Remembering April 19th, 1775

[John from MD]

I thought I would leave a reminder of that fateful day that is so important to our history.

Concord Hymn​

By Ralph Waldo Emerson


Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837


By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

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.

 

[LGood48]

 

[krucam]

Waco and 2 years later Oklahoma City...

April 19 Archives - History.com

Discover what happened on April 19 with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.

www.history.com

 

[Doctor_M]

God Bless America... we need it.

 

[Blacksmith101]

Can anyone here trace their ancestors to those who stood "By the rude bridge that arched the flood,....." on that fateful day? There are some people who can.

My own ancestors were not there (as far as I can tell so far) however 14 of my ancestors are considered patriots by the DAR. I know one ancestor and several relatives fought at the battle of Groton Heights in 1781 and another ancestor was at Valley Forge the winter of 1777-1778, still working on the specific histories of the others.

 

[John from MD]

Can anyone here trace their ancestors to those who stood "By the rude bridge that arched the flood,....." on that fateful day? There are some people who can.

My own ancestors were not there (as far as I can tell so far) however 14 of my ancestors are considered patriots by the DAR. I know one ancestor and several relatives fought at the battle of Groton Heights in 1781 and another ancestor was at Valley Forge the winter of 1777-1778, still working on the specific histories of the others.

My wife's best friend Debbie goes all the way back to pre Revolution times. She was a longtime member in the DAR and had genealogy placing relatives at various battles. Unfortunately she has moved to Florida and has some serious health problems.

 

[Boxcab]

My paternal grandmother was a Meriam. My father mapped out our lineage to Josiah.

Nathan Meriam House - Minute Man National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

Meriam family oral tradition holds that on that morning, “when the alarm was given in Concord that the British soldiers were coming, Josiah Meriam, with his sons, Josiah, Jr., and Timothy, went to the village, and later were among the forces at the North Bridge, and probably crossed the meadows and appeared again at the encounter near the house. Joseph, Josiah’s youngest son, then seven years old, remained at home, as he always said, ‘to take care of the women’ and soon went with them to a place of refuge behind the hill. The British soldiers entered the house, helped themselves to whatever breakfast they could find, taking the unbaked pies from the oven…”

.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

 

[Threeband]

Battle of Baltimore/Pratt Street Riot/"The Patriotic Gore that fleck'd the streets of Baltimore " 1861.

 

[lazarus]

My wife's best friend Debbie goes all the way back to pre Revolution times. She was a longtime member in the DAR and had genealogy placing relatives at various battles. Unfortunately she has moved to Florida and has some serious health problems.

Mine stretches to the Aldens at Plymouth. But I probably have more recent immigrant blood as my family namesake ancestor only came over in the late 1800s. But a lot of both sides settled in NE PA in around the late 1700s and mostly stayed in that area until my parents left.

 

[4g64loser]

Can anyone here trace their ancestors to those who stood "By the rude bridge that arched the flood,....." on that fateful day? There are some people who can.

My own ancestors were not there (as far as I can tell so far) however 14 of my ancestors are considered patriots by the DAR. I know one ancestor and several relatives fought at the battle of Groton Heights in 1781 and another ancestor was at Valley Forge the winter of 1777-1778, still working on the specific histories of the others.

Maternal lineage are DAR. Plenty of heritage from pre revolution but I'm third generation of immigrants as well. Quite th mixed bag.

No relations known present at the rude bridge but known to be in the ranks in later skirmishes and battles.

To the bowels of hell with pitcairn and gage.

 

[RFBfromDE]

My people were still planting potatoes in Poland.

The wife’s family were Nasons Sewells and Tibbets from New Hampshire. We have visited colonial era graves up there.

But Kenneth Roberts, cousin to her grandfather, author of Arundel, is the only one achieving any fame AFAIK. We have an autographed first edition. I should read it some time….

It tells of family lore but I don’t know how fictionalized it is.

Col. Tibbets (Ebola Gay pilot) is not related.

 

[Blacksmith101]

My people were still planting potatoes in Poland.

The wife’s family were Nasons Sewells and Tibbets from New Hampshire. We have visited colonial era graves up there.

But Kenneth Roberts, cousin to her grandfather, author of Arundel, is the only one achieving any fame AFAIK. We have an autographed first edition. I should read it some time….

It tells of family lore but I don’t know how fictionalized it is.

Col. Tibbets is not related.

Kenneth Roberts was quite a prolific and well known historical fiction author, he wrote a lot more than Arundel. I may have to try him sometime.
Link

Arundel by Kenneth Roberts — What Would The Founders Think?

www.whatwouldthefoundersthink.com

 

[Threeband]

You should definitely read Kenneth Roberts.

Read the Arundel Series and learn what a hero Benedict Arnold was, before he wasn't. .
Read Oliver Wiswell and sympathize with the Tories. Learn the health benefits of Perkin's Metallic Tractors.

 

[fogman]

Patriot's Day is today. On April 19, 1775, 14,000 Patriots came pouring in from the surrounding countryside to chase the Regulars back to Boston. Imagine the preparation it took to be able to spread the news that the Regulars were out.

The Regulars shot first.

 

[Bob A]

Paul Revere’s Ride​

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1807-188


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.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
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!

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.