built the fort in 1775 in Groton to defend the supply depot at the mouth of the Thames River. The fort also protected privateers operating out of the harbor.

In 1781, the traitor Benedict Arnold led a company of British soldiers in an attack on New London. Meanwhile, another British commander, Edmund Eyre, attacked the fort. The British had the advantage. Arnold knew the angle to attack so the American gun positions couldn’t fire effective shots.

The British forces infamously massacred the American soldiers. After Col. William Ledyard surrendered his sword to the British, they ran him through with it. At the time of surrender, six Americans were dead and 20 wounded. When it was all over, 83 Americans were dead and 36 wounded. Arnold went on to burn New London.

The earthen walls of the fort still stand. The Ebenezer Avery House, which sheltered the wounded after the battle, has been restored on the grounds. A Revolutionary War museum also depicts the era.

For directions to Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, click here. For information from the Friends of Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, click here.

Fort George, Maine

Fort George, the Revolutionary War battlefield where the Penobscot Expedition ended in ignominy.

Castine, located in Downeast Maine, is one of the oldest European communities in North America. Since the early 1600s, French, Dutch and English colonists have built trading posts, forts, missions and permanent settlements there.

In 1779, the British sent troops to occupy Castine with the hope of establishing a colony called New Ireland. They built a fort and named it after King George III.

Massachusetts, alarmed by the British occupation, sent a combined naval and military expedition to capture the fort that summer. Known as the Penobscot Expedition, it had 19 warships and 24 transports. Though the patriots outnumbered the British, they failed to take Fort George and suffered the worst U.S. naval defeat until Pearl Harbor. Paul Revere, in charge of ordnance, ended up court martialed for cowardice and insubordination. He fought the charges and won his acquittal.

Some of Fort George still remains, as does the British canal built in 1779, gravesites of Revolutionary War soldiers and historic houses, taverns and churches. Castine has marked its many historic sites with signs. (Click here for a map.)

Minute Man State Park, Massachusetts

North Bridge, the granddaddy of all Revolutionary War battlefields.

It doesn’t get much better than Minute Man National Historic Park in Lexington, Lincoln and Concord.

The 970-acre park memorializes the opening battles of the American Revolution – and then some.

Lexington Battle Green, site of the shot heard round the world, belongs to the Town of Lexington. The Buckman Tavern sits on the green, which leads to the five-mile-long Battle Road Trail. Patriot militia skirmished with the British regulars along the trail, now a restored colonial landscape that includes the Hartwell Tavern.

In Concord, Daniel Chester French’s famous Minute Man statue stands by the North Bridge, where the colonial militia shot back at British soldiers in the second battle of the day.

The Wayside also belongs to the park. Authors Amos Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney lived there (not all at the same time).

The Town of Lexington owns and maintains Lexington Battle Green, site of the shot heard round the world.

Fort Constitution, N.H.

Fort Constitution and the Portsmouth Harbor Light.

An important skirmish before the war took place in New Castle, N.H. A handful of British soldiers manned Fort William and Mary there in 1774, when tensions rose between the colonies and England. The stone fort stood at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, guarding access to the harbor and to Kittery, Maine (then Massachusetts).

Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth in December to warn patriots that British troops might seize powder and guns at the fort. A raiding party of 400 men then stormed the fort. They subdued the six soldiers inside and took the gunpowder, muskets and cannon.

The fort, renamed Fort Constitution, now belongs to the State of New Hampshire. The Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse stands inside the fort.

Fort Constitution Historic Site is a great spot for a picnic. For more information click here.

Quaker Hill, R.I.

The most famous Rhode Island battle of the American Revolution is called the Battle of Rhode Island or the Battle of Quaker Hill. By August 1778, the British had occupied Newport, on Aquidneck Island, for almost two years. That month, Continental Army troops led by Gen. John Sullivan sailed from Tiverton to Portsmouth and set up a siege on Aquidneck. They planned to drive the British soldiers back to Newport and then recapture the town with the help of French naval forces.

But a hurricane prevented the French naval commander, Count d’Estaing, from attacking the 6,000 entrenched British soldiers. D’Estaing instead sailed his fleet to Boston for repairs. The patriots then tried to withdraw, but the British attacked them in Portsmouth in a valley among three hills. The Americans retreated to Tiverton without a single soldier killed. The 1^st Rhode Island Regiment, comprised of African- and Native-American soldiers, took part in the action.

The 365 acres of the battlefield had no structures on them at the time of the conflict, but since then 36 houses and a barn have been built.

At the intersection of Route 2 and West Main, the state chapter of the NAACP put up a marker to commemorate the 1st Rhode Island’s role in the battle. And a granite memorial stone marks the Battle of Rhode Island on the corner of Union Street and Route 138 in Portsmouth.

A site of another skirmish is nearby. On the night of July 11, 1777, Col. William Barton and about three dozen infantrymen sailed from Tiverton to Middletown and captured British general Richard Prescott in his bed.

Prescott was occupying a farm owned by a Loyalist, despite warnings of inadequate security. That farm, now known as Prescott Farm, was restored with the help of heiress Doris Duke. The public can now visit. Visitors can tour the house where Barton captured Prescott, a windmill, a country store, a guardhouse and a historical vegetable garden. For more information, click here.

Hubbardton Battlefield, Vermont

Vermont’s only Revolutionary War battlefield, in Hubbardton.

The Hubbardton Battlefield in Hubbardton is the site of the only Revolutionary War battle fought entirely in Vermont (or what would become Vermont). (The Battle of Bennington was actually fought in New York state.) It’s also one of the best preserved battlefields in America.

The battle started on July 7, 1777, when British forces caught up with the American rear guard of the forces retreating after they withdrew from Fort Ticonderoga. The Americans, led by Seth Warner, fought with discipline and inflicted heavy casualties on the British. Though they lost the battle, they halted the British and prevented them from pursuing the main American army.

The battlefield itself and the small museum that explains it lie off the beaten path, but they feature stunning views of the Vermont landscape. It’s off Exit 5 on Route 4, between Rutland and New York state.

Click here for more information.

Photos: Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse and Fort Constitution By Kenneth Dupont – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62728239. Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park by By Staxringold via English Wikipedia. Fort George earthworks and cannon by Jerrye and Roy Klotz via Wikipedia. Old North Bridge By Daderot at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5942756. This story about Revolutionary War battlefields was updated in 2023.

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Isaac Bissell Electrifies Connecticut With News of the Battle of Lexington

Isaac Bissell electrified the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut with the news of the Battle of Lexington in April 1775.

He rode farther, faster and harder than Paul Revere, but is not so well-remembered. Unfortunately for the heroic messenger, ‘Bissell’ rhymes with fewer words than ‘Revere.’

Isaac Bissell

Isaac Bissell, born in 1749, lived in Suffield, Conn., at the time of the American Revolution. He married Amelia Leavitt on July 4, 1776, and they had two children, Isaac and Asaph.

He was one of a number post riders charged with telling the patriots the British army had killed people at Lexington and calling them to muster against the British regulars.

Immediately after the Battle of Lexington, and even as British reinforcements headed toward Concord, a militiaman, Joseph Palmer, scribbled a letter with the news. (Palmer later rose to brigadier general in the Continental Army.) He dispatched Bissell to take the letter to Connecticut:

Wednesday morning near 10 of the clock—Watertown.

To all the friends of American liberty be it known that this morning before break of day, a brigade, consisting of about 1,000 to 1,200 men landed at Phip’s Farm at Cambridge and marched to Lexington, where they found a company of our colony militia in arms, upon whom they fired without any provocation and killed six men and wounded four others. By an express from Boston, we find another brigade are now upon their march from Boston supposed to be about 1,000. The Bearer, Israel Bissell, is charged to alarm the country quite to Connecticut and all persons are desired to furnish him with fresh horses as they may be needed. I have spoken with several persons who have seen the dead and wounded. Pray let the delegates from this colony to Connecticut see this. —J. Palmer, one of the Committee of Safety.

Bissell’s Ride

Isaac Bissell rode to Marlboro with the news, then to Worcester along the Boston Post Road. According to legend, his horse dropped dead in Worcester. He then rode to Hartford.

In each town where he stopped, a local member of the Committee of Correspondence copied the letter and gave the copy to Bissell. Each new copy had information about who had gotten the news and when.

Along the way, Bissell may have notified Israel Putnam, a patriot and veteran of the French and Indian wars. Here’s how the post rider appeared to Putnam, according to his biographer George Canning Hill:

A man came riding through the quiet town of Pomfret on horse-back, bearing a drum about his neck, and beating it and calling out to all whom he met, — “To arms! To arms! the first blood has been shed at Lexington!” Putnam was ploughing in the field, at some distance back from his house, at the time … Putnam had his little son with him in the field. He at once unyoked his oxen and took them out of the furrow they were ploughing, sent word to his wife by the boy where he had gone, took his fastest horse from the barn, and rode away at such a pace as we should have expected from a man of his well-known character.

A copy of the letter Bissell brought went to Silas Deane in Wethersfield, just south of Hartford.

Other post riders took copies of Palmer’s letter to Norwich, New London and New York City, where the news arrived by noon on April 21^st.

Afterward

After his long ride, Isaac Bissell went home to Suffield, and then enlisted in Erastus Woolcott’s regiment. He marched back to Boston, where he participated in the siege.

Sgt. Isaac Bissell mustered out in March of 1776, then mustered back in when the British invaded Connecticut in 1779. He returned home to Suffield after the war and worked as a blacksmith. Isaac Bissell lived until 1822, when he died at age 73.

Some people confused Isaac Bissell with Israel Bissell, but historians such as J.L. Bell and Lion G. Miles concluded that’s because of spelling errors in the haste after the battle.

This story about Isaac Bissell was updated in 2022. If you enjoyed reading it, you might also want to read about Sybil Ludington, the female Paul Revere, here.

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Another Day of Infamy: Airing of the First TV Commercial

On Dec. 7, 1930, what is believed to be the world’s first TV commercial aired from a primitive television station on Brookline Avenue in Boston.

Booklet from the people who brought the first TV commercial

Very few, if any, people saw it. But the federal government slapped the station owners on the wrist anyway.

The misbegotten TV commercial, which promoted a local furrier, was just one setback during a series of struggles to bring television to Boston. A South Shore Sunday schoolteacher named Hollis Baird fought for years to run a successful television station.

In the end, lack of money and governmental interference doomed Baird’s dream. Television wouldn’t come to Boston until 1948, when WBZ-TV opened its doors.

First TV Commercial

Hollis Baird was born in Houlton, Maine, and lived in Wollaston, Mass., for many years. He taught Sunday school at St. Chrysostom Episcopal Church in Wollaston and led a Boy Scout Troop.

He had no relation to John Logie Baird, a colorful Scot and one of the inventors of mechanical television. Hollis Baird’s sales brochures included a disclaimer to that fact.

In April 1929, Baird co-founded the Shortwave and Television Laboratory, one of about 15 experimental stations scattered across the country. The company broadcast two shows a day and sold radios and mechanical televisions. Another station in New England, W1XAY, belonged to the Boston Post in Lexington, Mass. It operated for less than two years, from June 1928 to March 1930.

A mechanical television involves a spinning disk that scans an image sent by radio and received by another spinning disk. Hollis Baird produced mechanical televisions from 1925-28 for the Baird Receiver Company. (For a short youtube explainer of mechanical television, click here.)

Radio News reported on mechanical televisions in May 1931. It noted that “…under favorable conditions, the features of a known person can be recognized. The movements of the lips, eyes and other features are easily discernable.”

From whence the first TV commercial was broadcast

The Fox Trappers

Hollis Baird’s inaugural television commercial interrupted a broadcast of a video portion of a CBS Radio program, The Fox Trappers orchestra. I. J. Fox Furriers in Boston sponsored the program.

But no rules governed whether experimental stations could air commercials, or sponsored network programming. And it isn’t clear whether the Federal Radio Commission fined the company or ‘advised against’ the commercial. However, the FRC repeatedly denied Hollis Baird’s applications for a broadcasting license as he worked to improve the quality of the image and programming.

At the same time, companies like Westinghouse, General Electric, Raytheon and Bell Labs took over development of experimental television. In 1941, Baird gave up after trying to interest Paramount Pictures and 20^th Century Fox in his station. Hollis Baird then taught electrical engineering and physics at Northeastern University’s Lincoln Institute from 1942 to 1982.

Hollis Baird died in Quincy, Mass., on March 16, 1990, at the age of 84.

This story updated in 2022.

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New England Patriots History, or Why There Are Still Giants Fans in New England

New England Patriots history began with an unlikely cast of characters, a decade of homelessness and an early success followed by years of losing seasons.

New England Patriots history: The first program

The team had to compete with high school and college teams for fans and with elementary school students for practice time. Patriots owners plucked their star player from a tavern in Minnesota. And when the team finally did get its own stadium, the toilets didn’t work and the Patriots didn’t even play the first game.

Perhaps it was the team’s haplessness that inspired a joke:

Q. Why doesn’t Connecticut have a professional football team?

A: Because then Massachusetts would want one.

Foolish Club

Billy Sullivan, a 45-year-old sports flack, had put out so many press releases that sportswriters called him the “Maitre de Mimeograph.” Sullivan desperately wanted to bring professional football to Boston. The NFL rejected his request for a franchise in 1959 because five pro teams had already failed in the city.

In 1936, the Boston Redskins had won the NFL championship, but the fans had so little interest owner George Marshall moved the game to the Polo Grounds in New York. The next year Marshall moved the team to Washington.

Sullivan believed New England had an appetite for professional football. After all, Boston College sold out Fenway when it won the national championship in 1940.

Billy Sullivan

In late 1959, American Football League cofounder Lamar Hunt called Sullivan. He told him if he could get $250,000 in a Dallas bank within five days, he could have the final AFL franchise.

Sullivan found nine other investors, including former Red Sox star Dom DiMaggio, to put up $25,000 each for a team. The Patriots became the eighth team in the AFL. The owners called themselves The Foolish Club.

Early New England Patriots History

The team opened for business in three rooms on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston.

Sullivan held a name-the-team contest, and The Minutemen won. Patriots came in second, but the team’s advertising agency thought The Minutemen too long. So Sullivan held a second phase, an essay contest. Bill Orenberger, superintendent of the Boston School Department, judged the essays. The Patriots won, and the team went all out with the red-white-and-blue colors. Their first practice field was in Concord, Mass. Their phone number was Copley 2-1776.

For awhile their logo was a three-cornered hat. One day the Boston Globe published a cartoon of a Revolutionary War soldier hunched over a football – Pat Patriot. One of the Sullivan children said that was the logo they ought to have.

Not the Giants

The Boston Patriots were short of everything – money, stadiums owners and fans.

In early New England Patriots’ history, the team had to vie with the New York Giants for fans. The Giants in 1960 perennially contended for championships with legendary players like Sam Huff and Frank Gifford. New England fans had watched them on television every Sunday for years. Once the NY Football Giants Fan Club of New England had hundreds of members.

The one thing the Patriots weren’t short of was wannabe players.

Lou Saban, the Patriots’ first coach, held tryouts in Boston. Saban said,

We had bricklayers, we had carpenters, we had stoker men, and you name it, we had it. We had 125 helmets in one tryout camp and we put a head in every helmet.

The inaugural training camp was held at UMass-Amherst. Fullback Larry Garron remembered,

…the turnover in that camp was like a nightmare. You would wake up in the morning and there was a different guy sleeping in the bed next to you than there had been when you went to bed the night before.

There were so many men in training camp Saban couldn’t tell them personally when he cut them. Gino Cappelletti remembered the players would run like hell after practice to the dorm to see if they’d been cut.

“A lot of guys who were cut stuck around a few days, eating three square meals and sleeping there.”

Gino Cappelletti, a big part of New England Patriots history

Cappelletti had been working at a bar called Mack and Cap’s in Minneapolis when a former teammate at the University of Minnesota told him about the new league. Cappelletti was playing for a team representing the bar in a touch football league. He called coach Lou Saban and – eventually – made the team.

Cappelletti played 10 years for the Patriots becoming the team’s leading scorer with 1130 points. He did it all — kicking, receiving, defending. After he retired from football he became a radio announcer, a fixture with the franchise for more than 50 years.

Finally, Fans

The team practiced at local schools. Saban remembered one practice in Lexington, Mass.

We were out there in our pads and doing our drills when the kids got out on recess and we had to stop! The kids would be getting in the huddles. We tried to shoo them away. A teacher came over and said the school belonged to the kids and not to us, and when it was recess time, it was the kids’ time. So we had to get off the field every time there was a recess.

The Patriots played their first game at Boston University Nickerson Field against the Denver Broncos on Sept. 9, 1960. The Patriots lost, and went 5-and-9 for the season.

The next year the team compiled a 9-and-4 record, selling out their first game on Nov. 3, 1961. On the last play of the game, the opposing quarterback threw what would have been a game-tying touchdown pass – only a fan walked onto the field and knocked the ball away. The call stood, and the Patriots knew they had a fan base.

Winning Streak

The next two years were good ones in New England Patriots history. The team went 9-and-4 in 1962 and the next year won the AFL East championship.

history of the new england patriotsBabe_Parilli

Babe Parilli, one of the best quarterbacks in New England Patriots history.

They had a defensive tackle named Larry Eisenhauer, nicknamed “Wild Man.” He psyched himself up before games by bashing lockers, walls or his teammates and once ran onto a football field in Kansas wearing nothing but his helmet and a jock strap. He sent five opposing quarterbacks to the bench for visits with the doctor.

Quarterback Vito “Babe” Parilli played for the Patriots from 1961-67, passing for more than 20,000 yards. He was also an outstanding kick holder, nicknamed “Goldfinger.” The combination of Parilli and Cappelletti, who kicked and received, came to be known as the Grand Opera.

The Rush Years

The nutty, hapless Clive Rush took over in 1968, starting off badly. When he took the microphone to introduce the new general manager, George Sauer, he was stunned by a five-second electric shock. He thought the locker room was bugged, so he announced plays and blocking assignments in a loud voice while shaking his head, ‘No.’ When he announced he would implement a “Black Power Defense,” with all black players, he forgot the Patriots didn’t have 11 black players.

Rush once got off the team bus because he thought the driver didn’t know where he was going. He then directed the bus down a one-way street — the wrong way.

In 1970, he cut running back Bob Gladieux a few days before the season opener. Gladieux decided to attend the game anyway. Shortly before the game began, a loudspeaker announcement summoned him to the locker room. Rush had cut a defensive back five minutes before kickoff and needed Gladieux to fill the empty roster spot. Gladieux made the game’s first tackle and played eight more games for the Patriots.

Rush won five of 21 games and quit at the end of the 1970 season.

Home At Last

The Patriots’ perennial homelessness added to their early woes. They played at BU’s Nickerson Field, Boston College Alumni Stadium, Harvard Stadium and Fenway Park. They even played one game at Birmingham, Ala., Legion Field because of a scheduling conflict at Fenway.

The players sat on milk cartons in high school stadiums to watch game films projected onto bed sheets. Despite Sullivan’s best efforts, he could not persuade the Massachusetts Legislature to fund a new stadium.

In 1970, E.M. Loew, owner of movie theaters and Bay State Raceway in Foxborough, donated a parcel of land next to his racetrack if the Patriots would give him a cut of the parking profits. Ground was broken on Sept. 23, 1970. Eleven months and $7.1 million later, Schaefer Stadium was completed.

The first game was played a month before the regular season — between the carpenters and the metalworkers. The carpenters claimed the right to erect the goalposts, which were usually made of wood. These were made of aluminum, and the metalworkers claimed the right to raise them. Sullivan handed them a ball and told them to play a game of touch football. The first team to score would erect the goalposts.

Billy Sullivan decided to rename the team, and for two weeks the Patriots were the Bay State Patriots. Then someone pointed out the likely headlines: BS Patriots. He realized he had to come up with another name.

The rest is New England Patriots history.

With thanks to New England Patriots: The Complete Illustrated History by Christopher Price and The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History: The Oral History of a Legendary Team by Bernard M. Corbett and Jim Baker. This story about New England Patriots history was updated in 2022.

Image: Pat Patriot By The logo may be obtained through the New England Patriots, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18256803.

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