Tough Guy

What were the 70 men gathered on the Lexington Green before dawn thinking as the sky began to brighten?  They knew the Regulars were coming - they weren't called the British because that word included those gathered on the Green.  They would have heard the approach of the Redcoat column coming up the road and then the voices of the officers.  Within a few minutes seven would be dead.  April 19, 1775.

The British moved on to Concord where they met disaster and then had to fight their way back to Boston.   Retracing their steps from Lincoln to Concord along what is now known as Battle Road and taking casualties all the way, they entered Arlington.  Nearing Arlington's border with Cambridge at Alewife Brook, the Redcoats encountered 78 year old Samuel Whittemore.  Whittemore was a farmer with extensive military experience, fighting in both King George's War (1744-48) and the Seven Years War (1756-63).  He was also quite prolific in his personal life having, by 1775, more than 180 direct descendants, most living in the same area.

Whittemore, with his home directly along the road of British retreat, decided he needed to do his part.  Taking his musket and pistols, he waited until the Redcoat column approached, rose up from behind his stone wall and fired his musket, killing a soldier.  As the British advanced on him, Whittemore drew his pistols and killed two more.  With that the British were upon him and he was shot in the face, bayoneted somewhere between 6 and 13 times, clubbed in the head with a musket, and left for dead.

Several hours later, neighbors noticed Samuel was still moving and brought him to the town doctor who proclaimed there was nothing to be done for him other than dressing his wounds and waiting for Whittemore to die.  They waited 18 years, as Samuel Whittemore died in 1793 at the age of 96.

The engraving on the marker in the picture is inaccurate as he was only 78 at the time.  The house seen to the right of the marker is Whittemore's home, which still stands.  For a decade I worked just on the other side of Alewife Brook on Whittemore Avenue in Cambridge.  You can read more about the British retreat from Concord in The Road Back.

Today is the 249th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution.  Next year will be the 250th and the year after that the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  Time will tell if that nation, conceived in liberty, will continue to endure.