Monthly Archives: November 2012

In the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a manuscript letter four pages long. Bearing the names of thirty-nine signers in seventeen towns and cities between Boston and Philadelphia, it describes in brief and urgent detail the tragic events near Boston on April 19,1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord.

The story of the letter's five day journey as it was carried by post rider three hundred and fifty miles through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey to Philadelphia, and the excitement and reaction to its news, is unique in our nation's history. Although the letter originated in Watertown, Massachusetts, at the eastern end of the Boston-Worcester road, its story begins in Boston about six miles to the southeast.

A meeting of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress was scheduled for April 19th in Concord. Dr. Joseph Warren, in Boston, a zealous champion of American liberty, learned of a British march into the countryside in an effort to disrupt the meeting and to capture the leaders. Warren dispatched William Dawes and Paul Revere by separate routes to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington. While Dawes road toward Lexington, Revere implemented a prearranged plan to alert a series of alarm riders and had two signal lanterns placed in the North Church belfry before setting out for Lexington. Both men reached Lexington