"The shot heard round the world"
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| Battle of Lexington and Concord, from a Public domain scan of the vintage historic postcard by Picryl. |
April 19 is the semiquincentennial, the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the beginning of the Revolutionary War. From our grade school history classes, most of us remember about Paul Revere and his midnight ride to warn the colonists that the British were coming. It was at Lexington and Concord that the first skirmishes occurred and the "shot heard round the world" was fired.
When you think about events that happened during an ancestor's lifetime, do you wonder if your ancestor was present at that event? I do. This was during my fourth great-grandfather Jonah Stow's lifetime and through my early research of his military records, I knew that he wasn't at Lexington and Concord.
Jonah and his wife Lydia and their young children were living in Alstead, New Hampshire Colony. Jonah's records show that he, along with six or seven other men, returned to Grafton, Massachusetts, and enlisted in Col. Luke Drury's company on April 26, 1775, one week after the battle of Lexington and Concord.
Continuing with my early research of Jonah's military records I learned that he was at the Battle of Bunker Hill June 1775, at the Cedars May 1776, and several New Hampshire militia operations including marching to relieve Fort Ticonderoga, July 1777.
Throughout this research, I was not using the concept of the FAN (Friends, Associates, Neighbors) Club. In fact I wasn't even doing much research on my main ancestors' siblings.
A couple of years later I was bringing my family tree up to date and made contact with my cousin Helen's family. She was deceased but her widower husband Richard was happy to talk to me and I started doing some research on his family. Over a few months time he moved from Oregon to Washington and I met him and his sons at his birthday party. He and I shared July 7 birthdays.
Richard has since passed away but I am still in contact with a couple of his children. One of them has become actively involved researching Richard's Swedish maternal line and I did a little exploring on Ancestry to see what others might have online. It was in the Gallery of one family tree that I found not only Swedish and Richard's family pictures and documents, but also Stowe information, leading back from Helen.
Imagine my shock when I saw a muster roll for Col. Luke Drury's company of men who were at the battle of Old North Bridge, April 19, 1775, part of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Among the names were Shelometh and Solomon Stow.
My fourth-great-grandfather Jonah was not at Lexington and Concord but his brothers, Shelometh and Solomon were! Holy cow! My fourth-great-granduncles were among the patriots fending off the British!
At Familysearch.org I found an index of muster and pay roll cards that is searchable. I found that not only did Jonas's brothers fight at Lexington, so did several of his cousins from neighboring towns. I wonder if Jonah's Powers brothers-in-law were there. I'll have to look a little more.
Did you have ancestors who might have answered the alarm? Search the Massachusetts Revolutionary War Index Cards to Muster Rolls - FamilySearch Historical Records
If I had used the FAN Club research earlier, I might have looked more closely at Col. Luke Drury as an associate of Jonah. We need to closely consider what we mean by associate in our research. In this case it was a military leader; an associate could also be an employer or a fraternal order. The possibilities are endless.
(1) Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn written for the 1837 dedication of a monument in Concord, Massachusetts, commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord.
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| MaryLynn Strickland |
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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org
I've looked more this morning and found that at least two Powers brothers were at Lexington; these would have been Jonah Stow's brothers-in-law. There were also some Leland young men from Grafton who were there. These would have been first cousins.
ReplyDeleteGrafton is about 30 miles from Concord.