Remembering Patriot's Day

By Elaine Marie Cooper


Since I grew up near Boston, Massachusetts, I can never think about the week of April 19th without pausing to reflect on its meaning for our country. It was the day in 1775 when the first battles took place at the onset of the American Revolution.

As children, we all loved Patriot's Day. Parades were held in the city and the suburbs commemorating the event. A rider dressed like Paul Revere would carry the news that "The Regulars are coming!" Of course, we weren't too concerned in the 20th century about British soldiers coming down Mass Ave. If they did, we'd have likely cheered them on instead of fleeing. :)

But it was both a celebration and a memorial to the brave men—simple farmers—who made a stand against the greatest army in the world of that time. The outcome shocked the world and birthed the great country of the United States of America.

When I was young, it didn't occur to me that the very road down which the bands played and the floats sailed upon, was the very route that the British Army actually trod. It was a journey that began an eight year war.

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Beginning in Boston the night of April 18, 1775, over 1,000 British soldiers marched their way to Concord where supplies of Colonial gunpowder were hidden. On the way, they were confronted by the brave men of Lexington. The first shots were fired and the first fatalities occurred.

Buckman Tavern, Gathering Place of the Lexington Militia

The soldiers continued their march to Concord and were surprised by the increasing numbers of Colonial militia who were bent on stopping the King's Army. Two British soldiers were killed and then buried near Concord Bridge.

The aggressive Minute Men intimidated the British forces the entire way back to Boston. Fighting Indian-style, the American militia hid behind stone walls and trees and killed numerous enemy soldiers along the way. The King's Army became more enraged by the moment. By the time they reached Menotomy Village (now Arlington, MA), reinforcements for the Brits had arrived. The worst Battle of the day occurred at the home of farmer Jason Russell.

Jason Russell House, Arlington, MA

More deaths occurred at this site than any other battlefield that day, April 19, 1775.

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When I was a child celebrating Patriot's Day every year, I never knew that the house on the corner just one block away from my home, held the story of the worst battle that occurred that first day of the Revolution.

I often thought about that house after I grew up and decided to discover the secrets that lay within its walls. The story that I uncovered was an amazing and heartbreaking tale of love, loyalty and demise. It was an incident hidden from the history books, just waiting to be revealed. I decided to be the storyteller of the Russell family and the community that took a stand for freedom from tyranny.

And thus was birthed Fields of the Fatherless, Winner of the the 2014 Selah Award for YA Fiction; Winner of the 2014 Next Generation Book Award, Religious Fiction; and Winner of the 2014 Moonbeam Children's Book Award, Best YA Religious Fiction.

To celebrate Patriot's Day, I am giving away two gifts—a signed copy of Fields of the Fatherless and a box of eight cards of the Doolittle prints that depict the battles of April 19, 1775—to a reader who leaves a comment on this blog. I will do a drawing for those who leave their email address and announce the winner on Friday, April 22.

Paul Revere and His Riders

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

Thanks to the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, every American knows that Paul Revere made a midnight ride warning the colonists that the British are coming. Here is one stanza of the poem.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

One thing the poem leaves out is there were many riders who rode to warn patriots of British invasion. Here's a brief sketch of all five riders who were well known.

Sybil Ludington: Sybil was the only woman rider. Her ride took place later than the other riders, April 26, 1777, but her service to the American cause was invaluable. She was the daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington. She rode 40 miles, double the miles Revere rode, to warn the colonists at Danbury, Connecticut of the approach of the British. She was later commended by George Washington for her heroism, and a statue of her was erected along her route in Carmel, New York.

William Dawes: During the war, in 1776, William Dawes was commissioned as a second major of the Boston militia regiment. A year earlier, on the night of April 18, 1775, Doctor Joseph Warren sent William Dawes, along with Revere, to ride from Boston, Massachusetts north to Lexington to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock of their impending arrest, and to alert the colonial minutemen that the British were coming. Dawes arrived in Lexington half an hour after Revere because he took the longer route by land through the Boston Neck and his horse wasn't as fast. After warning Adams and Hancock, Dawes and Revere set out to warn Concord in case that was the British target.

British officers waited on the road between Lexington and Concord and ordered Dawes, Revere, and Prescott, another rider, to halt. The three men rode off in different directions hoping at one of them would escape. Dawes later told his children that after he rode into the yard of a house shouting that he had lured two officers there. Fearing an ambush, the officers stopped chasing him. But Dawes's horse bucked him off and ran away. He had to walk back to Lexington. Dawes and the other riders' warnings were successful. The town militas were ready for the British and won their first colonial victory. The British never found the weapons they planned to destroy and had to retreat to Boston.

In 1896, Helen F. Moore wrote this verse about the ride of Dawes.

Tis all very well for the children to hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere;
But why should my name be quite forgot,
Who rode as boldly and well, God wot?
Why should I ask? The reason is clear-
My name was Dawes and his Revere.

Samuel Prescott: Paul Revere arranged for Samuel Prescott to meet him and Dawes on the road from Lexington to Concord the night of April 18, 1775. Prescott was a native of Concord, Massachusetts and knew the territory. He was to be a guide for the other two men.
When Prescott met Revere and Dawes on the road to Concord, British officers forced them to split up. Prescott would be the only man to eventually reach Concord safely and warn the Patriots there. Prescott then continued west to warn Acton, Massachusetts while his brother Abel Prescott rode south to warn Sudbury and Framingham. By this time, many riders were also dispatched from other towns to spread the warning. Bells were rung, and cannons were fired to warn of the danger at hand.

Prescott witnessed the Battle of Concord, then rode back to Lexington where he stayed to volunteer as a surgeon for two weeks. Later he became a surgeon for the Continental Army.

Israel Bissell: Israel Bissell made the longest ride in mid April 1775, starting around the 13th of that month. According to legend, Bissell was a professional post rider for the American colonists who rode 345 miles in four days and six hours along the Old Post Road covering a total of 345 miles. He shouted along the way "To arms, to arms, the war has begun." Bissell began his journey in Watertown, Massachusetts and drove his first horse so hard that it died just outside of Worcester, Massachusetts. He continued down to Philadelphia warning the militias along the way. Bissell carried a message from General Joseph Palmer where he was supposed to pass it to another courier. The newspapers of the day printed the warning and Bissell's name as the only rider. Some believe he is a composite of all the riders who carried the warning. Even if Bissell only rode from Watertown to Hartford, he rode the furthest of the five riders, and should be remembered for this service to the American colonists. Later Bissell enlisted in the Connecticut regiment and would eventually become a sergeant under Colonel Erastus Wolcott, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The American poet and historian, Clay Perry, wrote an ode to Bissell with these opening lines:

Listen, my children, to my epistle
Of the long, long ride of Israel Bissell,
Who outrode Paul by miles and time
But didn't rate a poet's rhyme.

Paul Revere: Paul Revere, the most famous of riders, was trained to be a silversmith. When the Stamp Act of 1765 caused financial difficulties for his business, he joined the Sons of Liberty, the group of men responsible for organizing early revolution efforts. This is how he become aquanted with Joseph Warren, the leader who sent the riders out with their warning. Between 1773 and 1775, Revere made 18 rides as a courier for the Boston Committee of Public Safety reporting unrest. One April 7, 1775, Joseph Warren sent Revere to Concord to warn the Massachusetts Provincial Congress about British troop movements. Concord citizens moved the munitions and hid them.

Before the famous ride, Revere had instructed Robert Newman, the sexton of the North Church, to send a signal by lantern to alert colonists in Charlestown about to the movements of the troops. The code was "one if by land, two if by sea", one lantern would signal the army chose the land route while two lanterns would signal the route "by water" across the Charles River. There were two lanterns hung on April 18.

On the night of April 18, 1775, Warren sent Revere to send the signal to Charlestown that the British troops were on the move. Revere rode through northern Boston warning the American patriots about the enemy's movement. He never shouted the phrase "the British are coming." He rode swiftly and in secrecy northward. His journey ended in Lexington where he met other Sons of Liberty John Hancock and Samuel Adams. After meeting up with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, Revere was captured and questioned by the British, so he never completed his ride to Concord. After he was released the same night, he helped Hancock escape Lexington.

During the war, Revere served in the Continental Army and afterwards returned to his profession as a silversmith.

Memorials to Veterans of the American Revolution

by Elaine Marie Cooper

As we pause this week to remember the sacrifices and bravery of our veterans of war, it seems fitting to recall those veterans who were there at the beginning of our country. They are the men (and women) who helped birth this nation. They are the heroes of both yesterday—and today.

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It all began at the Lexington green on April 19th, 1775. It was a beautiful spring morning but it quickly turned into a day of terror in that small Massachusetts town. Eight Minutemen were shot and killed there, "the first victims to the sword of British tyranny and oppression."

A short distance away in the town of Concord, the British troops marched onward, looking for hidden gunpowder and arms. Instead of finding these, the King's army discovered a well-armed band of Minutemen, mere farmers by trade, fighting back.

Startled by the resistance, the British troops retreated back toward Boston. But on the way, they encountered more resistance as the troops were picked off one-by-one. The Minutemen, armed with the skills developed through years of fighting native Americans, hid behind stone walls and trees, attacking the weary British troops. Reinforcements from Boston helped the King's Army re-group. Outraged by the colonist's attacks, the war broke into the worst battle of the day in Menotomy Village, six miles west of Boston. More Americans and British were killed in that community than any other that first day of the war. Here is the monument to Jason Russell and ten other Minutemen killed in Menotomy Village.

The war was just beginning and soon spread throughout New England and New York. One battle occurred in Oriskany, New York on August 6, 1777. General Nicholas Herkimer led a brave group of American soldiers into an intense battle which resulted in great loss of life. The general himself died a few days later. An incredible monument on his estate in Little Falls, New York, gives honor to his memory.

Some soldiers survived battles and lived to tell their children about the tales of war. Solomon Peirce was one. He was wounded at the Battle of Lexington and fought at Bunker Hill. His gravestone is engraved with the words, "Patriot sires teach civic virtue to their sons."

Then the great turning point of the war occurred in 1777: The Battle of Saratoga. Under British General John Burgoyne, a plan was attempted to divide the colonies and defeat the Americans once and for all. That was the plan. But once again, by God's grace, the King's Army was thwarted in their efforts. And on the fields of colonial farmers in eastern New York Colony, heroes were born.

One of them, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, came all the way from Poland in 1776 to help with the American cause. His military training in his homeland helped prepare him to mastermind the key British defeat in Saratoga.

Timothy Murphy was the son of Irish immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania. As an adult, he became an expert marksmen, which qualified him to join Daniel Morgan's riflemen. His monument on the fields of Saratoga was dedicated by the Ancient order of Hibernians of Saratoga County. The granite memorial reads: "A celebrated marksmen of Colonel Morgan's rifle corps whose unerring aim turned the tide of battle by the death of the British General Fraser on October 7, 1777."

A beautiful memorial in Saratoga commemorates the numerous unknown American soldiers who perished in the battles of Saratoga. They were honored by this monument provided by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1931, in celebration of the bicentennial of George Washington's birth.

In 2009, I was escorted to a very special veteran's memorial by a local historian in western Massachusetts. When this historian was a young boy, he had followed a man deep into the woods of Williamsburg, Massachusetts and watched the man chisel words onto a large, triangular stone. The inscriber was the great grandson of a British soldier who had fought under General Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga.

Years before, this great grandson had been escorted to the site by the son of the soldier, who returned to visit his birthplace.

The inscription on the memorial, still easily visible when highlighted by chalk, reads this: "Site of log cabin built by Daniel Prince, a Burgoyne vet." At the very top, was the Union Jack.

And as I visited this memorial to a veteran, I was overwhelmed with the deep family connection to the man who left the King's Army in 1777 and decided to become an American. Daniel Prince. My fourth great grandfather. It was an unforgettable moment, difficult to put into words—even for an author.

He may not have been a hero to America. But he will always be a hero to me.

Elaine Marie Cooper is the author of Fields of the Fatherless, as well as the soon-to-be-released, Bethany's Calendar.

Colonial Cradles

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber,

Holy angels guard thy bed!

Heavenly blessings without number

Gently falling on thy head.

Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,

House and home, thy friends provide;

All without thy care or payment:

All thy wants are well supplied.

— From “A Cradle Hymn” by Isaac Watts (1674 – 1748)

The first time I saw a colonial cradle, I was visiting the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne in Concord, Massachusetts.

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne Home, Concord, MA

I was just a young girl and I can still see the rich, dark wood, so smoothly crafted with loving care. I remember imagining the children of the household that were rocked to sleep within the comforting confines. Seeing that cradle brought to life tender traces of the love and care of the people who had lived there. I cherished that memory long into adulthood, when I named my own son “Nathaniel.” And I still eagerly drink in the images of antique cradles wherever I see them.

Peregrine White's Wicker Cradle

The first cradle in America came over on the Mayflower in 1620. It was the Dutch wicker bed that soothed the first child born to the Pilgrims in the New World: Peregrine White. The young boy was birthed onboard the wooden vessel as it docked in Cape Cod Bay. It can still be seen at the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Most of the cradles made in the colonies were wrought from wood and the designs ranged from plain, solid boards, to engraved embellishments along the panels, to spindled sides similar to modern crib designs.

Author Eric Sloan in American Yesterday wrote, “At one time or another, cradles have been attached to butter churns, turnspits, dog mills, and even windmill gears to give them automatic movement, but the simple rocker cradle remained in the American household for over two centuries before its disappearance.”

A rather unique cradle, thought to have multiple uses for nursing mothers, twins or invalids, was the “adult cradle.” These wooden cradles were about the size of a single bed, but built closer to the floor.

According to Jack Larkin in The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790 – 1840, not every infant slept in a cradle in Early America. “…it was common, noted the physician and reformer William Alcott in 1830, for an American mother to ‘sleep with her infant on her arm,’ and children often shared the parental bed until they were weaned.”

Cradle from Storrowton Village Museum

But whether some infants shared their parents’ bed or not, the cradle seemed to be the predominant shelter for little ones while they slept.

Shirley Glubock in Home and Child Life in Colonial Days writes:

“Nothing could be prettier than the old cradles that have survived successive years of use with many generations of babies….In these cradles the colonial baby slept, warmly wrapped in a homespun blanket or pressed quilt.”

How much better thou’rt attended

Than the Son of God could be,

When from heaven he descended

And became a child like thee!

Soft and easy is thy cradle:

Coarse and hard thy Savior lay

When His birthplace was a stable

And His softest bed was hay.

— From “A Cradle Hymn” by Isaac Watts (1674 – 1748)

Patriot's Day: Remembering the American Revolution

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmer’s stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

—  from “Concord Hymn” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I remember a dawn drive to the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts many years ago with my older sister, Christine. I was too young to drive, but she was not. Confiscating the family car keys, we stole away through the early morning, giggling at our historical adventure.

Upon our arrival at the wooden bridge that creaked beneath our sandals, a reverent stillness overtook us. We were the only ones there—save the spirits immortalized on this landmark. Through the morning mist, we envisioned lines of soldiers intent upon victory. And through the hushed stillness, we felt their pain and fear as those shots fired in bitter vitriol materialized in our minds and hearts.

We hushed at the hallowed ground beneath us—and silently walked back to our car.

April 19, 1775—the day the first shots of the American Revolution were heard throughout the world.

This date, so tenderly described in Emerson’s poem, lives on in celebration of America’s freedom from England every year in both Massachusetts and Maine. It is memorialized as Patriot’s Day and is a state holiday on the third Monday of every April. (Not to be confused with Patriot Day, held every September 11)

In Wisconsin, April 19^th is a special observance day for schools, when they are required to teach about the events of the birth of our country.

In both Massachusetts and Maine, parades and reenactments abound, especially along the route between Boston and Concord. This was the 20-mile journey travelled by Paul Revere where on that fateful, moonlit night, the rider screamed the words of warning to the Colonists: “The regulars are coming! To arms!”

Through the years, I often heard the words quoted as, “The British are coming.” However, most Colonists thought of themselves as British—Englishman—so the context and accuracy of those words are flawed.

Regardless of the words of warning, the entire countryside that had prepared for this attack was awakened, first by the riders and then by pealing church bells. Minutemen that had trained for months, grabbed their muskets and congregated on their local greens, then marched towards the scene of the action. By the time the 1,000 British regulars had reached Concord to confiscate weapons (that had already been hidden by the patriots), word had spread about the killings in Lexington, just to the east of Concord.

The enraged patriot’s confronted the British in Concord and killed two enemy soldiers at the North Bridge. Revolution had begun. Fighting like the Native Americans, the Colonists hid behind stonewalls and trees, picking off one British soldier after another, while the formally-trained King’s Army marched in lines down the road.

This retreat of the British army back to Boston cost them 73 men killed and 174 wounded. The American militia had suffered 49 fatalities and 41 wounded.

The war that had been brewing for several years was now a reality.

When I was a child in Massachusetts, I remember going to parades on what is now called Massachusetts Avenue (the route of Paul Revere’s ride). Early on, I learned an appreciation for this history—the founding of our country that was won through the blood of those who came before me.

Since I grew up, both Colonial and British militia re-enactors have staged mock warfare for public education and amusement. These provide stirring portrayals of the battles that occurred that day, all the way from Concord to Lexington to Arlington (then known as Menotomy Village), my hometown. One of these Aprils, I will find my way back to my hometown to see these re-enactments myself.

In the meantime, I have obtained permission from the Lexington Minutemen to use the wonderful photos from their website for this post. Click here for their website.

Here is a 12 minute video that you might find interesting. Click here for video.

I highly recommend the Hallmark movie entitled “April Morning” which so movingly portrays the events of April 19, 1775. Click here for Amazon link.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare,

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare,

The shaft we raise to them and thee.