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William Dawes rides off to sound the alert
By adamg on Mon, 04/21/2014 - 11:22am
Paul Revere gets all the glory, but William Dawes also rode into the countryside that fateful April night to warn the colonists that the Redcoats were coming.
This morning, the National Lancers re-created Dawes' ride from the First Church in Roxbury in Eliot Square.
Reading a poem about Dawes on the front steps of the church:
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Comments
Did they ride the whole way?
I can only imagine the surprise of people waiting for the 66/86 at Dawes Island if a horse blew through following those
foothorseprints.I think that was the plan
Although they change horses and Dawes in Arlington.
Ceremony in Cambridge?
For many years they had a ceremony on Cambridge Common when "Dawes" arrived. It wasn't at Dawes Island, but near the cannon and other Revolutionary War monuments that are on the Garden Street side of the Common, across from Radcliffe Yard. I assume that they probably still have this ceremony, although I'm not 100% sure.
When I saw the Cambridge ceremony a few years ago, the speaker had to make his presentation, fully aware that he/she would be cut off without warning whenever Mr. "Dawes" arrived.
Somerville also used to have a ceremony for "Paul Revere" at the little park at the junction of Main Street and Broadway in Winter Hill. Medford and Arlington may have had them as well.
Of course, since they do this particular re-enactment in the daytime, both "Dawes" and "Revere" arrive in Lexington several hours after that town's 5:30 am re-enactment of the actual battle.
Revere and Dawes both arrived in Lexington this afternoon
around 1 pm. They and their horses rested a while on Lexington Battle Green. There were two other riders wearing red, on two other horses, but I don't know who they were supposed to be portraying.
Neither Revere nor Dawes made it to Concord...
... but the even more-totally-ignored-than Dawes Dr. Samuel Prescott did. ;~}
Shhh...
You'll spoil his cover. That's how he made it all the way to Concord: nobody ever gave him a second thought.
It's still working to this day if you don't ruin it.
Poor Dr. Prescott
No one knows for sure, but it is believed that he was captured later in the war and died as a prisoner of war up in Canada.