On April 19, 1775, the opening battles of the American Revolutionary War occurred in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts and along the road from those villages to Boston.
Battles There was no organized colonial army at the time. Instead, the Americans who fought the British that day were “Minute Men,” who were volunteers committed to being ready to fight on a minute’s notice and who had been mustered into service that day by warnings that the British were coming.
A concrete example of the mustering of the Minute Men can be seen by what happened that same day (April 19th) in Leicester, Massachusetts, a village 30 miles west of Concord.
Early that same afternoon a messenger on horseback arrived in Leicester. He stopped in front of the blacksmith shop of the captain of the local unit of the Minute Men. The messenger yelled, “The war has begun! The British are marching to Concord!”[1]
The blacksmith immediately stopped working on the ploughshare he was sharpening. He grabbed his loaded musket. He rushed into the street and fired the musket in the air. This was the agreed upon signal for the Minute Men to assemble. Some who previously had been appointed as messengers went through the town and adjoining countryside to spread the news.
By 4:00 p.m. all the Minute Men had assembled in the town Common. No one had a uniform. But everyone had his musket, powder horn and bullet pouch along with a few necessities. Among those present were Perley Brown (my maternal fifth great-grandfather) and two of his brothers–John and William. They all apparently enlisted for eight months or through the balance of the year of 1775.
Watching the Leicester men assemble were family and friends. To provide the men with shot for their muskets the lead weights of one family’s valuable clock were melted down and cast into bullets. Rev. Conklin, the local clergyman, prayed for their protection and safe return. The mother of the unit’s captain approached him to give him a hug. He responded by saying for all to hear, “Mother, pray for me, and I will fight for you.”
Just before sundown that same day, 80 Minute Men from the town, including the three Brown brothers, marched east approximately 24 miles through Worcester to Marlborough, Massachusetts, a village of 1,500 people. There upon hearing the news that the British had retreated to Boston, they and colleagues from other towns stopped for a short sleep.
The next day (April 20th) they marched another 21 miles to Watertown, Massachusetts and stopped for a night’s rest. The following day (April 21st) they completed their march when they arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was five miles to the east and which had been selected as the staging center for the American forces.
This tale of the mustering of the Leicester men undoubtedly was repeated throughout Massachusetts and the rest of New England for the Leicester men were joined in Cambridge by thousands of other Minute Men. One of the other Minute Men was another Brown brother, Benjamin Brown, from the village of Rowe in northwestern Massachusetts near present-day Vermont.
As we will see in a subsequent post, these men then participated in the Siege of Boston from April 20, 1765 through March 17, 1776.
[1] Carol Willits Brown, William Brown–English Immigrant of Hatfield and Leicester, Massachusetts, and His Descendants c. 1669-1994 at 6, 11-27, 31-41, 50, 308-12(Gateway Press; Baltimore, MD 1994); Emory Washburn, Topographical and historical sketches of the town of Leicester in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at 49-50 (1826); Emory Washburn, Historical sketches of the town of Leicester, Massachusetts, during the first century from its settlement at 296-99(1860).
Thanks for a little link to the past. Stephen King believes that writers are time travelers. Yes. Someone took time to record these events when they occurred, thus eventually linking them to you, an unknown person of the future. You (and Carol) are doing the same.
Thanks, Kristi. Although I was a history major in college and studied American history in particular, doing the research to write these posts about the involvement of our ancestors in significant historical events has really made these episodes come alive for me. I really enjoy doing the research and writing for these posts.
The next ones will be about the Siege of Boston and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Then it will be on to the Battle for New York.
Your fifth great-grandfather Perley also fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill under the command Seth Washburn.
When his brother John was wounded in the leg and foot, Perley carried him from the field on his back.
I know this because John was my ancestor. Not sure of the of the correct number of greats, but their are 8 generations separating myself and John Brown.
From my research, Perley left behind his wife Elizabeth, and his 9 year old son, Nathaniel.
Has Anyone Found Anything on the Beloe Please ????
My 6th Great-Grandfather
Blair, Robert, Blandford. Private, Capt. John Ferguson’s co. of Minute-men, Col. Timothy Danielson’s regt., which marched April 20, 1775, in response to the alarm of April 19, 1775, from Blandford and Murrayfield; service, 18 days.
Sandy
at fabricluv@gmail.com
Thank You