Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
Arlington 250 Stories; Menotomy on April 19
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Some of the bloodiest fighting on April 19, 1775 happened in the village of Menotomy, the community lay along the main road from Cambridge to Concord. It had numerous mills, taverns and a meetinghouse and burial ground along this road, some of which still show scars from that day. We talk with Matthew Beres, Executive Director of the Arlington Historical Society, based in the Jason Russell House, about the fighting there and in the rest of Arlington, and the town's commemorations of those events'
WEBVTT
00:00:00.145 --> 00:00:01.165
Good morning, everyone.
00:00:01.266 --> 00:00:02.346
Welcome to the Revolution
00:00:02.386 --> 00:00:03.587
two fifty podcast.
00:00:03.967 --> 00:00:04.727
I'm Bob Allison.
00:00:04.788 --> 00:00:06.729
I chair the Rev two fifty advisory group.
00:00:06.748 --> 00:00:08.650
We are a consortium of
00:00:08.710 --> 00:00:10.150
seventy five organizations
00:00:10.191 --> 00:00:11.410
in Massachusetts looking at
00:00:11.451 --> 00:00:12.332
ways to commemorate the
00:00:12.352 --> 00:00:14.253
beginnings of American independence.
00:00:14.772 --> 00:00:16.414
And our guest today is Matt Beers.
00:00:16.474 --> 00:00:17.835
Matt Beers is the executive
00:00:17.855 --> 00:00:19.074
director of the Arlington
00:00:19.114 --> 00:00:20.236
Historical Society,
00:00:20.736 --> 00:00:21.736
also a curator of the
00:00:21.777 --> 00:00:23.178
Wilmington Town Museum,
00:00:23.737 --> 00:00:26.559
a long time public history professional.
00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:27.980
And we're here to talk about
00:00:28.019 --> 00:00:28.881
what's happening in
00:00:29.346 --> 00:00:30.887
The Forgotten Town of Monotony.
00:00:30.946 --> 00:00:32.027
Matt, thanks for joining us.
00:00:32.447 --> 00:00:33.987
Thanks for having me.
00:00:34.027 --> 00:00:35.768
So untold stories, you know,
00:00:36.067 --> 00:00:38.448
we know about Lexington and Concord,
00:00:38.488 --> 00:00:39.770
but what we don't know is
00:00:39.789 --> 00:00:40.570
that most of the fighting
00:00:40.630 --> 00:00:42.049
actually happened in Monotony.
00:00:42.130 --> 00:00:42.350
So.
00:00:42.511 --> 00:00:43.430
Correct.
00:00:43.470 --> 00:00:45.371
So can you tell us a bit
00:00:45.411 --> 00:00:46.551
about what's going on in
00:00:46.591 --> 00:00:47.792
Monotony on April
00:00:47.832 --> 00:00:49.432
nineteenth of seventeen seventy five?
00:00:50.497 --> 00:00:53.518
So monotony at the point of
00:00:53.539 --> 00:00:54.959
the eighteenth century was
00:00:55.079 --> 00:00:56.198
a very small village.
00:00:57.959 --> 00:00:59.420
It used to encompass a much
00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:01.939
broader geographical range.
00:01:02.439 --> 00:01:06.540
It ate into towns like Cambridge, Belmont,
00:01:07.001 --> 00:01:08.081
parts of Somerville.
00:01:08.620 --> 00:01:09.701
It was much broader.
00:01:10.481 --> 00:01:12.501
But population-wise, very small.
00:01:12.522 --> 00:01:15.043
You had periodic houses that
00:01:15.082 --> 00:01:16.763
were all spread apart.
00:01:17.662 --> 00:01:18.947
was mainly farming town
00:01:19.868 --> 00:01:20.370
mainly mainly an
00:01:20.391 --> 00:01:22.376
agricultural town uh and
00:01:22.396 --> 00:01:23.459
that changed during the
00:01:23.478 --> 00:01:25.222
eighteen hundreds but um
00:01:26.384 --> 00:01:28.686
Most of the houses in the
00:01:28.846 --> 00:01:31.049
area were along Concord Road,
00:01:31.088 --> 00:01:32.790
which is now Mass Ave.
00:01:34.132 --> 00:01:35.974
And I happen to be the
00:01:36.013 --> 00:01:37.655
director of the Jason Russell House,
00:01:38.236 --> 00:01:40.677
which we'll talk about in a moment,
00:01:40.697 --> 00:01:43.801
but saw one of the majority
00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:44.641
of the fighting that
00:01:44.701 --> 00:01:47.185
happened on that day.
00:01:47.685 --> 00:01:47.844
Okay.
00:01:48.906 --> 00:01:49.046
Yeah.
00:01:50.655 --> 00:01:52.620
So can you tell us a bit
00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:54.322
about who Jason Russell was
00:01:54.403 --> 00:01:55.725
and why his house is so important?
00:01:56.929 --> 00:01:57.230
Of course.
00:01:57.370 --> 00:01:58.371
So Jason Russell,
00:01:58.753 --> 00:01:59.956
he was in his fifties at
00:01:59.975 --> 00:02:00.677
the time of the battle.
00:02:01.778 --> 00:02:03.858
Rumor has it that he had an
00:02:03.978 --> 00:02:06.700
injury or a disability in his leg.
00:02:07.739 --> 00:02:08.980
However, frankly,
00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:10.501
I've never been able to
00:02:10.700 --> 00:02:12.741
verify that story in itself.
00:02:13.602 --> 00:02:14.522
But Jason Russell was
00:02:14.562 --> 00:02:19.003
sitting on a house built
00:02:19.044 --> 00:02:22.846
around about forty acres or so.
00:02:23.546 --> 00:02:24.948
He had an apple orchard,
00:02:25.930 --> 00:02:31.937
and he was a sheep shepherd, and mostly,
00:02:32.018 --> 00:02:34.039
again, very agricultural.
00:02:34.580 --> 00:02:36.563
I would say roughly around
00:02:36.623 --> 00:02:38.145
approximately middle class,
00:02:38.747 --> 00:02:39.907
not very wealthy.
00:02:41.610 --> 00:02:43.491
But on April nineteenth,
00:02:43.531 --> 00:02:45.592
he quite literally defended
00:02:45.692 --> 00:02:49.294
his own property, calling it his castle.
00:02:50.616 --> 00:02:51.695
And unfortunately,
00:02:51.735 --> 00:02:53.137
he lost his life as the
00:02:53.157 --> 00:02:54.098
British regulars were
00:02:54.138 --> 00:02:56.520
coming into Menominee.
00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:00.502
Now, why did they attack him or his house?
00:03:04.021 --> 00:03:06.802
General Percy was coming as
00:03:06.842 --> 00:03:09.002
the reinforcement column to
00:03:09.082 --> 00:03:11.723
meet Colonel Smith in Lexington.
00:03:12.623 --> 00:03:15.063
They regroup early afternoon
00:03:15.503 --> 00:03:16.384
into Lexington.
00:03:17.125 --> 00:03:19.085
And then Percy's reinforcements,
00:03:19.104 --> 00:03:20.665
they surround Colonel
00:03:20.725 --> 00:03:22.985
Smith's group who saw the
00:03:23.026 --> 00:03:24.406
shot heard around the world
00:03:24.825 --> 00:03:25.947
as well as the first shot
00:03:26.347 --> 00:03:27.467
over in Lexington.
00:03:28.153 --> 00:03:28.875
So these are the guys who
00:03:28.895 --> 00:03:29.996
have been on the march all
00:03:30.075 --> 00:03:31.096
night and then they went
00:03:31.157 --> 00:03:32.677
out and fight in Lexington and Concord.
00:03:32.698 --> 00:03:34.438
Now they're on their way back.
00:03:34.579 --> 00:03:35.099
Exactly.
00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:36.881
They've been awake since ten
00:03:36.901 --> 00:03:39.122
thirty the night previously.
00:03:39.883 --> 00:03:42.265
They've had to endure almost fifteen,
00:03:42.306 --> 00:03:43.627
twenty miles of hiking.
00:03:43.967 --> 00:03:44.587
And then, of course,
00:03:44.627 --> 00:03:45.829
not to mention enemy
00:03:46.348 --> 00:03:48.350
gunfire on either sides of them.
00:03:48.471 --> 00:03:49.651
Yeah.
00:03:49.671 --> 00:03:50.872
But then they eventually get
00:03:50.913 --> 00:03:52.854
into monotony around four
00:03:52.895 --> 00:03:54.015
o'clock in the afternoon.
00:03:54.036 --> 00:03:54.395
Mm hmm.
00:03:55.977 --> 00:03:57.639
And at this point, it gets,
00:03:57.718 --> 00:03:59.561
the battle increasingly
00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:01.804
gets more chaotic as it goes on.
00:04:02.243 --> 00:04:04.606
It wasn't previously very
00:04:04.667 --> 00:04:06.368
regimental as what you may
00:04:06.389 --> 00:04:08.411
have seen in Lexington or in Concord.
00:04:08.831 --> 00:04:11.395
But at this point, you have so many people,
00:04:11.495 --> 00:04:13.877
provincials, militia in Minutemen,
00:04:14.538 --> 00:04:16.199
from all surrounding towns.
00:04:16.259 --> 00:04:18.360
You have people from Danvers,
00:04:18.401 --> 00:04:23.403
people from Framingham, Lynn, Dedham,
00:04:23.483 --> 00:04:23.863
Needham,
00:04:23.983 --> 00:04:25.524
all of these other surrounding towns.
00:04:26.225 --> 00:04:26.985
And at this point,
00:04:27.185 --> 00:04:27.786
it was sort of the
00:04:27.826 --> 00:04:30.908
cataclysm of when all these
00:04:30.949 --> 00:04:34.430
alarm riders finally get to their spots,
00:04:34.911 --> 00:04:37.653
and these towns finally get
00:04:37.673 --> 00:04:38.372
to this point.
00:04:39.533 --> 00:04:40.574
And when they meet this
00:04:41.115 --> 00:04:42.536
group of almost four
00:04:42.596 --> 00:04:44.257
thousand provincials versus
00:04:44.937 --> 00:04:47.759
about fifteen hundred regulars or so,
00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:52.663
give or take, chaos essentially ensues.
00:04:54.064 --> 00:04:54.644
At this point,
00:04:56.485 --> 00:04:59.408
Percy recognizes that some members,
00:04:59.427 --> 00:05:00.728
some provincials are hiding
00:05:00.769 --> 00:05:02.490
into other houses to seek shelter,
00:05:02.810 --> 00:05:04.752
possibly also to fire onto
00:05:04.771 --> 00:05:05.853
the returning British
00:05:05.913 --> 00:05:08.314
column as they retreat back into Boston.
00:05:09.757 --> 00:05:10.978
And what he does is he
00:05:11.139 --> 00:05:13.600
orders his men to go into
00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:16.141
these residences and
00:05:16.221 --> 00:05:18.562
essentially eliminate these provincial,
00:05:18.642 --> 00:05:19.744
we call them snipers,
00:05:19.843 --> 00:05:23.146
but provincials firing on either side.
00:05:23.942 --> 00:05:25.463
And if you go to the Jason Russell house,
00:05:25.923 --> 00:05:27.966
we're right alongside Mass Ave.
00:05:29.887 --> 00:05:31.069
The house has never moved.
00:05:31.088 --> 00:05:34.351
And we know that with ground
00:05:34.372 --> 00:05:35.713
penetrating radar analysis
00:05:35.752 --> 00:05:36.774
we did a few years ago.
00:05:37.694 --> 00:05:40.437
We have no evidence of the house moving.
00:05:40.497 --> 00:05:41.819
So this is the site in which
00:05:41.939 --> 00:05:42.980
that actually happened.
00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:45.461
So the story is...
00:05:47.004 --> 00:05:50.487
about nine militia, excuse me,
00:05:50.507 --> 00:05:52.891
provincials from Danvers
00:05:53.572 --> 00:05:55.093
and a couple from surrounding towns.
00:05:55.375 --> 00:05:56.456
They go and seek shelter
00:05:56.495 --> 00:05:57.658
into the Jason Russell house.
00:05:58.567 --> 00:06:00.327
They hide into the cellar,
00:06:00.927 --> 00:06:02.528
pointing their muskets upward,
00:06:03.028 --> 00:06:04.088
waiting for any British
00:06:04.168 --> 00:06:05.869
regulars to come and enter the door.
00:06:06.829 --> 00:06:08.170
The story, as it goes,
00:06:08.269 --> 00:06:10.410
is two British regulars enter the house,
00:06:11.031 --> 00:06:12.951
and they are shot dead
00:06:12.990 --> 00:06:14.071
completely on the spot.
00:06:14.471 --> 00:06:15.831
From downstairs?
00:06:16.411 --> 00:06:17.192
From downstairs.
00:06:17.312 --> 00:06:18.132
Wow.
00:06:18.213 --> 00:06:18.812
Yep, yep.
00:06:20.154 --> 00:06:21.175
And then eventually they
00:06:21.757 --> 00:06:24.139
potentially go out into the
00:06:24.199 --> 00:06:25.480
second story of the house.
00:06:25.740 --> 00:06:27.762
They go into the first story
00:06:27.963 --> 00:06:30.464
and they are essentially seeking shelter.
00:06:30.904 --> 00:06:33.026
The regulars or the provincials?
00:06:33.267 --> 00:06:33.848
Provincials.
00:06:34.067 --> 00:06:34.327
Okay.
00:06:35.048 --> 00:06:36.810
And so what happens then is
00:06:36.891 --> 00:06:40.372
they may have fired return shots,
00:06:40.733 --> 00:06:41.713
but the British regulars,
00:06:41.733 --> 00:06:43.475
they surround the Jason
00:06:43.516 --> 00:06:45.137
Russell house and fire onto
00:06:45.156 --> 00:06:46.038
the actual house.
00:06:46.999 --> 00:06:49.139
Now, we have about thirteen,
00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:52.983
possibly even more, scars, we call them,
00:06:53.603 --> 00:06:55.324
but essentially bullet holes,
00:06:56.165 --> 00:06:57.706
most of which were from
00:06:58.206 --> 00:06:59.528
British regular muskets
00:07:00.209 --> 00:07:02.271
firing directly onto the house.
00:07:03.444 --> 00:07:05.245
Had there been anyone firing from inside?
00:07:05.285 --> 00:07:06.785
I mean, had there been snipers inside,
00:07:06.824 --> 00:07:07.625
or it was just they knew
00:07:07.665 --> 00:07:08.564
that there were provincials
00:07:08.605 --> 00:07:09.625
hiding inside?
00:07:09.665 --> 00:07:10.466
You know, that story,
00:07:10.925 --> 00:07:12.206
we can't really verify.
00:07:13.406 --> 00:07:14.567
You know, it's likely,
00:07:14.607 --> 00:07:17.067
to put in perspective, you know,
00:07:17.387 --> 00:07:18.627
to humanize these folks.
00:07:19.209 --> 00:07:21.428
If you saw a returning
00:07:21.769 --> 00:07:24.569
column of enemy troops, essentially,
00:07:25.449 --> 00:07:26.930
you might do your duty to
00:07:28.011 --> 00:07:28.831
return fire,
00:07:29.850 --> 00:07:30.992
we don't really have any
00:07:31.312 --> 00:07:32.351
specific evidence
00:07:32.512 --> 00:07:34.052
suggesting that any of the
00:07:34.072 --> 00:07:35.812
bullet holes would have
00:07:35.851 --> 00:07:39.312
been from provincials, you know,
00:07:39.353 --> 00:07:40.492
but... Well,
00:07:40.512 --> 00:07:41.872
if they're firing out of the house,
00:07:41.892 --> 00:07:43.653
they wouldn't be hitting the house,
00:07:43.733 --> 00:07:43.954
right?
00:07:44.053 --> 00:07:44.293
Right.
00:07:44.973 --> 00:07:45.754
And exactly.
00:07:46.093 --> 00:07:47.194
And the windows that we have
00:07:47.233 --> 00:07:47.995
are not original.
00:07:48.894 --> 00:07:50.875
And so if they were to fire,
00:07:50.894 --> 00:07:51.634
they probably would have
00:07:51.675 --> 00:07:53.475
fired from these windows.
00:07:54.735 --> 00:07:55.776
We do have specific
00:07:56.670 --> 00:07:56.889
you know,
00:07:56.949 --> 00:07:59.273
musket ball holes around the
00:07:59.432 --> 00:08:01.154
windows and where the
00:08:01.194 --> 00:08:02.596
points of where the windows are.
00:08:02.636 --> 00:08:04.398
So that makes it more likely,
00:08:04.437 --> 00:08:06.060
but really we- Someone was
00:08:06.100 --> 00:08:07.821
firing at the window to hit
00:08:07.880 --> 00:08:10.024
a sniper who might be in the window.
00:08:10.124 --> 00:08:10.624
Exactly.
00:08:12.812 --> 00:08:15.154
So what's Jason Russell up
00:08:15.175 --> 00:08:16.596
to while all of this is happening?
00:08:17.175 --> 00:08:18.976
Unfortunately, he loses his life.
00:08:19.737 --> 00:08:21.499
The story is that he is
00:08:21.559 --> 00:08:22.899
bayoneted on his front
00:08:22.920 --> 00:08:24.221
doorstep as he seeks
00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:26.343
shelter into his house.
00:08:26.802 --> 00:08:27.843
So he had been outside?
00:08:28.564 --> 00:08:28.843
Yes.
00:08:29.165 --> 00:08:29.464
Yeah.
00:08:29.485 --> 00:08:30.526
So he was outside.
00:08:30.565 --> 00:08:31.446
He was with the other
00:08:31.867 --> 00:08:33.607
militia and Minutemen from
00:08:33.668 --> 00:08:34.828
the surrounding towns.
00:08:35.789 --> 00:08:37.510
And the story is that he
00:08:37.551 --> 00:08:39.793
goes in to his house and
00:08:39.893 --> 00:08:41.293
suffering potentially from
00:08:41.474 --> 00:08:43.054
a disability in his leg.
00:08:43.936 --> 00:08:45.876
He's unable to keep up and
00:08:45.937 --> 00:08:46.898
unfortunately loses his
00:08:46.957 --> 00:08:49.200
life and gets bayoneted on his doorstep.
00:08:49.220 --> 00:08:50.860
So he was not part of the
00:08:50.880 --> 00:08:52.783
militia or was he...
00:08:53.893 --> 00:08:55.053
So from what I understand,
00:08:55.134 --> 00:08:56.475
I don't think he was part
00:08:56.615 --> 00:08:58.076
of a specific unit.
00:08:58.956 --> 00:09:00.337
He stayed with his house.
00:09:00.418 --> 00:09:01.058
And he has a,
00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:03.000
he has a interesting quote
00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:04.922
you can read in David
00:09:04.942 --> 00:09:06.702
Hackett Fisher's polar bears ride.
00:09:07.764 --> 00:09:11.586
But essentially says paraphrasing, but
00:09:12.346 --> 00:09:13.727
It's the Englishman's duty
00:09:13.768 --> 00:09:14.947
to protect his castle.
00:09:16.347 --> 00:09:18.408
And with his age,
00:09:19.028 --> 00:09:20.049
it could seem likely that
00:09:20.090 --> 00:09:21.509
he was part of some sort of
00:09:21.570 --> 00:09:22.710
standing militia,
00:09:22.769 --> 00:09:24.191
but the fact that he stood
00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:25.571
at his property,
00:09:26.150 --> 00:09:27.432
it makes it more likely
00:09:27.471 --> 00:09:28.672
that he probably wasn't
00:09:29.111 --> 00:09:30.432
involved in any such.
00:09:30.452 --> 00:09:31.533
And also, since he has a disability,
00:09:31.552 --> 00:09:33.754
it would be unlikely.
00:09:33.894 --> 00:09:34.313
Exactly.
00:09:34.754 --> 00:09:36.638
So he sees these provincial troops,
00:09:36.658 --> 00:09:37.740
so he's going out to see
00:09:37.779 --> 00:09:38.721
what they're doing,
00:09:38.761 --> 00:09:39.803
or maybe he's been standing
00:09:39.864 --> 00:09:41.086
out there all day watching
00:09:41.125 --> 00:09:42.969
the troops going back and forth.
00:09:42.989 --> 00:09:43.350
Yeah.
00:09:44.385 --> 00:09:44.625
Yeah,
00:09:44.706 --> 00:09:46.147
I mean he may go to a neighbor's
00:09:46.187 --> 00:09:46.846
house as well,
00:09:47.607 --> 00:09:50.609
but he does ask his wife
00:09:50.649 --> 00:09:53.591
Elizabeth to go to neighboring towns,
00:09:53.910 --> 00:09:56.231
I don't know exactly which one,
00:09:56.393 --> 00:09:58.013
to essentially seek shelter
00:09:58.072 --> 00:09:59.053
as the British regulars are
00:09:59.114 --> 00:10:00.274
coming through monotony for
00:10:00.294 --> 00:10:02.696
the first time into Lexington Concord.
00:10:02.716 --> 00:10:04.956
So that was earlier in the morning?
00:10:04.976 --> 00:10:05.697
Earlier in the morning.
00:10:06.912 --> 00:10:08.894
And unfortunately, she does come back.
00:10:09.014 --> 00:10:10.335
And the story is that she
00:10:10.394 --> 00:10:12.917
does see about the thirteen
00:10:13.096 --> 00:10:15.099
dead bodies in her kitchen,
00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:18.061
including that of Jason Russell,
00:10:18.100 --> 00:10:19.783
her husband.
00:10:21.403 --> 00:10:23.365
The story with that is we
00:10:23.385 --> 00:10:25.246
believe some bodies may
00:10:25.307 --> 00:10:27.089
have been relocated from
00:10:27.129 --> 00:10:30.051
where they passed to inside
00:10:30.110 --> 00:10:31.952
this house as a means to
00:10:32.033 --> 00:10:33.394
preserve the body in some
00:10:33.533 --> 00:10:34.274
form or fashion.
00:10:34.294 --> 00:10:35.075
I see.
00:10:36.216 --> 00:10:37.517
We're talking with Matt Beers,
00:10:37.537 --> 00:10:38.738
the executive director of
00:10:38.778 --> 00:10:40.558
the Arlington Historical Society,
00:10:40.619 --> 00:10:41.620
also a curator of the
00:10:41.659 --> 00:10:43.020
Wilmington Town Museum,
00:10:43.701 --> 00:10:44.481
and we're talking about
00:10:44.542 --> 00:10:46.082
untold stories of monotony,
00:10:46.123 --> 00:10:47.283
the place where most of the
00:10:47.323 --> 00:10:49.186
fighting happened on April
00:10:53.327 --> 00:10:55.249
And so the Jason Russell
00:10:55.269 --> 00:10:56.809
House is the home of the
00:10:56.889 --> 00:10:58.291
Arlington Historical Society,
00:10:58.331 --> 00:11:00.231
or is it just a property you manage?
00:11:00.251 --> 00:11:01.312
Can you tell us a bit about it?
00:11:01.793 --> 00:11:02.874
Yeah, so we are,
00:11:03.293 --> 00:11:04.294
the Arlington Historical
00:11:04.335 --> 00:11:07.197
Society is headquartered at
00:11:07.216 --> 00:11:08.898
the Jason Russell House and Museum.
00:11:09.738 --> 00:11:11.019
Right now where my office is,
00:11:11.359 --> 00:11:12.700
we have an exhibit hall
00:11:13.419 --> 00:11:15.240
where we will be putting on
00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:17.381
a two hundred fiftieth
00:11:17.522 --> 00:11:20.043
anniversary exhibition,
00:11:20.744 --> 00:11:22.825
which I'll talk a bit in a second.
00:11:22.904 --> 00:11:25.605
But we do also have some other exhibitions,
00:11:25.645 --> 00:11:27.868
of course, one about the battle itself.
00:11:28.648 --> 00:11:31.208
But also we do tours in the
00:11:31.249 --> 00:11:32.149
Jason Russell House, of course.
00:11:32.169 --> 00:11:36.251
So how does someone come and visit?
00:11:37.570 --> 00:11:37.769
Yeah,
00:11:37.830 --> 00:11:41.272
so we are open now officially every
00:11:41.331 --> 00:11:42.873
Thursday and Friday from one to four.
00:11:44.254 --> 00:11:45.474
And on the weekends,
00:11:45.514 --> 00:11:47.375
we'll be open seasonally
00:11:47.956 --> 00:11:50.277
from June to October,
00:11:50.297 --> 00:11:51.638
the end of October from one
00:11:51.658 --> 00:11:52.979
to four as well.
00:11:52.999 --> 00:11:55.299
We're working on extending our hours,
00:11:55.759 --> 00:11:56.620
hopefully soon.
00:11:56.660 --> 00:11:58.981
But I think starting slow, small,
00:11:59.062 --> 00:12:00.982
and then broadening through
00:12:01.003 --> 00:12:02.803
there is our strategy.
00:12:03.844 --> 00:12:04.965
You mainly volunteers or do
00:12:04.985 --> 00:12:06.326
you have a paid staff?
00:12:07.053 --> 00:12:09.815
So we have three other paid staff members,
00:12:11.895 --> 00:12:13.657
two of which are working in
00:12:13.677 --> 00:12:14.376
the collections.
00:12:15.517 --> 00:12:17.477
They're great,
00:12:17.557 --> 00:12:19.739
but they mostly work in
00:12:20.739 --> 00:12:22.899
archiving and making sure
00:12:22.940 --> 00:12:24.380
we preserve Arlington's
00:12:24.421 --> 00:12:25.461
history and stuff.
00:12:26.361 --> 00:12:28.682
Most of the tour guides that we have,
00:12:28.743 --> 00:12:29.763
they're all volunteers.
00:12:30.143 --> 00:12:31.143
And they're all great.
00:12:31.364 --> 00:12:32.043
Each one of them,
00:12:32.683 --> 00:12:34.065
I learn something new just
00:12:34.085 --> 00:12:35.845
from speaking with them every single day.
00:12:36.946 --> 00:12:39.647
And they all have their own interests.
00:12:40.787 --> 00:12:42.427
And so I highly recommend
00:12:42.548 --> 00:12:43.868
even if you do come for a tour,
00:12:44.648 --> 00:12:45.448
come for a tour on a
00:12:45.509 --> 00:12:46.788
different day and you might
00:12:46.808 --> 00:12:48.789
get a completely different perspective.
00:12:48.809 --> 00:12:49.429
That's great.
00:12:49.529 --> 00:12:51.051
Very good.
00:12:52.370 --> 00:12:53.131
So some of the other,
00:12:53.532 --> 00:12:54.773
I know Arlington has a
00:12:54.812 --> 00:12:56.513
history beyond what happened on April,
00:12:57.134 --> 00:12:58.874
but that's going to be our focus today.
00:12:58.933 --> 00:12:59.754
So I'm wondering what are
00:12:59.774 --> 00:13:01.095
some of the other untold
00:13:01.134 --> 00:13:02.515
stories that you have of
00:13:02.615 --> 00:13:04.017
Arlington on April?
00:13:05.150 --> 00:13:05.510
Of course.
00:13:06.030 --> 00:13:07.991
So one of which is my
00:13:08.052 --> 00:13:10.114
personal favorite is the
00:13:10.153 --> 00:13:11.855
story of Samuel Whittemore.
00:13:13.134 --> 00:13:14.655
And I'll tell you what we
00:13:14.716 --> 00:13:16.256
know and what we don't know
00:13:16.317 --> 00:13:17.638
about this specific story.
00:13:18.418 --> 00:13:20.399
So it is known and widely
00:13:20.438 --> 00:13:21.899
known that Samuel
00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:23.660
Whittemore is reportedly to
00:13:23.681 --> 00:13:25.100
be the oldest combatant
00:13:25.282 --> 00:13:26.761
during the Revolutionary War.
00:13:27.702 --> 00:13:28.602
And ironically,
00:13:28.643 --> 00:13:29.903
it's the first battle of
00:13:30.283 --> 00:13:31.284
the Revolutionary War.
00:13:32.144 --> 00:13:33.105
But Samuel Whittemore,
00:13:33.206 --> 00:13:36.126
there's a question about, A, his age,
00:13:36.547 --> 00:13:39.768
but also where he was specifically born.
00:13:40.428 --> 00:13:42.009
There's reason to believe he
00:13:42.028 --> 00:13:43.649
was either born either in
00:13:43.710 --> 00:13:45.431
Charlestown or he may have
00:13:45.471 --> 00:13:47.552
been born in England and
00:13:47.572 --> 00:13:49.332
then eventually moved over here.
00:13:50.633 --> 00:13:52.714
But we do know that he was,
00:13:54.434 --> 00:13:56.576
he passed away in seventeen ninety three,
00:13:57.436 --> 00:13:57.755
of course,
00:13:57.897 --> 00:14:00.618
years after seventeen seventy five.
00:14:01.744 --> 00:14:04.246
And the story is Samuel Whittemore.
00:14:04.447 --> 00:14:05.587
He's, again,
00:14:05.849 --> 00:14:07.529
roughly around anywhere
00:14:07.570 --> 00:14:09.913
between seventy two to seventy eight,
00:14:10.113 --> 00:14:10.573
eighty two.
00:14:10.953 --> 00:14:13.836
He's he's an older gentleman.
00:14:13.917 --> 00:14:14.697
And the story is
00:14:15.714 --> 00:14:17.716
He grabs his French and
00:14:17.817 --> 00:14:20.219
Indian War powder horn.
00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:22.381
He grabs a cavalry sword.
00:14:22.442 --> 00:14:24.183
He grabs his musket and
00:14:24.224 --> 00:14:26.486
potentially maybe even a couple pistols.
00:14:26.907 --> 00:14:28.389
And he goes out into Town Square,
00:14:29.330 --> 00:14:30.572
excuse me, actually the foot of the rocks,
00:14:30.591 --> 00:14:32.774
which is sort of on the border between us,
00:14:33.034 --> 00:14:34.817
Lexington, around there.
00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:38.522
And he hides behind a stone wall.
00:14:39.022 --> 00:14:40.403
And as the British regulars
00:14:40.583 --> 00:14:42.385
are entering monotony,
00:14:43.245 --> 00:14:44.908
he pops up out of a stone wall,
00:14:44.947 --> 00:14:45.788
behind a stone wall.
00:14:46.208 --> 00:14:46.970
He fires,
00:14:48.510 --> 00:14:50.413
allegedly killing a British regular.
00:14:51.673 --> 00:14:53.275
And then he takes out his two pistols,
00:14:53.696 --> 00:14:56.238
shoots, and kills another provincial,
00:14:56.499 --> 00:14:58.360
excuse me, regular.
00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:00.861
And then eventually, unfortunately,
00:15:00.961 --> 00:15:02.884
suffers a gunshot wound to
00:15:03.144 --> 00:15:05.585
the cheek and then is bayoneted.
00:15:06.666 --> 00:15:09.707
And even that story in
00:15:09.748 --> 00:15:11.288
itself is up in the air
00:15:11.308 --> 00:15:11.970
because we don't know the
00:15:12.009 --> 00:15:13.191
specifics on his wounds.
00:15:14.126 --> 00:15:15.788
He eventually is transported
00:15:15.908 --> 00:15:17.149
after British regulars leave,
00:15:17.208 --> 00:15:17.928
go down the road.
00:15:18.308 --> 00:15:20.791
He's transported over to Medford,
00:15:21.291 --> 00:15:22.692
President Medford of the
00:15:22.731 --> 00:15:26.573
house of Dr. Tufts, who heals him.
00:15:27.833 --> 00:15:29.836
And again, he's relatively old.
00:15:30.035 --> 00:15:30.456
Yeah,
00:15:30.475 --> 00:15:32.017
he's in the seventies and he's
00:15:32.037 --> 00:15:33.758
shooting at these soldiers.
00:15:33.837 --> 00:15:34.378
Exactly.
00:15:34.518 --> 00:15:36.979
And the story is he survived.
00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:38.340
And we do know for a fact
00:15:38.360 --> 00:15:39.400
that he did survive.
00:15:39.880 --> 00:15:40.020
Now,
00:15:40.100 --> 00:15:42.461
the reason why a lot of these stories
00:15:42.481 --> 00:15:43.062
that I'll say
00:15:44.451 --> 00:15:46.351
We don't have a whole lot of, frankly,
00:15:46.371 --> 00:15:47.793
a whole lot of primary sources.
00:15:48.854 --> 00:15:50.696
We have a lot of oral history.
00:15:51.635 --> 00:15:52.476
It's sort of like a game of
00:15:52.537 --> 00:15:53.498
telephone where it's,
00:15:54.398 --> 00:15:56.480
I've heard it from this guy
00:15:56.779 --> 00:15:58.301
who apparently heard it
00:15:58.341 --> 00:15:59.542
from Sam Whittemore.
00:16:00.722 --> 00:16:03.424
And this is from a book
00:16:04.166 --> 00:16:06.827
that's a nonfiction, or excuse me,
00:16:06.847 --> 00:16:08.149
a fictional book,
00:16:08.828 --> 00:16:10.811
which is based off of these stories.
00:16:11.431 --> 00:16:12.610
I see.
00:16:12.671 --> 00:16:12.870
Wow.
00:16:13.030 --> 00:16:14.491
And because of that, I mean,
00:16:14.511 --> 00:16:16.032
we have obituaries and such.
00:16:17.072 --> 00:16:17.812
But even then,
00:16:19.852 --> 00:16:21.273
even though that seems more
00:16:21.352 --> 00:16:23.472
likely that these things
00:16:24.193 --> 00:16:27.913
were more specific, it could be, you know,
00:16:27.953 --> 00:16:32.095
family trying to embellish a little bit.
00:16:32.134 --> 00:16:32.934
I wouldn't say embellish,
00:16:32.955 --> 00:16:34.355
but from the story that
00:16:34.375 --> 00:16:36.275
they've heard passed down.
00:16:37.135 --> 00:16:38.017
they recorded it.
00:16:38.356 --> 00:16:39.418
And that's unfortunately the
00:16:39.437 --> 00:16:42.019
most accurate information that we have.
00:16:42.059 --> 00:16:43.561
Did Samuel Whittemore have a family?
00:16:44.562 --> 00:16:45.261
Um, yes, yes.
00:16:45.322 --> 00:16:46.342
Samuel Whittemore, uh,
00:16:46.503 --> 00:16:49.424
he had a range of family members, um, in,
00:16:49.585 --> 00:16:50.306
in monotony.
00:16:50.625 --> 00:16:50.806
Um,
00:16:51.147 --> 00:16:52.508
I'm almost certain that the Whittemore
00:16:52.528 --> 00:16:53.889
family is still around today.
00:16:54.649 --> 00:16:56.250
Um, but, but yeah,
00:16:56.289 --> 00:16:58.292
very extensive family that, that, um,
00:16:58.392 --> 00:16:59.373
throughout Massachusetts.
00:16:59.432 --> 00:16:59.673
So,
00:16:59.712 --> 00:17:02.595
so he's living in monotony and he's in
00:17:02.615 --> 00:17:03.635
his seventies veteran of
00:17:03.655 --> 00:17:04.596
the seven years war.
00:17:04.676 --> 00:17:04.876
And he,
00:17:06.438 --> 00:17:07.618
So this is how the British
00:17:07.679 --> 00:17:09.019
agreed as they march into
00:17:09.058 --> 00:17:11.099
monotony on their retreat back to Boston.
00:17:11.119 --> 00:17:11.519
They have this
00:17:11.819 --> 00:17:13.540
seventy-year-old man shooting at them.
00:17:13.701 --> 00:17:15.162
Exactly.
00:17:15.182 --> 00:17:16.201
Kind of see why when they
00:17:16.241 --> 00:17:17.682
get to the Jason Russell house,
00:17:17.702 --> 00:17:18.963
they're not in the mood to
00:17:19.384 --> 00:17:20.463
simply march on.
00:17:21.023 --> 00:17:22.805
Exactly.
00:17:22.865 --> 00:17:23.224
Yeah,
00:17:23.365 --> 00:17:26.346
I'm a huge fan of humanizing and
00:17:26.807 --> 00:17:29.387
getting the sociology and the psychology
00:17:29.950 --> 00:17:31.730
of their minds.
00:17:32.911 --> 00:17:34.731
As you mentioned, they're tired.
00:17:35.672 --> 00:17:36.813
They've already walked fifteen,
00:17:36.853 --> 00:17:37.512
twenty miles.
00:17:37.573 --> 00:17:38.554
Now they've got to walk back
00:17:39.013 --> 00:17:41.855
while also suffering on
00:17:42.234 --> 00:17:45.336
either side of them with return fire.
00:17:46.457 --> 00:17:50.718
To put it in perspective, you're cold,
00:17:50.798 --> 00:17:54.400
you're tired, your morale is very low.
00:17:55.220 --> 00:17:56.401
Mistakes are bound to happen
00:17:56.461 --> 00:17:57.060
because of that.
00:17:58.549 --> 00:17:59.549
How many, you know,
00:17:59.589 --> 00:18:00.529
you mentioned that there's
00:18:00.569 --> 00:18:01.651
a kind of a scattering of
00:18:01.691 --> 00:18:04.111
houses most are along this Concord Road.
00:18:04.131 --> 00:18:05.551
About how many would you say, I mean,
00:18:05.571 --> 00:18:09.031
how close are the houses to each other?
00:18:09.071 --> 00:18:09.732
So at least,
00:18:10.252 --> 00:18:12.192
I don't know specific on the
00:18:12.272 --> 00:18:13.133
number of houses.
00:18:13.693 --> 00:18:16.314
The next closest house would have been,
00:18:16.473 --> 00:18:17.114
or structure,
00:18:17.193 --> 00:18:18.315
would have been the Cutter Mill.
00:18:19.115 --> 00:18:23.556
That was on the other side of Mass Ave.
00:18:24.758 --> 00:18:26.479
Probably about half to a
00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:28.580
quarter mile from distance.
00:18:29.362 --> 00:18:30.423
And I might say the same
00:18:30.462 --> 00:18:32.284
thing between that and
00:18:32.344 --> 00:18:34.125
Deacon Joseph Adams House,
00:18:35.666 --> 00:18:36.907
which was before,
00:18:37.848 --> 00:18:39.170
if you're coming back into
00:18:39.269 --> 00:18:40.951
Boston on Mass Ave,
00:18:41.251 --> 00:18:43.493
it was before the Jason Russell House.
00:18:44.280 --> 00:18:45.821
Do any of these houses still
00:18:45.862 --> 00:18:46.982
stand the way the Jason
00:18:47.042 --> 00:18:47.782
Russell house does today?
00:18:49.003 --> 00:18:51.085
So there's speculation.
00:18:51.625 --> 00:18:52.405
Unfortunately,
00:18:52.787 --> 00:18:54.807
during the twenties and the
00:18:54.827 --> 00:18:55.488
nineteen twenties,
00:18:55.949 --> 00:18:57.028
a lot of these houses got
00:18:57.088 --> 00:18:58.549
torn down for development.
00:18:59.330 --> 00:19:00.571
Some have been relocated.
00:19:01.380 --> 00:19:03.040
There's a story of Cooper's
00:19:03.080 --> 00:19:05.821
Tavern where two provincials,
00:19:06.603 --> 00:19:08.202
older provincials, instead of fighting,
00:19:08.282 --> 00:19:11.384
they stayed at the tavern
00:19:12.204 --> 00:19:13.405
and then they unfortunately
00:19:13.445 --> 00:19:15.186
lost their life through a
00:19:15.227 --> 00:19:16.867
skirmish from the British regulars.
00:19:17.208 --> 00:19:18.567
There's stories of that
00:19:18.728 --> 00:19:22.890
structure having moved and originally...
00:19:24.310 --> 00:19:25.531
at least part of the actual
00:19:25.551 --> 00:19:26.392
structure is intact.
00:19:26.412 --> 00:19:28.113
But other than that,
00:19:28.133 --> 00:19:29.354
there's not really a whole
00:19:29.394 --> 00:19:30.894
lot of buildings that are left.
00:19:30.914 --> 00:19:32.715
Interesting.
00:19:33.195 --> 00:19:34.477
We're talking with Matt Beers,
00:19:34.537 --> 00:19:35.877
Executive Director of the
00:19:35.938 --> 00:19:37.438
Arlington Historical Society,
00:19:37.478 --> 00:19:38.999
which is located at the
00:19:39.098 --> 00:19:40.660
Jason Russell House in
00:19:40.900 --> 00:19:42.441
Arlington along Mass Ave,
00:19:42.500 --> 00:19:43.821
formerly the Concord Road.
00:19:44.750 --> 00:19:45.932
And we're talking about some
00:19:45.952 --> 00:19:47.996
of the untold stories of monotony,
00:19:48.016 --> 00:19:49.096
a town that saw most of the
00:19:49.116 --> 00:19:50.259
fighting on April,
00:19:50.278 --> 00:19:51.881
the nineteenth of seventeen seventy five.
00:19:51.921 --> 00:19:52.781
Because, as Matt said,
00:19:52.801 --> 00:19:54.263
this is the time when the
00:19:54.324 --> 00:19:55.885
various militia troops,
00:19:55.925 --> 00:19:56.826
the provincials who have
00:19:56.846 --> 00:19:58.368
been alerted by the alarms
00:19:58.409 --> 00:20:00.672
the night before, then converging,
00:20:00.731 --> 00:20:01.594
knowing the British
00:20:02.034 --> 00:20:03.335
who had gone west are now on
00:20:03.355 --> 00:20:05.035
their way back into Boston.
00:20:05.536 --> 00:20:06.855
And this is the place where
00:20:06.875 --> 00:20:09.116
they meet most of the enemy,
00:20:09.176 --> 00:20:10.458
as they're now calling them.
00:20:10.518 --> 00:20:12.558
They had been just these
00:20:12.618 --> 00:20:14.199
misguided folks in the morning.
00:20:14.239 --> 00:20:16.000
But in General Gage's report back,
00:20:16.019 --> 00:20:17.661
he refers to the enemy and
00:20:17.681 --> 00:20:19.001
how Lord Percy is helping
00:20:19.041 --> 00:20:20.961
to fight their way through
00:20:21.001 --> 00:20:22.262
this hostile territory.
00:20:23.215 --> 00:20:23.316
Now,
00:20:23.336 --> 00:20:25.156
you mentioned the deacon Joseph Adams.
00:20:25.176 --> 00:20:25.936
I wonder if we could talk a
00:20:25.957 --> 00:20:28.979
little bit more about these Adamses.
00:20:29.038 --> 00:20:29.439
Of course.
00:20:29.858 --> 00:20:33.381
So this is, again, an interesting story.
00:20:33.580 --> 00:20:37.281
And this story comes from an account,
00:20:37.382 --> 00:20:38.502
a testimony from
00:20:39.144 --> 00:20:40.345
Hannah Hall Adams,
00:20:40.384 --> 00:20:41.865
which I'll get to in just a second.
00:20:43.006 --> 00:20:46.846
Deacon Joseph Adams, he was, of course,
00:20:47.027 --> 00:20:49.067
part of the First Parish
00:20:49.146 --> 00:20:52.488
Church Meeting House in Menotomy.
00:20:53.528 --> 00:20:54.469
And he was very close with
00:20:54.489 --> 00:20:55.669
the Reverend Samuel Cook.
00:20:56.269 --> 00:21:00.750
And both of them are patriots,
00:21:00.950 --> 00:21:02.490
and they've given patriot
00:21:02.510 --> 00:21:03.471
sermons and such.
00:21:04.817 --> 00:21:06.480
And as the British regulars
00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:08.721
are entering and then
00:21:08.821 --> 00:21:12.385
subsequently retreating, Joseph Adams,
00:21:13.007 --> 00:21:14.648
he believes that they're
00:21:14.689 --> 00:21:16.790
out there to arrest him as
00:21:16.830 --> 00:21:18.332
well as other patriots to
00:21:18.452 --> 00:21:20.193
suppress the revolution.
00:21:20.454 --> 00:21:21.296
Why would he think they're
00:21:21.336 --> 00:21:22.115
going to arrest him?
00:21:23.123 --> 00:21:26.443
So there's word on the street.
00:21:26.743 --> 00:21:27.644
You hear things,
00:21:28.223 --> 00:21:30.384
especially with meetings
00:21:30.404 --> 00:21:31.105
with the committees of
00:21:31.164 --> 00:21:32.246
safeties and other things,
00:21:32.306 --> 00:21:36.967
and a lot of hearsay that you pick up.
00:21:37.047 --> 00:21:39.428
And so with his rhetoric of
00:21:39.488 --> 00:21:43.568
him saying these patriotic things,
00:21:44.932 --> 00:21:45.993
Rhetoric, I guess.
00:21:48.778 --> 00:21:49.898
He's under the impression
00:21:50.058 --> 00:21:51.000
that the British regulars
00:21:51.121 --> 00:21:52.682
are out there to arrest all
00:21:52.702 --> 00:21:53.805
of these people who are
00:21:53.865 --> 00:21:55.988
spreading what I believe
00:21:56.028 --> 00:21:57.509
they've thought nonsense.
00:21:58.551 --> 00:21:58.872
But
00:22:00.373 --> 00:22:01.114
But really,
00:22:01.634 --> 00:22:03.275
so what he does is he
00:22:03.556 --> 00:22:07.398
eventually decides to escape.
00:22:07.459 --> 00:22:09.701
And he tells his wife,
00:22:10.141 --> 00:22:12.103
they're probably not going to harm you.
00:22:12.242 --> 00:22:14.545
I've got six other children, six children.
00:22:15.125 --> 00:22:15.945
The British regulars,
00:22:15.986 --> 00:22:17.507
they would never dare to
00:22:17.567 --> 00:22:18.969
harm any women or children.
00:22:20.054 --> 00:22:21.134
And so what he does is he
00:22:21.193 --> 00:22:23.075
leaves stories that he
00:22:23.115 --> 00:22:26.336
hides behind a giant rock near his house.
00:22:26.915 --> 00:22:28.096
And then he eventually finds
00:22:28.136 --> 00:22:30.237
and she seeks shelter at his friend,
00:22:30.416 --> 00:22:33.137
Reverend Samuel Cook's house.
00:22:33.258 --> 00:22:34.378
And as the British regulars
00:22:34.459 --> 00:22:35.679
are going again,
00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:37.079
retreating in their order
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:38.299
to go into these houses,
00:22:38.779 --> 00:22:41.740
the stories from Hannah Hall Adams,
00:22:41.820 --> 00:22:42.280
his wife,
00:22:45.215 --> 00:22:45.836
Let me back up.
00:22:46.477 --> 00:22:47.817
So Hannah Hall Adams,
00:22:49.198 --> 00:22:50.857
she recently gave birth
00:22:50.959 --> 00:22:53.839
about ten days prior to April nineteenth.
00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:56.701
Just back up, Matt.
00:22:56.721 --> 00:22:58.221
Here's a guy who leaves his
00:22:58.281 --> 00:23:00.863
wife a ten day old and five
00:23:00.923 --> 00:23:02.644
other children because he
00:23:02.663 --> 00:23:04.744
has to seek refuge somewhere else.
00:23:04.805 --> 00:23:05.045
I mean,
00:23:05.525 --> 00:23:09.406
it doesn't make him sound like a hero.
00:23:09.507 --> 00:23:10.446
I think the British would
00:23:10.467 --> 00:23:12.008
like to have more guys like
00:23:12.347 --> 00:23:14.189
Deacon Adams around because
00:23:15.471 --> 00:23:17.382
He seems like, to me, a coward.
00:23:17.402 --> 00:23:18.105
I don't know what I would do
00:23:18.145 --> 00:23:19.050
in this situation.
00:23:20.119 --> 00:23:20.740
Yeah.
00:23:20.839 --> 00:23:21.861
And again, you know,
00:23:21.881 --> 00:23:23.102
it's all about humanizing.
00:23:23.402 --> 00:23:25.103
People obviously aren't perfect.
00:23:25.123 --> 00:23:26.903
You know,
00:23:26.923 --> 00:23:28.944
we can make the judgment as far as,
00:23:29.285 --> 00:23:29.605
you know,
00:23:29.625 --> 00:23:31.066
it probably wasn't the correct
00:23:31.105 --> 00:23:33.067
thing to do.
00:23:33.167 --> 00:23:34.087
So he didn't think anyone
00:23:34.107 --> 00:23:35.709
was going to arrest the minister?
00:23:36.328 --> 00:23:36.569
Yes.
00:23:36.769 --> 00:23:36.950
Yes.
00:23:36.970 --> 00:23:38.351
He didn't believe any or at
00:23:38.391 --> 00:23:40.271
least he was hiding out with him.
00:23:41.592 --> 00:23:43.272
But why he chose his house
00:23:43.493 --> 00:23:46.535
to hide out there is beyond me, frankly.
00:23:46.555 --> 00:23:46.674
Okay.
00:23:48.981 --> 00:23:49.541
So what happens?
00:23:49.582 --> 00:23:50.843
He's then at the Reverend
00:23:50.883 --> 00:23:52.883
Cook's house and now the
00:23:52.903 --> 00:23:53.903
British are coming back.
00:23:54.364 --> 00:23:54.544
Yeah,
00:23:54.663 --> 00:23:56.744
so the story is that he stays there
00:23:56.865 --> 00:23:58.766
and he hides and he
00:23:58.826 --> 00:24:00.526
essentially escapes the revolution.
00:24:01.646 --> 00:24:03.646
Not really much has happened
00:24:03.666 --> 00:24:04.907
to him afterwards.
00:24:06.189 --> 00:24:09.009
What about Hannah Hall Adams?
00:24:09.029 --> 00:24:10.431
The story with Hannah, again,
00:24:10.471 --> 00:24:11.810
I mentioned that she
00:24:11.871 --> 00:24:13.071
recently gave birth about
00:24:13.152 --> 00:24:15.031
ten days prior to the battle.
00:24:16.192 --> 00:24:19.874
With eighteenth-century medicine,
00:24:20.493 --> 00:24:21.875
that essentially meant you
00:24:21.894 --> 00:24:25.276
were bedridden for weeks.
00:24:25.615 --> 00:24:27.257
Hannah, she's bedridden.
00:24:27.957 --> 00:24:31.077
She can move, but very, very slowly.
00:24:33.135 --> 00:24:36.478
And she holds her newborn, Anna,
00:24:38.179 --> 00:24:40.420
while the British regulars are entering.
00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:42.241
The five other kids,
00:24:42.541 --> 00:24:44.482
they hide underneath her bed.
00:24:46.743 --> 00:24:48.904
And they seek shelter just there.
00:24:49.425 --> 00:24:50.946
According to Hannah Adams...
00:24:51.933 --> 00:24:52.976
Three British regulars,
00:24:53.016 --> 00:24:55.058
they enter her home while
00:24:55.098 --> 00:24:58.144
holding a bayonet fixed at
00:24:58.765 --> 00:24:59.625
Hannah herself.
00:25:00.567 --> 00:25:05.074
There's some exchange of words.
00:25:05.134 --> 00:25:06.537
Other parties are yelling at each other.
00:25:08.606 --> 00:25:10.347
And the story is that one of
00:25:10.387 --> 00:25:12.867
the British officers, he orders his men,
00:25:13.327 --> 00:25:15.469
do not harm the children, kids or women,
00:25:15.669 --> 00:25:16.489
women or children,
00:25:18.130 --> 00:25:20.089
as long as they cooperate.
00:25:21.490 --> 00:25:23.631
And the story is that they
00:25:23.671 --> 00:25:25.612
eventually loot a lot of
00:25:25.632 --> 00:25:26.531
things in the house.
00:25:26.592 --> 00:25:26.852
You know,
00:25:26.872 --> 00:25:29.132
there's silver that has been repatriated,
00:25:29.152 --> 00:25:31.532
that was sold and then
00:25:31.813 --> 00:25:33.294
eventually repatriated back
00:25:33.334 --> 00:25:34.574
to the church.
00:25:35.193 --> 00:25:35.795
Okay,
00:25:35.875 --> 00:25:38.176
so you mean they took silver from her
00:25:38.217 --> 00:25:40.798
house, but then the church got it back?
00:25:40.838 --> 00:25:41.519
Yes, yes.
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:42.760
So I don't know, frankly,
00:25:42.780 --> 00:25:43.801
I don't know the specifics
00:25:43.862 --> 00:25:44.583
of the provenance,
00:25:45.042 --> 00:25:46.003
but they did figure out
00:25:46.044 --> 00:25:47.566
that this is the silver
00:25:47.625 --> 00:25:51.509
pitcher that was taken on April,
00:25:51.848 --> 00:25:52.869
by British regulars,
00:25:53.550 --> 00:25:55.772
then subsequently sold at
00:25:56.574 --> 00:25:57.954
another market or such.
00:25:59.336 --> 00:26:00.576
stories that someone found
00:26:00.676 --> 00:26:02.638
it and did identify that it
00:26:02.719 --> 00:26:06.181
is indeed the Adams family silver.
00:26:06.942 --> 00:26:08.162
There's other stories where
00:26:08.201 --> 00:26:11.084
they may have taken other silverware,
00:26:11.164 --> 00:26:11.884
things like that,
00:26:12.846 --> 00:26:14.886
but they also looted and
00:26:14.926 --> 00:26:18.430
took out the Adams family clock,
00:26:19.130 --> 00:26:20.810
meaning it's a grandfather clock,
00:26:20.851 --> 00:26:21.771
it's an eight-day clock,
00:26:21.932 --> 00:26:23.334
But they stole the inner
00:26:23.374 --> 00:26:24.816
workings of the clock,
00:26:25.757 --> 00:26:26.739
including the metals,
00:26:26.939 --> 00:26:30.063
possibly to melt it down as
00:26:30.143 --> 00:26:31.345
a means to just sell.
00:26:32.778 --> 00:26:34.420
So they didn't actually pull out the clock,
00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:36.299
but they took the inside out.
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:36.900
Exactly.
00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:41.201
So we actually have the case
00:26:41.622 --> 00:26:43.603
of the clock on display in
00:26:43.643 --> 00:26:44.883
the Jason Russell house.
00:26:45.563 --> 00:26:47.663
And if you see, it's very ornate.
00:26:47.763 --> 00:26:51.065
It's a perfect example of
00:26:51.125 --> 00:26:53.286
eighteenth-century Asian art.
00:26:53.905 --> 00:26:55.346
And we believe it was imported,
00:26:55.826 --> 00:26:58.448
potentially, over to Boston,
00:26:59.048 --> 00:27:00.188
where the Adams family
00:27:00.208 --> 00:27:01.409
eventually purchased it.
00:27:02.189 --> 00:27:03.710
But it's a remarkable piece,
00:27:04.450 --> 00:27:05.589
and I tell this story when
00:27:06.830 --> 00:27:08.550
the rare chance I give guides,
00:27:08.592 --> 00:27:10.092
but we had a consultant
00:27:10.152 --> 00:27:11.132
over here one time,
00:27:11.192 --> 00:27:13.012
and she said that you
00:27:13.032 --> 00:27:13.952
should really think about
00:27:14.233 --> 00:27:15.294
replacing the inner
00:27:15.334 --> 00:27:16.713
workings of the clock to
00:27:16.753 --> 00:27:17.434
make it run again.
00:27:17.714 --> 00:27:19.556
And I was like, well, I thought about it,
00:27:19.596 --> 00:27:20.236
and it's like...
00:27:21.016 --> 00:27:21.096
Well,
00:27:21.115 --> 00:27:22.136
that kind of defeats the whole
00:27:22.196 --> 00:27:23.196
purpose of it, right?
00:27:23.237 --> 00:27:25.317
That defeats the whole story of it.
00:27:25.337 --> 00:27:26.438
That's right, yeah.
00:27:26.478 --> 00:27:26.999
But anyway,
00:27:28.098 --> 00:27:30.579
the story is while the British
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:31.881
regulars are entering her home,
00:27:32.280 --> 00:27:33.520
holds her up by gunpoint,
00:27:34.942 --> 00:27:36.382
they eventually start a
00:27:36.422 --> 00:27:38.383
fire in her kitchen.
00:27:38.403 --> 00:27:41.924
And they tear out pieces of
00:27:41.964 --> 00:27:42.964
the family Bible,
00:27:43.204 --> 00:27:44.586
pages of the family Bible,
00:27:45.125 --> 00:27:46.606
to light this fire and
00:27:46.686 --> 00:27:49.567
leave it burning in her house.
00:27:50.838 --> 00:27:53.259
As this happens, Hannah grabs Anna,
00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:56.480
her newborn, and runs out of the house.
00:27:56.960 --> 00:27:58.401
The kids stay hidden.
00:27:59.161 --> 00:28:00.141
Of course, the British regulars,
00:28:00.181 --> 00:28:01.020
they know they're there,
00:28:01.201 --> 00:28:03.260
but they try to stay hidden.
00:28:04.422 --> 00:28:05.582
They come out as the British
00:28:05.622 --> 00:28:06.981
regulars are leaving,
00:28:07.442 --> 00:28:08.962
and they douse the fire
00:28:09.242 --> 00:28:10.583
with homebrew beer.
00:28:11.863 --> 00:28:13.743
And that specifics, again,
00:28:14.084 --> 00:28:15.703
it's one of those stories where it's...
00:28:16.163 --> 00:28:17.766
That probably specifically
00:28:17.806 --> 00:28:18.646
can't be made up,
00:28:18.686 --> 00:28:21.711
but the end of the story is
00:28:21.730 --> 00:28:23.332
that they did douse it and
00:28:23.412 --> 00:28:25.755
Hannah returned back to her house.
00:28:25.775 --> 00:28:27.297
Okay, interesting.
00:28:28.678 --> 00:28:30.059
Did they ever search the
00:28:30.099 --> 00:28:32.241
Reverend Samuel Cook's house?
00:28:32.863 --> 00:28:36.007
Not that I know of, but...
00:28:37.388 --> 00:28:37.528
Now,
00:28:37.890 --> 00:28:39.351
another thing that's happening in this
00:28:39.431 --> 00:28:40.412
expedition, of course,
00:28:40.612 --> 00:28:43.515
is Lord Percy was reinforcements.
00:28:43.674 --> 00:28:44.756
We're talking with Matt Fierce,
00:28:44.776 --> 00:28:45.797
the executive director of
00:28:45.817 --> 00:28:47.318
the Arlington Historical Society,
00:28:47.338 --> 00:28:48.839
about some of the untold
00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:49.980
stories of monotony.
00:28:50.662 --> 00:28:52.903
And there's also a resupply
00:28:52.963 --> 00:28:54.465
wagon that's making its way
00:28:54.546 --> 00:28:55.906
to help out the British.
00:28:55.926 --> 00:28:59.130
And it runs into trouble in monotony,
00:28:59.150 --> 00:28:59.770
I understand.
00:29:00.733 --> 00:29:03.115
yes so there's a story about
00:29:03.296 --> 00:29:04.916
a patriot of color uh his
00:29:04.957 --> 00:29:07.659
name is david lamson um and
00:29:07.900 --> 00:29:11.863
while the um the the the
00:29:11.883 --> 00:29:13.324
british regulars are still
00:29:13.483 --> 00:29:15.265
in lexington there's a
00:29:15.325 --> 00:29:17.446
story about a transport
00:29:17.547 --> 00:29:19.848
wagon who has asked for
00:29:19.969 --> 00:29:21.730
supplies to go from
00:29:21.950 --> 00:29:23.391
cambridge really from
00:29:23.451 --> 00:29:25.212
boston then to cambridge um
00:29:25.353 --> 00:29:26.693
and then through monotony
00:29:27.592 --> 00:29:30.384
to help resupply munitions
00:29:30.765 --> 00:29:31.950
for the British irregulars.
00:29:33.035 --> 00:29:39.178
And so what happens is a patriot of color,
00:29:39.199 --> 00:29:40.358
his name is David Lampson,
00:29:41.259 --> 00:29:42.820
he goes to the local tavern
00:29:42.881 --> 00:29:45.301
as well as the other exempts,
00:29:45.541 --> 00:29:46.201
what we call them.
00:29:46.262 --> 00:29:48.023
We call them the old men of monotony.
00:29:48.403 --> 00:29:48.864
However,
00:29:49.023 --> 00:29:51.925
they were really either too old or
00:29:52.046 --> 00:29:55.107
either had a physical
00:29:55.147 --> 00:29:56.607
disability or some such
00:29:56.847 --> 00:29:58.128
where they are not fit to
00:29:58.209 --> 00:30:00.049
serve in a standing militia
00:30:00.170 --> 00:30:00.990
or minute company.
00:30:02.287 --> 00:30:03.807
And so the story is that
00:30:03.909 --> 00:30:05.170
because of David Lampson,
00:30:05.769 --> 00:30:07.291
him being revered,
00:30:07.372 --> 00:30:09.173
even as a person of color,
00:30:09.713 --> 00:30:12.796
revered as a powerful
00:30:12.836 --> 00:30:16.380
leader and a veteran of the
00:30:16.400 --> 00:30:17.540
French-Indian War,
00:30:19.291 --> 00:30:20.772
He was chosen to lead these
00:30:20.813 --> 00:30:24.256
men to go in and stop this
00:30:24.655 --> 00:30:26.577
wagon from entering and
00:30:26.617 --> 00:30:28.699
resupplying into the British column.
00:30:29.219 --> 00:30:30.119
And now the story is they
00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:33.281
wait until the middle of Monotony Center.
00:30:33.603 --> 00:30:35.864
They hide behind different stone walls.
00:30:36.384 --> 00:30:37.105
David Lamson,
00:30:37.144 --> 00:30:38.727
he shoots up as soon as they
00:30:38.767 --> 00:30:42.209
see them come into their near area,
00:30:42.249 --> 00:30:42.669
vicinity.
00:30:43.490 --> 00:30:44.550
And he orders them to stop.
00:30:45.692 --> 00:30:47.192
And of course, it's an armed wagon,
00:30:47.252 --> 00:30:50.375
so they have armed regulars.
00:30:51.557 --> 00:30:53.557
And they, of course, disagree.
00:30:53.678 --> 00:30:54.618
It's only one person.
00:30:55.339 --> 00:30:56.760
They disagree and they push on.
00:30:57.240 --> 00:31:00.403
And then the other old men of monotony,
00:31:00.503 --> 00:31:03.546
they stand up and they fire onto the...
00:31:04.926 --> 00:31:05.708
Supply wagon.
00:31:06.628 --> 00:31:07.990
And from what I understand,
00:31:08.049 --> 00:31:09.371
it was never able to
00:31:10.112 --> 00:31:14.076
resupply the British regulars.
00:31:15.777 --> 00:31:18.219
So the story and this is, again,
00:31:18.278 --> 00:31:19.359
one of my favorite stories
00:31:19.380 --> 00:31:20.601
is the story is,
00:31:20.641 --> 00:31:23.523
is that they escape the British regulars.
00:31:23.544 --> 00:31:24.085
They escape.
00:31:24.949 --> 00:31:27.789
They go into the local lake
00:31:28.509 --> 00:31:29.431
called Spy Pond.
00:31:30.050 --> 00:31:32.152
They throw their muskets into the Spy Pond,
00:31:32.531 --> 00:31:34.313
which frankly may actually
00:31:34.353 --> 00:31:35.073
still be there.
00:31:36.432 --> 00:31:38.614
But they go into Spy Pond,
00:31:38.653 --> 00:31:40.434
throw this into the pond.
00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:42.881
They see an elderly woman,
00:31:43.580 --> 00:31:44.981
and her name is Mother Batherick.
00:31:46.603 --> 00:31:48.022
And the story, six of them,
00:31:48.703 --> 00:31:51.005
they go in and they run to her,
00:31:51.444 --> 00:31:54.527
and they essentially
00:31:54.586 --> 00:31:56.468
surrender to Mother Batherick.
00:31:57.596 --> 00:31:59.498
And the story is Mother
00:31:59.518 --> 00:32:00.559
Batherick saw them while
00:32:00.579 --> 00:32:01.760
she was picking flowers.
00:32:02.101 --> 00:32:04.784
And I think these people are
00:32:04.824 --> 00:32:07.287
very – they're real people in my opinion.
00:32:07.787 --> 00:32:08.488
Mother Batherick is
00:32:08.528 --> 00:32:09.449
definitely still around.
00:32:10.470 --> 00:32:11.892
I find it odd that Mother
00:32:11.932 --> 00:32:12.731
Batherick would have been
00:32:12.913 --> 00:32:15.315
picking flowers during a
00:32:15.355 --> 00:32:18.238
battle right very locally.
00:32:18.699 --> 00:32:18.838
Yeah.
00:32:20.059 --> 00:32:22.099
But eventually she gets them
00:32:22.221 --> 00:32:25.201
over to a militia.
00:32:25.260 --> 00:32:28.281
His last name is Ephraim Frost, his house.
00:32:29.382 --> 00:32:31.442
And she tells the six
00:32:32.182 --> 00:32:33.542
British regulars that you
00:32:33.563 --> 00:32:35.282
can tell King George that
00:32:35.403 --> 00:32:40.865
you just surrendered to an old woman.
00:32:41.065 --> 00:32:41.184
Wow.
00:32:41.204 --> 00:32:41.265
Wow.
00:32:41.285 --> 00:32:42.484
So you have a lot of things happening,
00:32:42.505 --> 00:32:42.664
you know.
00:32:42.978 --> 00:32:44.358
I mean, a lot of things happened then,
00:32:44.519 --> 00:32:45.759
and so I'm wondering what
00:32:45.799 --> 00:32:46.601
you'll be doing to
00:32:46.641 --> 00:32:47.461
commemorate the
00:32:47.521 --> 00:32:49.344
two-fiftieth anniversary of these events,
00:32:49.364 --> 00:32:51.045
which is coming up.
00:32:51.085 --> 00:32:51.444
Of course.
00:32:51.826 --> 00:32:55.429
So we have a number of things going on.
00:32:56.349 --> 00:32:56.910
Like I mentioned,
00:32:56.930 --> 00:32:57.971
the Jason Russell House
00:32:57.990 --> 00:32:59.673
will be open from tours on
00:32:59.792 --> 00:33:00.593
April nineteenth,
00:33:01.013 --> 00:33:03.236
extended tours from eleven to four.
00:33:04.155 --> 00:33:05.297
And it's completely free,
00:33:05.738 --> 00:33:07.900
thanks to our sponsor, Liberty Bank.
00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:10.401
um but it'll be free for for
00:33:10.461 --> 00:33:11.582
all visitors you can come
00:33:11.642 --> 00:33:13.823
in see the scars of of the
00:33:13.903 --> 00:33:14.903
worst fighting that
00:33:15.064 --> 00:33:16.125
happened at the jason
00:33:16.144 --> 00:33:17.945
russell house um and you
00:33:17.965 --> 00:33:19.886
can also experience our
00:33:20.086 --> 00:33:21.127
exhibition which I'll get
00:33:21.147 --> 00:33:22.808
to in just a second but
00:33:22.828 --> 00:33:24.210
we'll be open for april
00:33:24.250 --> 00:33:25.349
nineteenth the actual day
00:33:25.369 --> 00:33:26.730
of this happening as well
00:33:26.810 --> 00:33:29.492
as the the um the uh patriots day
00:33:30.012 --> 00:33:31.193
the practice Patriots Day on
00:33:31.253 --> 00:33:32.595
April twenty first on
00:33:32.634 --> 00:33:34.135
Monday again both days
00:33:34.276 --> 00:33:37.357
eleven to four but part of
00:33:37.417 --> 00:33:38.798
that we're also unveiling
00:33:39.119 --> 00:33:40.059
our two hundred fiftieth
00:33:40.119 --> 00:33:40.840
exhibition which I
00:33:40.881 --> 00:33:43.021
mentioned earlier and as
00:33:43.061 --> 00:33:44.442
the theme of this this
00:33:44.502 --> 00:33:45.804
whole year it comes out
00:33:46.404 --> 00:33:47.105
through with battle of
00:33:47.144 --> 00:33:49.527
monotony we are it's titled
00:33:49.987 --> 00:33:50.887
the battle of monotony
00:33:51.107 --> 00:33:52.348
voices of the overlooked
00:33:52.489 --> 00:33:54.410
centennial reflections and
00:33:54.810 --> 00:33:58.553
and what it will include essentially is
00:33:59.534 --> 00:33:59.913
Frankly,
00:33:59.933 --> 00:34:01.134
we don't have a whole lot of
00:34:01.674 --> 00:34:03.296
objects pertaining to April,
00:34:04.096 --> 00:34:04.817
believe it or not.
00:34:05.636 --> 00:34:06.678
But what we do have,
00:34:06.817 --> 00:34:08.177
we do have some other
00:34:08.358 --> 00:34:09.778
perspectives that may have
00:34:09.798 --> 00:34:12.280
been overlooked from the battle.
00:34:12.701 --> 00:34:14.121
So like I mentioned before,
00:34:14.282 --> 00:34:15.601
it's essentially we're
00:34:15.621 --> 00:34:16.702
going to take the
00:34:16.742 --> 00:34:18.463
perspectives of previously
00:34:18.483 --> 00:34:19.264
enslaved people,
00:34:19.903 --> 00:34:22.626
women and other of these stories.
00:34:23.668 --> 00:34:25.469
and embellish it to talk
00:34:25.510 --> 00:34:26.989
about a broader narrative
00:34:27.090 --> 00:34:28.731
about how the battle itself
00:34:29.050 --> 00:34:30.652
is an untold story.
00:34:31.711 --> 00:34:32.333
Part of that too,
00:34:32.353 --> 00:34:33.233
we're also going to talk
00:34:33.253 --> 00:34:35.994
about how Arlington, West Cambridge,
00:34:36.173 --> 00:34:37.914
and monotony has celebrated
00:34:38.565 --> 00:34:40.507
commemorated the battle throughout years,
00:34:40.527 --> 00:34:43.690
and some of which are very interesting.
00:34:44.550 --> 00:34:46.550
So it should be a very fun exhibition.
00:34:46.670 --> 00:34:48.512
It'll be open during our
00:34:48.552 --> 00:34:51.253
hours all the way until October,
00:34:51.373 --> 00:34:52.954
end of October of twenty twenty six.
00:34:53.155 --> 00:34:56.036
Very good.
00:34:56.077 --> 00:34:56.818
So I hope this will be
00:34:56.858 --> 00:34:58.938
another interesting commemoration that,
00:34:59.099 --> 00:34:59.619
you know,
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:00.599
you said some of them have been
00:35:00.639 --> 00:35:01.641
very interesting over the years.
00:35:01.661 --> 00:35:02.400
What are some of the things
00:35:02.420 --> 00:35:04.021
that have been done to commemorate this?
00:35:05.478 --> 00:35:05.657
Well,
00:35:05.777 --> 00:35:07.079
so I will say we're going to be
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:08.139
practicing again.
00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:11.262
Our reenactment is going to
00:35:11.282 --> 00:35:13.644
be on the twentieth and
00:35:13.824 --> 00:35:16.106
leading up to not so much this year,
00:35:16.126 --> 00:35:18.469
but leading up to April nineteenth.
00:35:18.489 --> 00:35:20.731
You feel free to check it
00:35:20.811 --> 00:35:22.271
out at the old burying
00:35:22.291 --> 00:35:24.173
ground just next to Town Hall.
00:35:25.353 --> 00:35:26.675
the Arlington Historical Society,
00:35:26.695 --> 00:35:27.894
with help of Freedom's Way
00:35:27.934 --> 00:35:28.855
National Heritage Area,
00:35:30.016 --> 00:35:32.376
we put in markers
00:35:32.476 --> 00:35:34.597
commemorating the British
00:35:34.657 --> 00:35:35.876
regulars as well as the
00:35:35.936 --> 00:35:37.157
enslaved people who were
00:35:37.197 --> 00:35:38.617
buried in mass graves
00:35:39.318 --> 00:35:41.579
around the old burying ground.
00:35:42.659 --> 00:35:45.400
And again, that was a few years in coming,
00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:45.619
but
00:35:46.436 --> 00:35:47.358
It was, again,
00:35:47.637 --> 00:35:48.498
it's important to
00:35:48.518 --> 00:35:51.039
commemorate all lives lost
00:35:51.079 --> 00:35:52.460
because at this point, again,
00:35:52.501 --> 00:35:55.764
it was a civil war until a year later.
00:35:58.264 --> 00:36:00.166
But we're also, with this year,
00:36:00.186 --> 00:36:00.646
we're also,
00:36:02.394 --> 00:36:04.355
unveiling a new lecture
00:36:04.375 --> 00:36:06.215
series coming out
00:36:06.275 --> 00:36:08.115
specifically talking about the battle.
00:36:08.195 --> 00:36:09.016
Our next one is going to be
00:36:09.056 --> 00:36:10.217
March twenty fifth with
00:36:10.737 --> 00:36:12.456
retired Brigadier General
00:36:13.117 --> 00:36:14.378
William Rapp to talk about,
00:36:14.757 --> 00:36:15.677
as I mentioned before,
00:36:15.697 --> 00:36:17.157
the sort of the sociology
00:36:17.177 --> 00:36:18.518
and the psychology of what
00:36:18.559 --> 00:36:19.719
it was like to be a British
00:36:19.759 --> 00:36:21.398
regular and a provincial on
00:36:21.458 --> 00:36:22.159
April nineteenth.
00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:24.559
Interesting.
00:36:24.579 --> 00:36:24.920
Very interesting.
00:36:24.940 --> 00:36:25.679
We're talking with Matt Beers,
00:36:25.719 --> 00:36:26.840
executive director of the
00:36:26.920 --> 00:36:28.460
Arlington Historical Society.
00:36:29.139 --> 00:36:30.460
oversees the jason russell
00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:32.442
house and uh talking about
00:36:32.461 --> 00:36:34.244
plans for commemorating the
00:36:34.284 --> 00:36:36.085
the anniversary of the
00:36:36.586 --> 00:36:37.847
untold stories of monotony
00:36:38.128 --> 00:36:39.789
now why do you suppose you
00:36:39.809 --> 00:36:41.791
know lexington and concord
00:36:41.811 --> 00:36:43.092
really have made quite a
00:36:43.132 --> 00:36:44.173
thing of telling their
00:36:44.213 --> 00:36:46.275
story how come arlington
00:36:46.516 --> 00:36:47.878
has been overlooked
00:36:48.731 --> 00:36:49.833
So historically,
00:36:50.612 --> 00:36:52.793
Arlington has always tried
00:36:52.853 --> 00:36:55.675
to get on the same level as
00:36:55.755 --> 00:36:56.856
Lexington and Concord.
00:36:57.436 --> 00:37:02.079
And if you ask me, frankly,
00:37:02.318 --> 00:37:03.039
we shouldn't be...
00:37:05.340 --> 00:37:06.141
the society,
00:37:06.161 --> 00:37:08.023
we shouldn't be the town to say, oh,
00:37:08.182 --> 00:37:09.485
actually, this happened.
00:37:09.784 --> 00:37:11.045
While we'd like to correct
00:37:11.545 --> 00:37:12.867
historical inaccuracies,
00:37:14.289 --> 00:37:15.530
it's important for us to
00:37:17.030 --> 00:37:18.052
first commemorate the
00:37:18.072 --> 00:37:21.094
people who fought and lost their lives.
00:37:23.052 --> 00:37:24.253
But at the same time,
00:37:25.534 --> 00:37:26.936
we're trying to tell our
00:37:26.996 --> 00:37:30.358
stories and tell the stories of, again,
00:37:30.378 --> 00:37:33.442
the often overlooked people in monotony.
00:37:34.742 --> 00:37:36.824
If you ask me why I think this happened,
00:37:36.905 --> 00:37:40.708
it's because of its well-known name,
00:37:41.268 --> 00:37:43.030
the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
00:37:46.487 --> 00:37:48.188
distinction and in my rhetoric,
00:37:48.429 --> 00:37:49.650
I will always say the
00:37:49.690 --> 00:37:51.251
battle of Lexington
00:37:51.291 --> 00:37:53.711
conquered and monotony as a
00:37:53.731 --> 00:37:54.891
means to honor the people
00:37:54.931 --> 00:37:56.934
who died and lost their
00:37:56.954 --> 00:37:58.273
lives in monotony.
00:37:58.775 --> 00:37:59.735
But also to point out the
00:37:59.775 --> 00:38:01.695
fact that we were, again,
00:38:01.775 --> 00:38:02.777
part of the one of the
00:38:02.817 --> 00:38:04.237
biggest portions of the battle.
00:38:05.905 --> 00:38:09.525
Do you have a sense, Matt,
00:38:09.545 --> 00:38:10.467
of how many men died on that day?
00:38:10.507 --> 00:38:11.527
So British regulars,
00:38:11.586 --> 00:38:13.827
we don't really know the entire number.
00:38:15.527 --> 00:38:17.489
Frankly, I'm blanking on it right now.
00:38:17.568 --> 00:38:18.989
But with provincials,
00:38:19.409 --> 00:38:22.329
we do know in total of the entire day,
00:38:22.389 --> 00:38:23.451
to put it in perspective,
00:38:23.570 --> 00:38:24.811
roughly forty nine
00:38:24.851 --> 00:38:26.291
provincials lost their lives.
00:38:26.672 --> 00:38:28.152
And we get this question all the time.
00:38:28.291 --> 00:38:29.913
That's not a lot for a battle.
00:38:30.632 --> 00:38:31.873
Most people think that this
00:38:31.954 --> 00:38:34.054
is a battle very similar to
00:38:34.155 --> 00:38:35.795
Gettysburg or Antietam or
00:38:36.076 --> 00:38:39.538
all these really big battles, but really,
00:38:39.659 --> 00:38:39.958
again,
00:38:40.318 --> 00:38:41.920
it's the first day of the
00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:43.681
Revolutionary War,
00:38:45.202 --> 00:38:46.963
and you really weren't preparing.
00:38:46.983 --> 00:38:47.643
I mean, you were,
00:38:47.663 --> 00:38:50.385
but you couldn't predict
00:38:50.445 --> 00:38:51.304
that this was going to be
00:38:51.344 --> 00:38:52.525
an armed conflict.
00:38:54.487 --> 00:38:57.047
So, to put it in perspective,
00:38:57.588 --> 00:38:59.208
monotony lost about
00:38:59.268 --> 00:39:01.869
twenty-five provincials just in town.
00:39:02.128 --> 00:39:04.048
So that's over half of the people.
00:39:05.250 --> 00:39:06.469
Our numbers indicate,
00:39:06.489 --> 00:39:08.471
and that number actually
00:39:08.530 --> 00:39:09.650
may actually increase,
00:39:10.990 --> 00:39:12.411
but as we do more research,
00:39:12.492 --> 00:39:14.032
we believe that roughly
00:39:14.952 --> 00:39:16.733
about twenty-one provincials
00:39:16.835 --> 00:39:19.556
died on the Jason Russell House property.
00:39:19.856 --> 00:39:21.219
That's on the forty acres
00:39:21.259 --> 00:39:23.181
but also inside the house as well.
00:39:23.201 --> 00:39:23.960
Amazing.
00:39:24.961 --> 00:39:25.163
Yeah,
00:39:25.182 --> 00:39:26.864
and forty-nine is a big number if
00:39:26.884 --> 00:39:28.425
you're one of them or if
00:39:28.445 --> 00:39:29.387
it's someone you know.
00:39:29.407 --> 00:39:32.309
So thank you so much.
00:39:32.329 --> 00:39:33.610
We've been talking with Matt Beers,
00:39:33.670 --> 00:39:34.911
executive director of the
00:39:35.012 --> 00:39:36.614
Arlington Historical Society,
00:39:36.673 --> 00:39:37.635
also curator of the
00:39:37.675 --> 00:39:38.976
Wilmington Town Museum.
00:39:39.708 --> 00:39:40.648
and planning for
00:39:40.688 --> 00:39:42.668
commemorative events in the
00:39:42.708 --> 00:39:43.929
town of Arlington,
00:39:44.009 --> 00:39:45.230
formerly the town of Monotony.
00:39:45.269 --> 00:39:46.269
Thanks for joining us, Matt.
00:39:46.289 --> 00:39:48.010
Thanks for having me.
00:39:48.030 --> 00:39:48.971
It's been great talking to you.
00:39:48.990 --> 00:39:50.670
And I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
00:39:50.710 --> 00:39:52.672
our producer, the man behind the curtain,
00:39:53.251 --> 00:39:55.492
and also our listeners here
00:39:55.612 --> 00:39:57.213
and all around the world.
00:39:58.353 --> 00:39:58.534
You know,
00:39:58.574 --> 00:40:00.534
folks are tuning in in different places.
00:40:00.574 --> 00:40:01.574
And every week we thank
00:40:01.614 --> 00:40:03.155
people who are regular
00:40:03.175 --> 00:40:04.494
listeners or new listeners.
00:40:04.536 --> 00:40:05.275
And if you're in one of
00:40:05.295 --> 00:40:06.456
these places and want to
00:40:06.476 --> 00:40:07.976
send Jonathan Lane an email,
00:40:08.016 --> 00:40:09.237
jlane at revolution two,
00:40:09.804 --> 00:40:11.123
They'll send you some of our
00:40:11.605 --> 00:40:13.385
revolution to fifty swag
00:40:14.206 --> 00:40:15.346
and if you're not one of
00:40:15.365 --> 00:40:16.346
these places and just want
00:40:16.365 --> 00:40:17.427
to connect with Jonathan He
00:40:17.467 --> 00:40:18.447
loves to hear from people.
00:40:18.467 --> 00:40:19.387
So do I in fact?
00:40:20.248 --> 00:40:22.047
So Jay Lane at revolution to
00:40:22.108 --> 00:40:24.668
five or and this week We're
00:40:24.708 --> 00:40:27.170
thanking our listeners in New Egypt,
00:40:27.250 --> 00:40:29.971
New Jersey and Helena, Montana in Germany
00:40:34.202 --> 00:40:35.324
in the state of Ohio,
00:40:35.804 --> 00:40:39.445
Ciudad del Carmen and Toluca in Mexico,
00:40:39.726 --> 00:40:42.286
and here in the United States, Detroit,
00:40:42.907 --> 00:40:44.728
and South Boston in the Bay State.
00:40:44.748 --> 00:40:45.507
Thank you all,
00:40:45.568 --> 00:40:47.349
and thank you to the folks listening in,
00:40:47.748 --> 00:40:49.170
places between and beyond,
00:40:49.190 --> 00:40:50.190
and now we will be piped
00:40:50.331 --> 00:40:51.371
out on the road to Boston.