CD arc 
 
 ^. TNI 
 Ul 
 
 MINUTB-MEN
 
 Ayer, Mass., Sept. 12, i8gg. 
 
 (Please accept the accompanying volume as 
 the gift of Luke <Blanchard, ofWestAtlon, Mass., 
 the publisher, with the kind regards of the author. 
 
 (Respectfully, 
 
 jiLFfREfD S. HUftSOJI 


 
 w 
 z 
 
 c
 
 COMMEMORATIVE 
 
 OF 
 
 Calvin and Luther Blanchard 
 
 ACTON MINUTE-MEN 
 
 1775 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED SERENO HUDSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 History of Sudbury," "Annals of Sudbury, Wayland and 
 Maynard," "Souvenir of the Wayside Inn," Etc. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 LUKE BLANCHARD, WEST ACTON, MASS. 
 1899
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 HUNTLEY S. TURNER 
 AVER, MASS.
 
 To 
 
 THE DESCENDANTS OF THE MlNUTE-MEN, 
 
 WHO, TRUE TO THEIR NAME, 
 
 MUSTERED AT THE MIDNIGHT ALARM AND 
 
 MET THE MINISTERIAL TROOPS ON APRIL IQTH, 1775, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY THE PUBLISHER, 
 LUKE BLANCHARD, OF ACTON, MASS., 
 
 A GRANDSON OF CALVIN 
 AND GRAND-NEPHEW OF LUTHER BLANCHARD.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 5 
 
 HONOR TO WHOM HONOR is DUE 9 
 
 SKETCH OF LUTHER BLANCHARD'S LIFE, 14 
 
 DEDICATION OF THE BLANCHARD MEMORIAL STONE, 35 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MINUTE-MEN MEMORIAL 
 
 STONES, 53 
 
 THE MINUTE-MAN AND THE NEW ENGLAND 
 
 MEETING-HOUSE 59 
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE BLANCHARD MEMORIAL 
 
 STONE 66 
 
 ANCESTRAL ANNALS OF CALVIN AND LUTHER 
 
 BLANCHARD, 71 
 
 CAUSE OF LUTHER BLANCHARD'S DEATH, 89 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 THE BLANCHARD MEMORIAL STONE, Frontispiece. 
 
 THE WHITE COCKADE 17 
 
 THE START OF THE ACTON MINUTE COMPANY,.... 27 
 
 THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE 35 
 
 THE JONATHAN HOSMER HOUSE 47 
 
 STATUE OF THE MINUTE-MAN, 53 
 
 PICTURE OF THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE, ACTON,.. 59 
 
 PICTURE OF LUKE BLANCHARD, 67 
 
 PICTURE OF SIMON BLANCHARD, 71
 
 DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 THE START FOR CONCORD. 
 
 The picture of Captain Isaac Davis leading his com- 
 pany of minute-men from his house, April iQth, 1775, is 
 reproduced from a painting by Mr. Arthur F. Davis. 
 The picture is considered natural. 
 
 THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE, CONCORD, MASS. 
 
 The author of this book, in making a picture of the 
 Old North Bridge and the Major Buttrick house on the 
 hill, has followed the suggestions of a picture by Doolittle 
 and Earle, made about three months after the Con- 
 cord fight ; while for the adjacent country he has followed 
 nature as it is at the present time, which is, probably, in its 
 main features, about as it was in 1775. The ground on the 
 northerly side of the bridge about the causeway is low, and 
 at high water the river sometimes overflowed it. The 
 causeway was short, and turned easterly by the upland, and 
 entered the highway which led to the neighborhood of 
 Major Buttrick's house. The point of view from which the 
 picture was taken is on the southerly side of the river, a 
 few rods above the bridge.
 
 6 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 THE JONATHAN HOSMER HOUSE. 
 
 The picture of this house was sketched by the author, 
 from a description given him by Mrs. Emeline Hall of 
 West Acton, Mass., a granddaughter of Deacon Jonathan 
 Hosmer. Mrs. Hall was born in the old Hosmer house in 
 18^8, and lived there till she was eighteen years old. Her 
 recollection of the house is quite distinct, and when the 
 drawing was completed, she pronounced it natural. There 
 formerly stood to the westerly of the house a shed and 
 chaise-house ; and a barn stood on the opposite side of the 
 road. The tree on the south-easterly corner was an elm, 
 and in the rear were several butternut trees. The house 
 faced southerly. The front yard was large and unfenced. 
 The present road from West Acton to South Acton was 
 not in existence in 1775. The old road from Acton center, 
 so much as is represented in the picture, is the same now, 
 as formerly, and runs by the memorial stone, joining the 
 West and South Acton road, nearly opposite the Herman 
 A. Gould house. Formerly this road turned at a point near 
 the Hosmer house, and went up the hill northerly of the 
 present South Acton road ; this latter section can still be 
 traced by a cart-path. The front room to the south- 
 westerly, which was entered by the side door, was used for 
 the kitchen.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In writing this little volume the author has taken such 
 liberty as he considered suitable and the nature of the case re- 
 quired. There has been but little consultation with the pub- 
 lisher as to what matter it should contain, or the form of its 
 presentation ; his purpose being to have properly given an ac- 
 count of the events of the first " Patriots' Day," as they 
 stand related to the dedication of the " Memorial Stone " 
 erected by him to the memory of his ancestor, Calvin Blanch- 
 ard, and his great uncle, Luther; a purpose commendable in 
 itself, and in the interest of local history. Whatever relates to 
 the publisher personally has been editorially inserted, and in no 
 instance has any part of the manuscript been submitted for his 
 perusal. As the work has been gotten up by the publisher for 
 private distribution, the subject is more specific, and its scope 
 more limited than if it were a contribution to literature of a 
 more public character. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, the hope of the author that these few 
 pages may prove a fresh inspiration to all who are interested in 
 what " Patriots' Day " is suggestive of, and may tend to in- 
 crease the admiration of posterity for the work and character 
 of the Minute-men of '75. 
 
 A. s. H. 
 
 AVER, MASS., June 8, 1899.
 
 " But, O where can dust to dust 
 
 Be consigned so well, 
 As where heaven its dews shall shed, 
 On the martyred patriot's bed, 
 And the rocks shall raise their head, 
 
 Of his deeds to tell?" 
 
 Picrpont.
 
 HONOR TO WHOM HONOR 
 IS DUE. 
 
 I. 
 
 At Acton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, April 
 igth, 1895, a memorial stone was dedicated with the fol- 
 lowing inscription : 
 
 "FROM THIS FARM WENT 
 
 CALVIN AND LUTHER BLANCHARD 
 
 TO CONCORD FIGHT AND BUNKER HILL, 
 
 SONS OF SIMON BLANCHARD, WHO WAS 
 
 KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF QUEBEC, 1759. 
 
 LUTHER WAS THE FIRST MAN HIT BY A 
 
 BRITISH BULLET AT THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE 
 
 AND DIED IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY 
 
 A FEW MONTHS LATER." 
 
 This memorial was erected by Luke Blanchard of 
 Acton, a grand-son of Calvin and grand-nephew of Luther, 
 whose names are thereon inscribed ; and is situated in that
 
 JO LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 part of the town which is known as West Acton, about one 
 mile northerly of the Fitchburg railroad station and about 
 two miles from Acton Center. 
 
 The stone stands by the wayside, in a quiet spot, and 
 at a junction of roads, one of which leads to South Acton, 
 the other northerly towards the center. 
 
 The farm on which the monument stands is now known 
 as the Hermon A. Gould farm, but more than a century ago 
 it was a part of the homestead of Jonathan Hosmer. The 
 dedicatory exercises consisted of patriotic speeches, appro- 
 priate music and prayer; and to preserve some of these for 
 the perusal of posterity, as well as to present some additional 
 facts relative to the notable lives and events thus com- 
 memorated, is the object of the following compilation. Be- 
 fore entering upon the task allotted us, it may be appropriate 
 to remark, that it is a delicate one to undertake, from the 
 fact that the hero of our sketch had many peers, and space 
 forbids an extended mention of all of them. 
 
 While there went from Acton to the North Bridge at 
 Concord, Luther Blanchard, the fifer, there went also Isaac 
 Davis, Abner Hosmer and James Hayward. These, with 
 their fellow townsmen who went with them, all marched 
 through a gateway of glory, and each was a willing sacrifice 
 ready to be offered when the time should come. There 
 was no difference whatever in the purity of purpose that 
 moved these young patriots; all had like hopes and like 
 fears, and of them it could truthfully be said, 
 
 "Few were the numbers they could boast 
 
 But every freeman was a host, 
 
 And felt as if himself were he 
 
 On whose sole arm hung victory."
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. II 
 
 As of Acton, so it was of other towns. Among these 
 soldiers was no priority of merit. It was a hero's day for 
 them all. Never since the days of Leonidas and his Spar- 
 tan band has the sun shown on a braver company. 
 
 The soft rays of the sun, that were thrown back from a 
 thousand sparkling dewdropson that April morning, were but 
 the precursor of a gathering glory that was to be reflected 
 upon them in the far off years. If the external experience 
 of the actors was different, it was by force of mere circum- 
 stance ; for had each had his own way perhaps he himself 
 would have been foremost, and the first front of the Revolu- 
 tion would have been made by his own company. This equal- 
 izing of honors has been too much overlooked, and in the 
 honest attempt to get at the facts in the interest of exact 
 history, such as the location of dates and the ascription of 
 personal acts to the right parties, there may have sometimes 
 existed questionable rivalry. But if such is the case it is 
 unfortunate. Truth requires no invidious comparisons. 
 We may magnify facts, but show no partiality. Because 
 of incidental circumstances, such as time, distance and 
 population, the parts borne by different towns on April 
 1 9th, were from the nature of the case dissimilar. Be it 
 so, and let that dissimilarity be recognized, but let no favor- 
 itism be based upon it. To Lexington let it be accorded 
 that her town's common land was made sacred by the 
 first blood spilled. Let Concord claim the first battle 
 ground on which George the Third met with organized 
 resistance. Admit that Sudbury sent the most militia 
 and minute-men. Place Acton in the van as she was. 
 And so to all the other towns engaged give the credit that 
 is their due. Let whatever of especial honor belongs
 
 I a LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 to them be freely accorded, and then there will remain a 
 residue of renown which will make each one great. 
 
 And so of the individual actors in that never to be for- 
 gotten conflict, whatever of priority belongs to them as 
 relates to time, place, or rank, let the honor be recognized. 
 If Captain Isaac Davis was the first to fall on April igth, 
 let the fact be related and recorded, and let no other be 
 given his place. If Abner Hosmer was the next to join the 
 silent procession, which on that memorable morning struck 
 their tents on earth to spread them " On Fame's eternal 
 camping ground," let no one deny him the honor. And if 
 there followed, a little later, James Hayward and Luther 
 Blan chard, let it be said of them that they also were faith- 
 ful unto death, and are numbered among "the few the 
 immortal names that were not born to die." Let us inscribe 
 on granite or bronze their virtues, nor stint them in the 
 bestowment of a country's gratitude, because death came not 
 as to the others, on the battlefield, but by slow, lingering 
 approaches, and through the torture of painful wounds. To 
 do this is magnanimous; to do this is just; but to do less 
 is unjust. 
 
 Let us then to each of those, who, on that morning, 
 which John Hancock said was a glorious one for America, 
 girded himself for battle, give unstinted praise; remember- 
 ing, that however much we may extol their valor and admire 
 their simple virtues, we are in no danger of doing anything 
 in this direction that will be more than commensurate with 
 their deserts. For it was a dark, dark morning that had its 
 dawning on that April iQth dark in its uncertainties and 
 its doubtful issues. They who entered upon its terrible 
 experience could not forecast what we see so clearly, that
 
 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 13 
 
 liberty and light were about to break on a continent. The 
 future was hidden from their vision. The horizon of their 
 hope was a narrow one. Their pillar of fire was their faith 
 in the God of battles. Their cloud was their belief that 
 His strong arm would prevail. 
 
 " Their feet had trodden peaceful ways ; 
 
 They loved not strife ; they dreaded pain ; 
 
 They saw not, what to us is plain, 
 That God would make man's wrath his praise. 
 
 No seers were they, but simple men ; 
 
 Its vast results the future hid ; 
 
 The meaning of the work they did 
 Was strange and dark and doubtful then. 
 
 They went where duty seemed to call ; 
 
 They scarcely asked the reason why 
 
 They only knew they could but die j 
 And death was not the worst of all." 
 
 Whittier.
 
 SKETCH OF 
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD'S LIFE. 
 
 II. 
 
 The brothers, Luther and Calvin Blanchard, were born 
 in the town of Boxboro, in that portion of its territory 
 which was formerly a part of Littleton. 
 
 The deed of the farm on which they were born was, if 
 not the second, at least one of the earliest recorded deeds 
 from "ye proprietors" in the ancient Nashoba plantation. 
 The territory of the old homestead, whose soil was for gen- 
 erations tilled by the Blanchards, is bounded easterly by the 
 so-called "Powers' farm" and southerly by "Indian land;" 
 which latter consisted of about five hundred acres in the 
 southeast corner of Littleton, and was said to be three hun- 
 dred poles long. It was in the vicinity, if not a part of the 
 exact spot, where the Christian Indians of the Nashoba mis- 
 sion, who were fostered by Eliot and Gookin, made their 
 wigwams and prayed and sang psalms in the deep forest 
 shade, or in the bright sunny openings of the woodland, and 
 neighbored, it may be, with their kinspeople on the green 
 intervales of the Musketahquid river at what is now Concord.
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 15 
 
 Their father, Simon, was descended from Thomas, who 
 early settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the part 
 which is now Maiden. Luther and Calvin probably 
 inherited a martial spirit from their father, for we find his 
 name given among those brave New Englanders, who fought 
 in the intercolonial war between England and France in the 
 period of 1756-1763, and tradition informs us, that he fell 
 on the plains of Abraham at Quebec, fighting under General 
 Wolf, Sept. 13, 1759; so that young Luther's family, at least 
 on his father's side, presumably, was thoroughly imbued 
 with a martial nature, and hence it is not to be wondered 
 at that a later generation should give evidence of its trans- 
 mission. Some time before his soldier life commenced, he 
 left his home to learn the mason's trade; and we find him at 
 the age of eighteen with his brother Calvin thus employed, 
 and living with Jonathan Hosmer on the place in Acton 
 before described as the site of the memorial stone. As 
 Jonathan Hosmer had a son who was present at the 
 Concord fight, and as they lived not far from the home 
 of Captain Isaac Davis, the gunsmith, it is easy to sup- 
 pose that the three boys made frequent visits of an even- 
 ing to his shop, and talked of the probability of war; and 
 when to meet any emergency a minute company was formed, 
 it was only natural for them to enlist under the leadership 
 of neighbor Davis. Luther Blanchard, being a fife player, 
 probably enlisted as the company's fifer, a position of no 
 small importance in those times, when other wind instru- 
 ments were rare, and the stirring strains of a fife and kettle 
 drum were the usual music on all military occasions. As 
 minute companies were made up more or less of persons
 
 l6 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 of nonage, and others not liable to militia enrollment, fre- 
 quent drill meetings were quite essential for affording mili- 
 tary instruction, and in the various towns some of these drill 
 meetings were held at evening. Probably, weeks before 
 the hostile outbreak, the youthful fifer was present at the 
 drills, and with his fellow musician, Francis Barker, the 
 drummer, played while Captain Davis manceuvered his men 
 in the little lane and practiced them in the manual of arms; 
 and when the company broke rank and was dismissed, 
 naturally enough Luther, and the other boys of his neigh- 
 borhood, as they wended their way homeward, would have 
 music by themselves, so that doubtless "The White Cock- 
 ade" was a familiar air to the dwellers in that vicinity. 
 But that little company was not long to play soldier, and 
 when on the evening of April i8th the alarm came to 
 Acton by a mysterious messenger, who at midnight rode 
 through the villages and the lone hamlets, warning the 
 inmates to "up, and to arm!" Among the first to respond 
 was the minute company, which reported in Captain Davis' 
 dooryard early on the morning of the igth, and received 
 from the faithful commander the assurance that when 
 a sufficient number of men arrived he would march. 
 About seven o'clock, the requisite number had come, 
 and Davis gave the word to start, after declaring that they 
 had a right to go to Concord on the king's highway and 
 that they would do so at all hazards. No sooner had the 
 order to march been given than Luther Blanchard sent out 
 on the cool crisp air the notes of "The White Cockade," 
 and they were off. Little is related in history of the short, 
 quick journey to Concord North bridge, but it is quite 
 probable that when the little band was away they sped
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 17 
 
 with flying feet to the time of their own quickened heart 
 throbbings; and that it was only now and then as they 
 slackened their pace at some rising ground that Luther re- 
 sumed fifing; but when he and his comrades caught a 
 glimpse in the distance of the North bridge, and of the 
 companies from the neighboring towns, we may suppose 
 there was a call for music, and that Luther Blanchard and 
 Drummer Barker did their best; and that the strains com- 
 ing from afar were to those waiting Middlesex militia men 
 already assembled at Concord, like the sound of the High- 
 landers' slogan at Lucknow, which long before the musicians 
 were in sight told of the approach of friends. After the 
 meeting of the Provincials near Major Buttrick's, there was 
 a hurried consultation of the officers relative to what should 
 be done and who should do it. While this consultation was 
 going on, smoke arose in the distance indicating that Con- 
 cord village was burning, and almost simultaneously, a 
 small detachment of Regulars commanded by Lieutenant 
 Gould began taking up the bridge planks to keep the Con- 
 tinentals from going to the rescue. At this juncture of 
 affairs came a crisis, and British power in America began 
 to tremble, for there was one and he the youngest of those 
 commanders, who did not fear to strike down England's 
 arrogance there where it was asserting itself, and declared 
 that "he had not a man who was afraid to follow him." 
 Then came the order to march, and Captain Davis was 
 again on the move, and Luther Blanchard again struck the 
 tune of "The White Cockade," and down they descended 
 the highway by the meadow margin sternly determined 
 upon work, but with orders not to fire till they were fired 
 upon. What a scene was there presented ; the sun shining
 
 l8 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 with exceptional brightness, nature dressing herself in gay 
 attire, the birds caroling sweetly in the meadow, and each 
 with Luther as in one grand matinee" endeavoring to enli- 
 ven the eventful hour. Yes, all was exceptional, the march, 
 the music, the men ; but there was to be one thing more 
 to complete the effect, and that was the firing of "The 
 shot heard round the world." Soon it came. As the com- 
 pany drew nearer the river bank, the Regulars, fearing they 
 would be upon them before the bridge could be dismantled, 
 fired a volley. As there was at first no visible effect pro- 
 duced it was supposed that only blank cartridges had been 
 fired, or that the enemy had aimed their guns into the air. 
 But to make sure that the shots were harmless, Captain 
 Davis asked his company if balls were fired, whereupon 
 Luther Blanchard exclaimed, "Yes, for one has struck me." 
 This was enough for Davis to know, for the invaders had 
 shown themselves murderous; and word was immediately 
 given to fire. As Davis was raising his gun to take aim, the 
 Regulars fired again and he fell, shot through the heart. 
 Almost simultaneously there fell near him Abner Hosmer, 
 who was shot through the head. So opened the action of 
 that fateful morning. 
 
 As the general causes that contributed to the conflict 
 at Concord are more or less familiar to readers of Ameri- 
 can history, it is unnecessary for us to consider them in 
 detail, however interesting they might be as incidentally 
 related to the crowning act in the life of Luther Blanchard 
 and his brave compatriots ; but it may be appropriate, 
 before following further the fortunes of our hero, to briefly 
 give the outline of some of them. 
 
 The conflict at the North bridge was occasioned by
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 19 
 
 the culmination or result of several events, all of which 
 were incidental to the general plan of Colonel Smith, who 
 had charge of the English forces, to march to Con- 
 cord, and destroy what military stores were found there 
 and perhaps capture Colonel James Barrett As at Lex- 
 ington, it was probably no part of an original design to 
 slay any of the inhabitants nor to destroy private property, 
 unless in furtherance of the general plan. But events con- 
 spired to convince the English commander that the Con- 
 tinentals contemplated resistance, and he took precautions 
 to meet it; which precautions precipitated the encounter 
 at the bridge. According to the best information from 
 sources both English and American, the main facts in the 
 case are as follows : 
 
 After the massacre at Lexington, which occurred 
 about sunrise, the Regulars proceeded to Concord, not 
 perhaps without some misgivings as to the day's results, 
 since the assembled militia men and the slaughter of some 
 of them was doubtless suggestive of an aroused condition 
 of the country. On the arrival about seven o'clock at 
 Concord village, Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn took 
 their position in the hillside burying ground, where they 
 could survey operations, disposing of their troops as fol- 
 lows : Captain Mundy Pole of the tenth regiment with 
 about one hundred men was sent to the South bridge ; 
 Captain Lawrence Parsons with six companies of infantry, 
 consisting of about three hundred men, was sent northerly, 
 towards the Colonel Barrett neighborhood; the remainder 
 of the force, consisting of four or five hundred men, was 
 retained as a reserve or body guard in Concord village. 
 Of the forces sent northerly, three companies with Captain
 
 20 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 Parsons proceeded to the residence of Colonel Barrett to 
 destroy public stores; while three were left, under com- 
 mand of Captain Lawrie, near the North bridge, perhaps 
 with the two-fold purpose of keeping open a way of retreat 
 for Captain Parsons, and of preventing any Provincial 
 soldiers from destroying the bridge. Of the three com- 
 panies under Captain Lawrie left in the vicinity of the 
 bridge, two straggled off, or scattered about, leaving only 
 one, and that under command of Lieutenant Edward 
 Thornton, to guard the bridge. 
 
 In the meantime, the Americans from neighboring 
 towns were assembling at Punkatassett hill, northerly of 
 the river, where were already stationed some of the Con- 
 cord, Acton, and Lincoln men, who under command of 
 Captain George Minot, had rendezvoused at that place upon 
 the near approach of the Regulars to Concord village. 
 About ten o'clock, while Captain Parsons' men were 
 engaged in mischievous work at Colonel Barrett's, burning 
 gun carriages, the Provincials, having been joined by the 
 Acton minute company, marched from Punkatassett along 
 the highway to Major Buttrick's, which was about forty 
 rods from the North bridge. Here the consultation of 
 officers before referred to took place; the result of which 
 was the forward movement of the Acton minute company, 
 followed by all the others, the firing, the wounding of 
 Luther Blanchard, and the killing of Davis and Hosmer. 
 The fire was returned by the Americans, and several of the 
 English soldiers fell, either wounded or killed. 
 
 After this firing, there is little or no evidence of hos- 
 tilities on either side for more than an hour. Lieutenant 
 Gould and his guard at once betook themselves to the
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 21 
 
 village. Three signal guns were fired by the British at the 
 village to call in the various detachments, all of which soon 
 joined the main body, which about twelve o'clock began its 
 march back to Boston, carrying with them their wounded 
 in vehicles confiscated for the purpose. Meanwhile, the 
 Provincials, who had been reinforced by a minute and 
 militia company from Sudbury, commanded by Captains 
 Haynes and Nixon, hurried across the fields to the easterly 
 of Concord village; and upon their arrival at the Lexington 
 road, awaited the coming of the British regiments, which 
 soon hove in sight. Then commenced that famous wayside 
 warfare, which was kept up with such disastrous results to 
 the English troops until they arrived in Charlestown. The 
 spot where the Acton minute-men stood at the time of the 
 firing is probably a few rods to the rear of the statue of the 
 "Minute-Man." Judge John S. Keyes locates the spot 
 where Davis fell, as at or about the place where at the 
 present time a small bushy apple tree is standing. This is 
 probably correct. That it is no nearer the bridge may per- 
 haps be inferred from the following reasons: ist. It is 
 hardly to be supposed that the Regulars would allow the 
 Americans to come nearer before firing, if they fired at all. 
 2d. If the opposing forces had been nearer together, it is 
 probable that the loss would have been greater on both sides. 
 3d. It has been stated by good authority, that the shot 
 that hit Luther Blanchard was fired when the Americans 
 were within ten or fifteen rods of the bridge. This would 
 place his company on that portion of the causeway over the 
 meadow land, which tradition informs us had stepping 
 stones placed along its edge, to enable foot travelers to pass 
 the road to the bridge at high water. It was upon one of
 
 22 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 these stepping stones that Captain Davis is said to have 
 fallen, when, after being struck by the bullet, he leaped into 
 the air and fell first upon a stone and then upon the moist 
 ground. Although nearly, if not all traces of the old cause- 
 way to the bridge have disappeared, it is gratifying that the 
 adjacent meadow beyond the " Minute-Man " enclosure, and 
 the site of the old roadway, probably, remain nearly as they 
 did of old, and that the hand of man in its attempt at art 
 has not yet by its would be embellishment quite obliterated 
 the spot where Luther Blanchard was hit, and Captain Davis 
 and Private Hosmer fell. Still the frosts and the evening 
 damps creep over the moist intervale ; still the blackbird 
 and bobolink sing there ; still the floods rise and fall, and 
 spring as laughingly trips over the turf as when that 
 strange, strange scene was enacted long ago. 
 
 But sufficient has been given of the history of the day 
 and its events in their more general features, and we will 
 now resume our narrative in its closer relations to the sub- 
 ject of our sketch. 
 
 After Luther Blanchard was hit by the musket ball at 
 the bridge, he went to the house of Humphry Barrett to 
 have the wound bandaged, and later with the other Pro- 
 vincials pursued the ministerial troops to Boston, fifing 
 along the way. Tradition states, that after arriving at 
 Cambridge, he went into a hospital in one of the Harvard 
 College buildings and shortly after died there from the 
 effect of this wound. But we think that tradition, which 
 sometimes may claim too much, does not in this case 
 claim enough; for the evidence of record is that Luther 
 Blanchard like many others, who so ardently beat back the 
 British battalion from Concord, enlisted for the siege of
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 23 
 
 Boston which immediately followed, and that he was pres- 
 ent at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June i/th, and died the 
 September following. If this is the case, then a new leaf 
 is added to the laurels that are already so thickly entwined 
 about the name and fame of Luther Blanchard. And so 
 consequential is it to his memory, that a brief outline of the 
 evidence is given for the reader's consideration. 
 
 ist. On the 24th or 25th of April, about twenty-two 
 of the Acton soldiers enlisted for the siege of Boston, and 
 were placed with some Lincoln soldiers in a company that 
 was commanded by Captain William Smith of Lincoln, 
 and assigned to the regiment of Colonel John Nixon. 
 
 2d. Among the men in Captain Smith's company 
 accredited to Acton, is the name of Luther Blanchard. 
 
 3d. We have not seen it claimed that there were two 
 by this name from the town of Acton. 
 
 4th. Captain Smith returned to the Provincial author- 
 ities the name of Luther Blanchard on his pay-roll. 
 
 5th. There is a tradition, that while Calvin Blanchard 
 was absent in the expedition that went to Canada through 
 the wilds of Maine, under the command of General Bene- 
 dict Arnold, his brother died and was buried. 
 
 6th. The expedition of Arnold set forth from Cam- 
 bridge in September 1775, and was absent several months. 
 
 7th. The wound received at the Concord North 
 bridge was apparently at the time not considered a severe 
 one; judging from the fact that it was not known that any- 
 one was hit, until it was reported by Luther Blanchard in 
 reply to the inquiry of Captain Davis, whether the British 
 fired bullets, and also from the fact that he could follow 
 the Regulars to Charlestown.
 
 24 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 8th. Luther Blanchard's name is on a receipt dated 
 July 7, 1775. This was for bounty due on account of ser- 
 vices in Captain Smith's company, Colonel John Nixon's 
 regiment. This signature is supposed to be his autograph. 
 Coat Rolls. Eight months' service. State Archives, vol. 
 35, page 62. 
 
 9th. The name of Luther Blanchard, with rank of 
 Corporal, is on the muster roll of Captain Smith's company, 
 Colonel Nixon's regiment, August i, 1775. Date of enlist- 
 ment April 24, 1775. Time of service, three months, fif- 
 teen days. Belonged in Acton. This was an order for 
 advanced pay, dated Cambridge, July 7, 1775. 
 
 loth. Luther Blanchard, with rank of Corporal, is on 
 company return of Captain Smith's company, Colonel 
 Nixon's regiment. Dated Sept. 30, 1775. Belonged to 
 Acton. Reported dead. Coat Rolls. Eight months' ser- 
 vice. State Archives, vol. 56, page 28. 
 
 Such are some of the reasons for belief, that the 
 youthful fifer was on the first two battlefields of the Revo- 
 lutionary War, and that while enlisted for the siege of 
 Boston, and after the Battle of Bunker Hill, he died at the 
 Harvard College hospital. 
 
 After the stirring scenes of April iQth, the college 
 buildings were thrown open to be used as barracks for the 
 soldiers, and continued so to be used until after the evacua- 
 tion of Boston, March 17, 1776, when the American army 
 went to New York. As it was used for a barrack, it might 
 if needed, be used as a hospital. 
 
 It was quite natural, that the Acton minute-men should 
 enlist for the seige of Boston in a company that belonged 
 to the regiment of Colonel John Nixon, for Colonel Nixon
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 25 
 
 was a citizen of the neighboring town of Sudbury, and one of 
 the Sudbury companies was also of his regiment. During 
 the summer that followed the Concord fight, this regiment 
 was quartered at Winter Hill, now in the city of Somerville. 
 
 Before passing, it may be proper to state, that if 
 Luther Blanchard did, as is indicated, share in the battle 
 of June 17, he was in a regiment, and at a place first in im- 
 portance and peril of any in that terrible conflict, which, a 
 recent English author has stated, was, in proportion to its 
 duration and the number engaged, one of the fiercest and 
 most sanguinary of history. 
 
 The regiment of Colonel John Nixon was between the 
 redoubt on the hill summit and the river Mystic, which 
 was held by Colonel Stark of the New Hampshire militia, 
 and was only protected by a few fence rails and a little 
 newly mown hay; yet, it was defended in a manner that 
 was most masterly, and the Regiment was one of the last 
 to leave the field. 
 
 And now as we have been tracing the short soldier 
 career of Luther Blanchard, let us pause and reflect upon 
 the service that he rendered to his country as a fifer. The 
 simple music of the fife and snare drum was, in those times, 
 considered very consequential on all military occasions, and 
 to begin a march or engage in battle without them would, 
 doubtless, have been thought disadvantageous. 
 
 "The pomp and panoply of glorious war" had not 
 then become obsolete; the gilt epaulet and the plumed 
 military hat for the officers, and martial music were still 
 in use. The fifer and drummer were then very essential, 
 and might turn the scale in a crisis. Their place was near 
 the head of the column, and it was here that we find
 
 26 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 our youthful hero in those moments that tried men's souls. 
 Young Luther Blanchard is described as at the head of the 
 column when it marched down the little cottage lane from 
 the Davis door-yard, and we first hear of him as sending 
 forth strains on that eventful spring morning. 
 
 If ever that little company needed the stimulus that 
 might come from his fife it was at the start. For aught 
 Davis and his comrades knew, they were going to Concord 
 alone. Communications had not come to them as to what 
 others were on the way. They were leaving father and 
 mother, children and home, to face a merciless enemy, who 
 might kill or capture as best suited them. Naturally, then, 
 a shadow might have crept through that early sunlight, and 
 the undertone of their deep apprehensions might have been 
 louder than the sweet carol of the robin in the wayside 
 apple trees. But there was one to cheer up their spirits, 
 however much they might droop ; and, as young Luther 
 stepped at the head of the little brave band, and Francis 
 Barker took his place beside him, the sharp, piercing notes 
 of that fife, now rising and falling, now rolling and ming- 
 ling with the rat-a-tat-tat and the whiz and the whirr of the 
 kettle-drum, doubtless drove back dismal forebodings and 
 lightened each heavy footstep, so that when the great road 
 was reached every man was in a mood for double-quick. 
 As the Acton minute-men came into Concord territory, the 
 music of their bold fifer was again brought into practical 
 requisition, when they met, a short distance from the North 
 bridge, on the way to Major Buttrick's, militia and 
 minute-men from the towns of Bedford, Chelmsford, 
 Carlisle, Littleton, Westford, Billerica, and Stow. These 
 men had been rendezvoused in the neighborhood of
 
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 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 27 
 
 Colonel James Barrett, about two miles from Concord meet- 
 ing-house, where three companies of British Regulars, under 
 command of Captain Lawrence Parsons, were destroying 
 military stores and gun-carriages. This meeting is graphi- 
 cally related by Frederic Hudson in Harper s Magazine, 
 May, 1875 : " On their arrival at the cross-roads, they were 
 met by the Acton minute-men, Captain Isaac Davis. This 
 company, about forty in number, came by the strawberry 
 hill road till they reached the rear of Colonel Barrett's 
 residence. They halted there for a short time, to observe 
 the movements of the detachment of the enemy searching 
 the house. Then, partly by a cross-road, and partly over 
 the fields north of Barrett's mills, they marched by a quick 
 step, the fife and drum playing 'The White Cockade,' in 
 nearly a straight course to the Widow Brown's tavern. 
 Thence they took the north road to the high land, where 
 they met Major Buttrick and his men." 
 
 Again, when at Major Buttrick's, by the North bridge, 
 after careful consultation, the continental officers decided 
 that the bridge should be saved, and that if Concord village 
 were burning they should rescue it. Then we read that as 
 the Acton minute-men faced from the right, Luther 
 Blanchard and John Buttrick, the young fifers, playing 
 " The White Cockade," advanced to the scene of action, and 
 placed themselves in an exposed position in the rough, nar- 
 row highway. Could the music of that moment have been 
 other than an inspiration to those minute-men to live by or 
 to die by ? Whether it were so or not the yeoman soldiery 
 rushed on to the uncertain conflict, nor did the fray long 
 cease, till there was left no foeman beyond the protection 
 of the English warships at Boston. But not only in the
 
 a 8 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 Davis dooryard and at the North bridge, was there 
 occasion for inspiring the Provincial soldiers by the stir- 
 ring strains of Blanchard's fife and Barker's drum, but 
 here and there along the line of the British retreat were 
 sharp skirmishes, when the Regulars, too hard pressed by 
 their persistent pursuers, would face about and try to check 
 them by momentary conflict. Easily may we suppose, that 
 at such times, the bold musicians would improve the oppor- 
 tunity as they stood with their leaders on the very firing 
 line, and threw out into the smoke-begrimmed atmosphere 
 the few simple tunes that they knew. And so, along the 
 entire course from Concord, as the English hosts made 
 their wild rush in retreat, fighting, faltering, falling, above 
 the loud shouts of the hastening multitude, mingling with 
 the dim and the dust, the cheers of the living and the 
 groans of the dying, might the strains of the fifer be heard ; 
 and when at Lexington, Earl Percy with his two field 
 pieces came up to reinforce the returning Regulars, and 
 afforded a little respite to the combatants on both sides, 
 we may suppose again that there was a " band concert " 
 and that Luther Blanchard, John Buttrick, and Caleb 
 Brown, fifer of the Sudbury minute-men, and other fifers, 
 who were doubtless there, played together the tune of "The 
 White Cockade," in a way that made the combatants almost 
 forget their weariness, and grow impatient to renew the 
 strife. The fifers were among the first to be summoned 
 and among the first to respond. At Lexington, Jona- 
 than Harrington, the fifer of the militia company there, 
 was aroused by his patriotic mother about one o'clock 
 in the morning, as she shouted, "Jonathan, you must 
 get up! The Regulars are coming, something must be
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 29 
 
 done ! " At Concord, Major John Buttrick, when the 
 alarm reached him, called his son John, a boy only sixteen 
 years of age, and a fifer in Captain Brown's minute com- 
 pany, exclaiming as he did so, "John, the bells are a ring- 
 ing. Jump up ! Load your pistols, take your fife, we'll 
 start immediately for the village." The father and the 
 mother did not hesitate to call the son. War's rude alarm 
 had reached them. To the sound of the tocsin the clan 
 was giving ready response, and the piper should not be 
 away. But those drum beats are over, and the fifer and 
 his fife are silent. The grand procession of that day so 
 ill-starred to Great Britain, and all glorious to America, 
 has ended its march. The years, the fast gathering years 
 have brought havoc alike to either combatants. Nature 
 still holds to her courses, but man and his works have 
 changed. The quiet cattle graze in the fields and pasture 
 places, from which the Provincials once poured their 
 destructive fire. The same river moves purling along on 
 its gentle way, but it flows no longer beneath its ancient 
 archway. 
 
 " 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." 
 
 As we have now described the start, the arrival at the 
 North bridge, and the service rendered by the youthful 
 fifer, our narrative might not be considered complete with- 
 out a description of the route taken by Luther Blanchard's 
 company, and a tracing of that memorable march. This
 
 30 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 object we can best accomplish, perhaps, by quoting from 
 the sketch of Acton history, written by Rev. James Fletcher, 
 and published in the Middlesex County History, 1890, Vol. 
 II., page 255 : "It was a bright, genial morning. The sun 
 was up at a good cheery height of an hour and a half. The 
 birds were chanting the very best songs of the opening 
 spring. The men were drawn up in line. The captain at 
 last gave the word " march." Luther Blanchard, the fifer, 
 and Francis Barker, the drummer, struck at once the stir- 
 ring notes of the ' White Cockade,' and forward they moved 
 with a quick, brave step. They soon reached the home- 
 stead of Parson Swift. They could not wait for the greet- 
 ings or the partings of the good man, but on they pressed, 
 with their faces set for Mother Concord. They moved 
 along over the old and only road leading from the present 
 site of Deacon W. W. Davis" crossing in a straight line 
 through to the meeting-house on the 'knoll.' The road 
 struck the other road just below Dr. Cowdry's barn, where 
 now stands Deacon John Fletcher's barn, just relocated by 
 Moses Taylor, Esq. The old road-bed was found when re- 
 cently digging the cellar for the barn. 
 
 "They could not stop for the silent benedictions of the 
 old church, but the prayers and blessings of the pastor they 
 could hear, and marched all the faster for the memory. The 
 handkerchiefs waving from the Brooks tavern doors and 
 windows helped the thrill of the hour. Down the hills 
 they moved by the present site of Mr. McCarthy, up the 
 ascent to the right, over the heights on the road path, now 
 closed, but still a favorite walk down the hill, across the 
 Revolutionary bridge, west of Horace Hosmer's present 
 site, the road leading by the spot where the elms south of
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 31 
 
 his house now stand. Up the hill they hasten and turn to 
 the right, going by Mr. Hammond Taylor's present resi- 
 dence, the old Brabrook homestead, on the south side, 
 which was then the front side, the road on the north being 
 a comparatively new opening ; there they left the main 
 road, struck through the woods, taking a bee line to their 
 destined point. After passing the woods, the march is by 
 the Nathan Brooks place, now owned and occupied by Mr. 
 H. F. Davis. The passage then was by the nearest way 
 to Barrett's Mills, as then called, not far from the North 
 bridge." 
 
 After arriving in the vicinity of Barrett's Mills, they 
 marched partly by a cross-road, and partly over a field, as 
 has already been stated, in a nearly direct line to the 
 Widow Brown's tavern, and from thence they took the 
 high land, where they met Major Buttrick and his men, 
 as before described. 
 
 While on the march, they went in files of two abreast. 
 When they arrived at Widow Brown's tavern, they are de- 
 scribed as going rapidly. Charles Handley stated in a de- 
 position, that, at the time of the Concord fight, he lived at 
 the tavern kept by the Widow Brown, nearly a mile north- 
 west of the North bridge, and saw Captain Davis' company 
 as they came from Acton. " I first saw them coming 
 through the fields north of Barrett's Mills, and they kept 
 the fields till they came to the road at Mrs. Brown's tavern. 
 They then took the north road leading to the bridge. They 
 marched fast to the music of a fife and drum. I remember 
 the tune, but am not quite sure of its name. I think it 
 was called ' The White Cockade.' " 
 
 In the same double file they marched on to the scene
 
 32 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 of action ; for after the halt and the hurried consultation of 
 officers, before described, and the plan to immediately 
 move forward to the bridge, Captain Davis drew his 
 sword and ordered his men to advance six paces. He then 
 faced them to the right, and then to the step of his favorite 
 tune, he led his command towards the foe. 
 
 With regard to their further course and what trans- 
 pired, the historian Bancroft says : 
 
 " The calm features of Isaac Davis became changed. 
 The town schoolmaster could never afterwards find words 
 strong enough to express how his face reddened at the 
 word of command; * * * they went down the hillside, 
 entered the by-road, came to its angle with the main road, 
 and then turned into the causeway that led straight to the 
 bridge." 
 
 What next occurred has already been related ; firing 
 followed. Luther Blanchard was hit and Davis and Hos- 
 mer fell. Of this sad sequal of that eventful march of 
 about a half dozen miles, the historian last quoted says : 
 
 "Three hours before, Davis had bid his wife and chil- 
 dren farewell; that afternoon he was carried home and 
 laid in her bedroom. His countenance was little altered, 
 and pleasant in death. 
 
 "The bodies of three others of his company, who were 
 slain that day, were brought also to her home, and the 
 three were followed to the village graveyard by a concourse 
 of neighbors for miles around." 
 
 Before leaving the part of our subject that relates to 
 the encounter, it may be of interest to state a few facts 
 concerning the bridge at which it took place. 
 
 The bridge crossed the Concord River to the northerly
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 33 
 
 of the village, from whence its name the " North bridge." 
 It was long since demolished, and only a few fragments, 
 which are preserved as relics, are in existence. One of 
 these, which is of considerable size, is in possession of 
 John S. Keyes, Esq., of Concord, who has placed it in a 
 conspicuous position in the ell of his dwelling-house, and 
 near a bullet hole, which was made by one of the retreat- 
 ing Regulars. As the ancient highway was long since dis- 
 continued, no bridge stood on the spot for some years. 
 The old historic structure was a plain one ; and doubtless 
 no poet's license was taken by Emerson when he said : 
 
 " By the rude bridge that arched the flood 
 Their flag to April's breeze unfurled." 
 
 The fragment of timber at the Keyes house looks old and 
 weather worn, and as if it were of oak as sturdy as the 
 hearts of the bold farmers, whose hurrying feet once 
 pressed it. 
 
 About three months after the events of April 19, 1775, 
 two men, Messrs. Dolittle and Earle, the latter having 
 some skill or fame as an artist, went to the spot and made 
 a picture of the bridge and its locality. And although not 
 perfect in its perspective, yet it is quite probable that the 
 bridge being simple in its construction looks natural. The 
 northerly bank of the river being low allowed an overflow 
 of the water, which in the spring and fall freshets came 
 nearly up to the causeway. Since the year 1875, when the 
 centennial celebration called public attention to this locality, 
 and the setting apart of Patriots' Day, the place has been 
 on April igth, as a modern Mecca, to whose shrine devotees 
 of an antiquary taste, as well as those led thither by patri-
 
 34 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 otic feeling, have made their pilgrimage, and left their 
 votive offering of reflection and enthusiasm. The stream, 
 that ran beneath that memorable archway, flows through 
 towns each one of which contributed its quota to that 
 April conflict. It has its rise in Westboro and Hopkinton, 
 both of which sent soldiers on the Lexington alarm, and 
 on its borders are Framingham, Sudbury, Lincoln, Bed- 
 ford, Carlisle, Billerica and Chelmsford, so that this slug- 
 gish stream, which the Indians called Musketahquid or 
 Meadow brook, might almost be called the river of the 
 Revolution, on whose banks Freedom had its birthplace 
 and from which a waiting world received benefits ; for as 
 Whittier has said in his verse of the patriots of '75, 
 
 " Of man for man the sacrifice 
 Unstained by blood save theirs they gave 
 The flowers that blossomed from their grave 
 Have sown themselves beneath all skies." 
 
 
 
 Beside the river, and hard by the bridge on the east- 
 erly side, is the grave of the two slain Britains, who fell in 
 the return fire of the minute men ; and who, likewise, were 
 faithful unto death ; for, doubtless, they also thought they 
 died doing their duty. For years, the low mound was 
 grass grown and gray, and utterly forsaken and lone, ful- 
 filling well the description of the burial of Sir John Moore. 
 
 "And the foe and the stranger shall tread o'er his head, 
 And we far away on the billow." 
 
 At length, kindly hands planted the sheltering pines, and 
 then the music of their murmurings, and the soft ripple of 
 the river waves made a melody befitting the sepulchre of 
 sovereigns.
 
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 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 BLANCHARD MEMORIAL STONE. 
 
 III. 
 
 The dedication of the Blanchard Memorial Stone was 
 upon a day set apart by the citizens of Acton for exercises 
 commemorative of the battles of Concord and Lexington, 
 and of the going forth of her citizen soldiery to the open- 
 ing events of both the Revolutionary and the great Civil 
 War. 
 
 It was " Patriots' Day" in every sense of the word, and 
 almost the entire population of the town of Acton, and a 
 large portion of the inhabitants of Middlesex County were 
 observing it as a gala occasion, and signalizing it with 
 appropriate exercises. 
 
 Simultaneous with the Acton celebration, the neigh- 
 boring town of Concord was engaged in memorial services, 
 and never since the one hundreth anniversary of the 
 events of April iQth, 1775, at which President Grant was a 
 distinguished guest of the Commonwealth, have the two 
 historic towns been so astir, or entertained a like number 
 of guests. Besides dedicatory exercises at the Blanchard
 
 36 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 Memorial, there were exercises at two other historic places, 
 where similar monumental stones had been erected ; one, 
 near the site of the Captain Joseph Robbins farm-house, the 
 other near the site of the Captain Isaac Davis house. 
 Among the conspicuous visitors were Governor Green- 
 halge, Ex-Governor Boutwell, and Colonel William M. 
 Olin, Secretary of State. The main exercises of the day 
 were at the centre of the town, where a large tent was 
 spread, in which several addresses were made. 
 
 It was a day long to be remembered by the citizens of 
 Acton, and all interested in the scenes and events of old 
 Middlesex; and the new holiday was appropriately and suc- 
 cessfully entered upon the calendar, as time, that by statu- 
 tory enactment belongs to no one in particular but to 
 everyone in general. 
 
 The following is taken from the Boston Journal of 
 April 20, 1895: 
 
 "The little town of Acton, the birthplace of the fore- 
 most heroes of both the Revolution and the Civil War, was 
 the scene of the greatest celebration of Patriots' Day, the 
 one hundred and twentieth anniversary of the Concord 
 fight. 
 
 " It was a gala day for the cluster of pretty villages, 
 men, women and children all leaving their homes to attend 
 the fete. Flags and bunting fluttered to the breeze on 
 every hand, the whole town being dressed in its best for 
 the occasion. 
 
 " The day could not have been more perfect. It was 
 as beautiful a morning as ever dawned in the uncertain 
 month of April, and delightful summer zephyrs fanned the 
 cheek, while a kindly sun bathed the patriotic scene in a
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 37 
 
 golden glow of sunshine. Booming cannon and pealing 
 bells aroused the town at sunrise. The celebration was a 
 complete success, the exercises were carried out without a 
 hitch, and all Acton was happy at the result, while the 
 visitors had naught to say but words of unstinted praise. 
 
 " The crowd was a big one for so small a town, and 
 the hospitality of the place was taxed to its utmost, yet 
 there was room for all, and everybody was comfortably 
 housed, and food and refreshment was as plentiful as the 
 air. 
 
 " With the arrival of the first train at nine o'clock in 
 the morning, when the stirring music of two bands sounded 
 out on the quiet air, the celebration commenced, and it was 
 not until the early hours of this morning, when the last 
 strains of waltz music at the grand ball had ceased, and 
 the last dancers sought their homes, that the one hundred 
 and twentieth anniversary of the Concord fight was over, 
 and Acton rested from her fete. 
 
 " At nine o'clock the first formal exercises of the day 
 began, when the Committee of Arrangements, headed by 
 Hon Luther Conant, President of the day, met at the rail- 
 road station to welcome and receive the invited guests and 
 other visitors, who arrived on a special train. 
 
 "Profuse and artistic decorations made the main street 
 one line of waving color. The most conspicuous point in 
 the whole town was the seventy-five foot granite monu- 
 ment, which towered heavenward like an obelisk, while 
 strings of streamers and flags were hung on all sides of it. 
 A flagstaff pierced the atmosphere twenty-five feet above 
 the monument, and from this elevated position floated the 
 Stars and Stripes. At sunrise, noon and sunset the bells
 
 38 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 pealed and the cannon boomed. During the intervals the 
 bands gave concerts on the common, playing patriotic airs 
 appropriate to the occasion." 
 
 THE ROBB1NS HOUSE MEMORIAL. 
 
 The first of the memorial stones dedicated was the 
 one erected near the site of the Captain Joseph Robbins 
 house at East Acton. The following is from the Boston 
 Journal of the date before mentioned : 
 
 " Conspicuous by the roadside, about half-way from 
 the railroad station to the cemetery, is a big rough boulder 
 with the side facing the highway inscribed : 
 
 '"Site of house where first alarm was given in Acton ! 
 Morning of I9th April, 1775. Capt. Robbins! Capt. 
 Robbins ! The regulars are coming ! ' 
 
 " Hardly a single farm-house can be seen from this 
 historic spot. The graven stone stands on the crest of a 
 small hill, while in all directions extend the rough stone 
 walls which mark the boundaries of the pastures and fields. 
 
 " Rev. Franklin Parker Wood of Acton, invoked the 
 divine blessing, and Hon. Luther Conant, President of the 
 Day, introduced as one of the older citizens, whose memory 
 of the patriotic days was still fresh, Mr. Moses Taylor, 
 who read an interesting paper in regard to the history of 
 the spot. 
 
 "On the iQth of April, 1775, 120 years ago today," 
 began the speaker, " was seen a company of Continental 
 Militia on a march to Concord from this spot, with an 
 order from a horseman about 3 o'clock in the morning, 
 whose name was never known, going at full speed up to
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 39 
 
 this house, then occupied by Capt. Joseph Robbins, the 
 commissioned officer in the town, this house being nearest 
 to the North Bridge, and struck as if with a heavy club, as 
 they thought, on the corner of the house, three times, not 
 dismounting, but crying out at the top of his voice, ' Capt. 
 Robbins! Capt. Robbins! Up! Up! The regulars are 
 coming to Concord rendezvous at Old North Bridge. 
 Quick as possible alarm the citizens of Acton.' 
 
 " The exercises closed with the dedication and prayer 
 by Rev. Edward G. Porter of Dorchester." 
 
 The spot where this stone stands is, as has been 
 stated, an exceptionally secluded one. To the westerly is 
 that little city of the dead, ihe town's common burying 
 ground, which is now the dwelling place of all that is 
 mortal of many who marched on that memorable occasion 
 from that now forsaken door yard, in response to the mid- 
 night rider, who rapped at the Robbins house, while but 
 a few miles to the easterly is the place of the encounter at 
 the North bridge; to the northerly and southerly are quiet 
 woods and pleasant pasture lands. Surely could the dead 
 rise from their honored sepulchres, we might expect if ever, 
 they would do it here ; and that the precincts of that lone 
 homestead site would again be thickly peopled by the 
 sturdy yeomanry, as they met and reported as of yore to 
 their commander, "All present or accounted for." But 
 
 " No sound can awake them to glory again ; " 
 
 and the curious visitor can sit undisturbed, while busy 
 fancy plays with the past, and pushing back the curtain of 
 intermediate years, takes a peep at Captain Joseph Robbins 
 as he buckles about him his sword belt as a badge of com-
 
 40 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 mand, but perhaps takes down his fire-lock for service. 
 Perhaps before he starts out he goes to a broad corner 
 beaufet and snatches a morsel for his scant morning meal, 
 or thrusts the "logger" on the backlog to prepare a bowl 
 of warm drink of some sort. But the beaufet has crumbled 
 and the "logger iron" long since grew cold, and all that 
 remains of what stood there that morning is in melancholy 
 ruin ; and the winds, the sunbeams, the birds and bees 
 have the place all to themselves, save when the passing 
 traveler steps reverently to read and reflect upon the 
 inscription on this new votive stone. 
 
 From the site of the Robbins house, the company 
 passed to Woodlawn cemetery, where exercises were held. 
 This burial place contains the graves of many revolutionary 
 soldiers, which were designated by small flags. One inci- 
 dent of the services at this place was the reading by Rev. 
 F. P. Wood from a bible formerly used by Rev. John Swift, 
 Acton's first pastor. 
 
 CALVIN AND LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 From the cemetery, the company proceeded to the 
 site of the Hosmer house, near which is the Blanchard me- 
 morial stone. 
 
 The exercises here consisted mainly of an address by 
 Rev. W. R. Buxton, pastor of the Congregational church, 
 South Acton, and the reading of an historic paper by Hon. 
 Luther Conant. 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 "Fellow-Citizens from Acton and visiting friends from 
 elsewhere : 
 
 We are met together this morning to dedicate this
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 41 
 
 monument to the memory of two of the men who fought 
 at Concord. 
 
 I ask you to turn for a moment from the livelier side 
 of this day's celebration, and picture, in imagination, the 
 appearance which Acton wore just one hundred and twenty 
 years ago to-day. There then lived in this historic town 
 people whose hearts were filled with the love of liberty, 
 and who stood in dread anxiety concerning the future of 
 their Massachusetts Colony. The order to crush any in- 
 cipient uprising had been given to the King's officers, and 
 those officers were already not far from this vicinity to 
 carry out the orders which they had received. The inevit- 
 able had long been expected. The patriots of this portion 
 of Middlesex had slowly but surely been educating fathers, 
 mothers and children to a real understanding of the issues 
 involved and the trend which events were rapidly taking; 
 and, so it was that when, on April iQth, 1775, the first 
 blow was struck by the enemy, the whole of Acton, Con- 
 cord, and the surrounding settlements, rose up as one man 
 to repel the invader. Patriotism was not, on that memor- 
 able morning, confined to any special place or family in 
 this vicinity. In every true Acton home there was a de- 
 termination to resist the aggressive impertinence of the 
 royalty across the sea. 
 
 Well, now, one hundred and twenty eventful years have 
 gone by since the Concord fight. During this time great 
 changes have taken place. Gettysburg and Appomattox 
 have been added to Concord and Bunker Hill ; tens of 
 thousands of brave officers and soldiers have followed the 
 path to glory, which Captain Davis and his minute-men 
 traveled ; and, yet, our reverence and admiration for the
 
 42 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 patriots of 1775 do but increase with the lapse of time. 
 We still instinctively turn, at every approach of April 
 I9th, and think of these special places sacred in the an- 
 nals of liberty, and of these particular men of Acton and 
 Concord who took part in that earliest struggle for inde- 
 pendence. Whatever changes have taken place in our 
 great country, whatever modification our ideas of liberty 
 and government have undergone since that early day, 
 wheresoever the descendants and successors of fathers of 
 the Revolution meet this day to celebrate their deeds and 
 heroisms, the fact is, we still refer back to the men who did 
 that work as individuals, and, when the cause of the Revo- 
 lution is mentioned, however freely outsiders may indulge 
 in theories and abstractions, the people who now dwell in 
 these peaceful towns, the descendants of the men who 
 fought in that glorious war, well understand that the 
 struggle for liberty and right then and always means per- 
 sonal sacrifice, personal devotion, and when you mention 
 the Concord fight, these people know full well that there 
 was a fight that it was no mock battle between liberty as 
 an abstraction and tyranny as an abstraction, that, indeed, 
 it was a fight to the death between liberty and tyranny in- 
 carnate in persons, and that that struggle meant the total 
 surrender of personal ambition and interests and lives. 
 
 Now I want to tell you that this is just as it always 
 must be with people having sound views and sane senti- 
 ments as to the nature of this ceaseless struggle for better 
 things. For what is the meaning of the honor which our 
 country is accustomed to pay to the memory of its brave 
 heroes and martyrs ? Certain it is that the universal in- 
 stincts of people are deeply rooted in the everlasting depths
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 43 
 
 of good sense and certain it is that when the citizens of 
 Acton this morning instinctively turn to do honor to the 
 memory of these special men for their patriotic services, 
 there is a feeling that the glory of the cause which those 
 men represented at the old North bridge was not to be 
 found in any abstract principle or hollow theory, that in- 
 deed the principles and rights for which these men fought 
 appear to us glorious only because those principles and 
 rights were realized and given expression in true hearts, 
 patriotic souls, individual men, and self-sacrificing lives. 
 Principle or right when not expressed in personal struggle 
 is of no more consequence to the world than is the latent 
 electricity that is stored in the atmosphere and elements. 
 
 Calvin and Luther Blanchard went to the Concord 
 fight on that memorable morning, not in defense of any 
 abstract principle of which they felt nothing. Those men's 
 hearts and lives were the human batteries in which the 
 divine electricity of liberty was generated and utilized. I 
 have no doubt but that as they went to Concord with Cap- 
 tain Davis and their fellow patriots they feelingly called to 
 mind the tragic end which their father met at Quebec when 
 fighting against the French in 1759. Doubtless they felt 
 that a similar fate might await them that day. It is this 
 expression of right and principle in personal sacrifice and 
 courage that impels us to honor them as individual men. 
 Wherever a minute-man stood, there liberty dared to ex- 
 press itself clearly and fearlessly, and there no disloyalty to 
 principle could come. The men of Acton and Concord 
 had flesh and blood as we have, and let us rejoice that with 
 that flesh and blood there was a considerable alloy of prin- 
 ciple and love of right to cast a halo of glory about their 
 deeds.
 
 44 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 With what spirit, then, shall we dedicate this plain 
 monument to the memory of these two Acton patriots of 
 '75 ? Ought we not to dedicate it in the same spirit with 
 which the services of the men we honor were rendered at 
 the old bridge ? Can there be any real dedication without 
 the feeling that these men were true to country and gave 
 their lives into the hands of God to be used at that special 
 time as the living expression and defense of liberty, so, to 
 make this ceremony real and free from hypocrisy, we also 
 are to present our own individual lives to God to be used 
 by Him as the vehicles for bringing liberty and happiness 
 to our countrymen and ourselves ? In other places in this 
 town our fellow-citizens will, this morning, pay a similar 
 tribute to the memory of other patriots of the Revolution ; 
 but our special duty is concerned with this special place, 
 and with the memory of these particular men. We dedi- 
 cate this monument in honor of these two men who were 
 faithful at their particular posts of duty ; and we will ask 
 the Supreme Author of liberty that, as the devotion of 
 these two patriots involved the veritable laying down of 
 life in defence of right, real as the large boulder that now 
 stands before us, so may you and I put into our work the 
 same reality that was in their work, and because they were 
 men, living beings, with right and truth incarnate in heroic 
 lives, let this monument stand here and tell to all passers 
 by and coming generations, that the defence of the nation's 
 liberties and institutions is secure only when, in obedience 
 to the law of the divine incarnation, the rights and liberties 
 of the people are given an anchorage in the very hearts and 
 lives of individual men and women."
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 45 
 
 HISTORIC PAPER. 
 
 "With those who interest themselves in the research 
 of genealogy for the purpose of discovering a distinguished 
 pedigree to boast of, or a coat of arms to emblazon their 
 heraldry, we have little sympathy. 
 
 " But when we find a man who is willing to give time 
 and money to ascertain if one of his kindred or ancestors 
 suffered or perished in some great cause, and whose 
 memory and acts are passing into oblivion, because his- 
 torians have not done justice to his services, at once the 
 act commands our admiration and respect, and we bow to 
 him as to a public benefactor. 
 
 " From this farm went Calvin and Luther Blanchard 
 to Concord fight and Bunker Hill, sons of Simon Blanch- 
 ard, who was killed at the Battle of Quebec, 1/59. These 
 young men were learning the mason's trade, and could not 
 claim the town of Acton as their birthplace, having been 
 born in what is now the town of Boxboro. 
 
 " The story of Luther Blanchard, fifer, and Francis 
 Barker, drummer, taking their places at the head of the 
 line, striking up the tune of ' The White Cockade,' in 
 my early childhood, strongly appealed to my imagination, 
 and I never visit the historic ground without their almost 
 visably appearing before me. Luther was the first man 
 hit by a British ball at the Old North bridge and went to 
 the house of Humphrey Barrett to have his wound band- 
 aged. 
 
 "On the 24th of April, five days after the Concord 
 fight, Luther Blanchard, together with fifteen other mem- 
 bers of Captain Davis' company, enlisted in Captain Will- 
 iam Smith's company of Lincoln, Colonel John Nixon's
 
 46 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 Regiment, and was at the Battle of Bunker Hill. After 
 the lapse of one hundred and twenty years, through the 
 generosity of one of his kindred, his grandnephew, Mr. 
 Luke Blanchard of Acton, a noble memorial has been 
 erected to his memory. 
 
 "This place has now become one of Acton's shrines, 
 for on this farm dwelt Abner Hosmer, who was killed with 
 Captain Davis at the old North Bridge. 
 
 "The other brother, Calvin, was a member of the 
 Westford company in Colonel William Prescott's Regiment. 
 He was a man of great determination and physical strength, 
 both of which qualities came into great prominence on such 
 a day as the Battle of Bunker Hill. He afterward enlisted 
 in the army that under Arnold made an attempt to capture 
 Quebec in the latter part of 1775, where his father was 
 killed sixteen years before." 
 
 Rev. E. I. Lindh, pastor of the Baptist Church of 
 West Acton, closed the exercises with the dedicatory 
 prayer. 
 
 As in other parts of this publication we have spoken 
 of this memorial stone, it is unnecessary for us to observe 
 further about it here, other than to state that the stone 
 dedicated marks the locality of a homestead from which 
 two notable persons on April igth, 1775, went forth, and 
 from which, perhaps, as many went as from any one house 
 to the Concord fight. For, it was not only the home of 
 Luther Blanchard, the fifer, and Calvin, his brother, but of 
 Abner Hosmer also, who was one of the first to be slain at 
 the bridge. The old house was demolished many years 
 ago, and stood on the very spot now occupied by the dwell- 
 ing-house of Herman A. Gould. It was a large house, up-
 
 X 
 
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 2 
 
 X 
 G 
 W 
 Z. 
 
 re 
 
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 Cfl 
 
 w
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 47 
 
 right in front, with a lean-to roof on the back. It had two 
 rooms in front, with an entry between. A large chimney 
 was midway of the house. The back chambers were low 
 and unfinished. 
 
 Deacon Jonathan Hosmer, the father of Abner, was 
 the first settler on the farm. Nathan Davis Hosmer, 
 grand-son of Deacon Jonathan, built the dwelling-house 
 now standing, and was the last Hosmer to own the farm. 
 
 But as the house and the boys who went from it, so the 
 worthy owner of the house at that time, Deacon Hosmer, 
 should have due recognition for the part he performed in 
 the grand play. The contribution of so many members of 
 his household to attend the frequent drill meetings, that pre- 
 ceded April 1 9th, required considerable time, and may have 
 caused much interruption. The meetings were held about 
 twice a week, from November, 1774, to April, 1775, and 
 according to the deposition of Solomon Smith, a member 
 of Davis' Minute Company, the price paid by the town of 
 Acton for this service was at the rate of eight pence per 
 half day. 
 
 Three young minute-men, making their home in the 
 farm-house, would be almost a small army of itself, and the 
 little squad could "stack arms" about the broad fire-place, 
 and bivouac in miniature beside it, as Luther tuned up 
 with his fife, and the venerable deacon, who was doubtless 
 an old militiaman, instructed the boys in those rudiments 
 of war, which they were already learning in Isaac Davis' 
 door-yard. 
 
 That the heart of this patriotic householder was in the 
 work, even if he could not go himself, is evident from the 
 fact, that during the day of the Concord fight he went out
 
 48 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 to ascertain, if possible, some tidings of the soldiers, and 
 that on his return he groaned, as he passed the window to 
 go into the front door. Jonathan Hosmer was, at the time 
 of the events here related, a deacon in the Acton Congre- 
 gational church, and was sixty-five years old. He died in 
 1775, and it may be that his demise was hastened by the 
 death of his son. 
 
 On the morning of the iQth, the old house was doubt- 
 less made very lively by hearing of the alarm. In a 
 moment, probably, candles gleamed from several windows, 
 and, perhaps, no sooner did Luther, Calvin, and Abner 
 hasten down stairs and through the entry-way than they 
 were met by an anxious mother, who was already 
 hurrying to arouse them; and, as they hurried into the 
 kitchen, we may suppose they found there the deacon, 
 poking from the back log the ashes with which he had 
 banked it the night before, or casting upon the already 
 glowing coals some light brush-wood to hasten the early 
 breakfast. Had the boys not waited for breakfast, how- 
 ever, they would not have gone to the battle-field hungry, 
 for history informs us that for those who arrived at the 
 Davis cottage without having breakfasted, Mrs. Davis pre- 
 pared a morning meal, the men meanwhile employing 
 themselves in making cartridges. 
 
 But while this spot is suggestive of fervor and patriotic 
 endeavor, it is also suggestive of sadness. Two, who went 
 from this home that morning, never came back ; and of all 
 who then went forth, it may be said, they went to die or to 
 suffer. Abner was brought back in the embrace of death, 
 a few hours after he hopefully left his father's door-yard 
 trailing or shouldering his gun, and his prostrate form was
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 49 
 
 borne up the little lane to the door of the Davis cottage, 
 and laid by the form of his faithful leader to await the 
 coming of another, who was soon to join that silent com- 
 pany ; for the funeral of Davis, Hosmer, and James Hay- 
 ward was held in a single service by Rev. John Swift at 
 Captain Davis' late home. Luther was not there to play 
 over the remains " Saul's March," nor to take a last linger- 
 ing look upon the faces of comrades whom he doubtless 
 loved, and with whom he had dared so much ; but with 
 wound irritated by his long pursuit of the British, he rested 
 in barrack or hospital in the college building in Cambridge, 
 only to go later to conflict, and afterward to be borne back, 
 slowly and sadly by relatives or comrades, past the scenes 
 of a few months previous, to find a grave among his ances- 
 tors in the wayside burial place at Littleton. 
 
 The cemetery in which his dust reposes is situated 
 near Littleton Common, and has an area of an acre or two, 
 scattered over which is a growth of tall pines, whose gentle 
 murmuring is not inharmonious with the associations of the 
 place. It is in some respects a typical New England bury- 
 ing ground ; and the irregular position of many of the head 
 stones is evidence of the lapse of long years since the hand 
 of friendship erected them. The older stones bear date as 
 far back as the first half of the eighteenth century, which 
 is indicative of its having been set apart for its present pur- 
 pose about that time. No record is known to exist as to 
 by whom or of whom this consecrated ground was procured. 
 It may have been given by "ye proprietors" to whomsoever 
 would occupy it ; knowing full well that no arrant trespas- 
 ser would lay hold of any of that scant acreage till he was 
 obliged to ; and then, only to hold it in mortmain. The
 
 50 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 markers are mostly slate-stones, and in many instances are 
 not only leaning and sunken, but the quaint epitaphs have 
 become mossgrown and weatherworn. 
 
 In the Blanchard lot, which is in the easterly portion, 
 and near the front entrance, are several stones of this 
 character, upon which are inscriptions as follows: 
 
 " In memory of Mrs. Abigail, wife of Mr. Calvin 
 Blanchard, who died June 12, 1836, ALt 79." 
 
 "Sacred To the memory of Mr. Calvin Blanchard, who 
 died Jan r 2 d 1800. Aged 46. 
 
 "The swee* remembrance of the just, 
 Shall flourish when they sleep in dust." 
 
 "Here lies buried y e Body of John Blanchard, Son of 
 M r Thomas & Mr 8 Sarah Blanchard who Dec d Octo br io th 
 A. D. 1745 Age 26 years loM & 7D." 
 
 No stone was erected to designate the grave of Luther 
 at the time of his burial ; for, as he died leaving neither 
 wife nor children, his grave shared the fate of many an- 
 other at that time, and was left unmarked. 
 
 The Revolutionary age was an age of the bearing of 
 heavy burdens, and it was no lack of affection that allowed 
 the bodies of the beloved dead to repose without a stone to 
 bear them record. The stone that bears the name of Cal- 
 vin, marks the grave of Luther's brother, who went whh 
 him to the North bridge, and was afterward killed by the 
 fall of a tree. 
 
 After the Concord fight, Calvin continued in the service, 
 and we hear of him at the battle of Bunker Hill, in the regi- 
 ment of Colonel Prescott, stationed at the redoubt. He 
 was a man of stout physique, and it is said, that before the
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 51 
 
 battle he assisted in tearing down a barn for material with 
 which to make fortifications, and that he would carry one 
 end of the timber when it required two men to carry the 
 other. As has been stated, Calvin was in the Canada cam- 
 paign with General Arnold in the fall of 17/5, and, while 
 absent, Luther, according to tradition, was borne to his 
 last, long home in Littleton. But while widely separated 
 for a time in life, their mortal remains were not long sepa- 
 rate when life had fled; for, in 1800, Calvin was carried to 
 the same little burial place, and buried where now the pine 
 branches droop or sway with the pleasant breezes, and the 
 wild flowers creep in the spring-time to decorate the turf. 
 
 " So sleep the brave who sink to rest 
 With all their country's wishes blest." 
 
 THE DAVIS MEMORIAL STONE. 
 
 Immediately following the Blanchard dedicatory ser- 
 vices, were those held near the site of the Isaac Davis home. 
 This spot is about one mile westerly of Acton Centre, at 
 the premises of Charles Wheeler. Upon it has been placed 
 a hewn stone, on the side of which, facing the highway, is 
 the following inscription : 
 
 "THIS FARM WAS THE HOME OF 
 
 CAPTAIN ISAAC DAVIS, 
 
 WHO WAS KILLED IN BATTLE BY THE BRITISH 
 
 AT THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE IN CONCORD, 
 
 APRIL 19, 1775." 
 
 An address was made here by the Rev. George F. 
 Clark of West Acton, a part of which is as follows : 
 
 "The story of Captain Isaac Davis and his brave asso- 
 ciates has been frequently told. But it never grows old,
 
 5 a LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 and will not grow old, so long as the love of liberty shall 
 animate the hearts of our citizens. It needs to be retold 
 to coming generations, until throughout the entire world 
 the inalienable rights of men of every race and clime shall 
 be guaranteed. It needs to be rehearsed until 'man's in- 
 humanity to man ' shall no longer 'make countless thou- 
 sands mourn,' and, instead, the ties of universal brotherhood 
 are everywhere acknowledged. 
 
 " Learning of the approach of the enemy, Captain Davis 
 quickly prepared to lead his company to the post of danger. 
 His widow affirmed that her husband 'said but little that 
 morning. He seemed serious and thoughtful, but never 
 seemed to hesitate as to the course of his duty.' The hasty 
 preparations for departure being completed, the march be- 
 gan ; but, having gone a few rods, a halt was called, and 
 Captain Davis returned to the house and bade his wife good- 
 bye, saying: 'Take good care of the children.' On leaving 
 the town, an hour or more after sunrise, Captain Davis 
 said: 'I have a right to go to Concord on the king's high- 
 way, and I intend to go if I have to meet all the British 
 troops in Boston.' This shows the spirit of the man. Ar- 
 riving at the scene of action, about 9 o'clock, he reported 
 to Adjutant Hosmer that he was ready for duty, and took 
 the position assigned him. Soon the decisive moment 
 came. A movement toward the bridge was made, Captain 
 Davis and his company taking the right and leading the 
 van, exclaiming, as he started : ' I haven't a man that is 
 afraid to go!" No, indeed! For he and his brave com- 
 patriots were 
 
 " ' Men, high-minded men, 
 
 Men who their duties know, 
 But know their rights, and, knowing, dared maintain.' '
 
 THE STATUE OF THE MINUTE-MAN. 
 
 Erected Near the Spot Where Luther Blanch' 
 
 ard was Hit by a British Musket-Ball, 
 
 and Capt. Isaac Davis and Abner 
 
 Hosmer Fell April 19th, 1775.
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 OF 
 
 MINUTE-MEN MEMORIAL STONES. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore, 
 
 Who danced our infancy upon their knee, 
 And told our marvelling boyhood legends store, 
 
 Of their strange ventures happ'd by land or sea, 
 How are they blotted from the things that be ? 
 
 How few, all weak, and withered of their force, 
 Wait, on the verge of dark eternity, 
 
 Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse, 
 
 To sweep them from our sight! Time rolls his ceaseless 
 course. 
 
 Yet live there still who can remember well, 
 
 How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew, 
 Both field and forest, dingle, cliff and dell, 
 
 And solitary heath, the signal knew ; 
 And fast the faithful clan around him drew, 
 
 What time the warning note was keenly wound, 
 What time aloft their kindred banner flew, 
 
 While clamorous war-pipes yelled the gathering sound, 
 
 And while the Firey Cross glanced, like a meteor round." 
 
 Scott.
 
 54 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 It is many years since events of greater significance 
 have been celebrated in a Middlesex town, than those now 
 described. Other towns have erected monuments desig- 
 nating battle-fields. Lexington has marked the spot on 
 or near which her citizens fell, at the first fire of the 
 British Regulars ; Concord has her minute-man statue by 
 the side of the Old North bridge ; and Sudbury has a 
 monument commemorative of a conflict between the Colo- 
 nial soldiers and the allied Indian forces of Philip of Poka- 
 noket. But when, before the erection of the memorial 
 stones now dedicated, has individual, town, or municipality 
 erected similar souvenirs of the homes of the Middlesex 
 Minute-men? Yet, what could be more fittingly or appro- 
 priately commemorated ? For, what is more allied by 
 stirring historic association to that formative period of the 
 past, known as the period of '75 and '76, than the dwell- 
 ing-places of these extemporised soldiers? In those 
 humble homes, which were usually the typical New Eng- 
 land farm-house or the quiet cottage of the village artesan, 
 were the hearthstones about which were held those even- 
 ing and neighborhood talks, where great plans were pro- 
 jected, and where influences had their beginnings which 
 reached into far off years. Greater council chambers there 
 have been in the world's history, where, within palace or 
 castle walls, princes and potentates have assembled to 
 shape the courses of nations, but other councils came after 
 them which undid their work, because they who wrought 
 it would not sacrifice themselves to maintain it; but what 
 was done by the minute-men in the council hall of the old 
 farm kitchen, above whose broad, flaring fire-place was the 
 old king's arm snugly nestled amid squashes and herbs,
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 55 
 
 was carried out at all hazards. To mark the sites of such 
 places is noble, and to search for them among the crum- 
 bling brick work of old chimney stacks, where the vagrant 
 Cyprus and the straggling bouncing Bess may now and 
 then disclose a bit of half-burnt brand from the last back- 
 log, is better than searching for diamonds. 
 
 But let us turn from these homes, and consider briefly 
 who these minute-men were. 
 
 The minute-man was created for a military emergency. 
 He was, in this respect, sui generis, and his character and 
 history were unique. He might be too old or too young 
 for a militiaman. He relied upon himself for the accom- 
 plishment of his object ; and he might, perhaps, say, as 
 Roderick Dhu said to Fitzjames : 
 
 " Brave Gael, my pass, in danger tried. 
 Hangs in my belt, and by my side." 
 
 George W. Curtis informed his audience at the Cen- 
 tennial celebration of the Concord fight, that the minute- 
 man of '75 was old Deacon Josiah Haynes of Sudbury, 
 who, at the age of about eighty, went to the Concord fight 
 on horseback; and the historian, Bancroft says: "As 
 the Sudbury company, commanded by the brave Nixon, 
 passed near the South bridge, Josiah Haynes, near eighty 
 years of age, deacon of the Sudbury church, urged an 
 attack on the British stationed there." Perhaps it may 
 be rightly stated that the minute-man of '75 was, for the 
 most part, amenable to no one except to his company 
 officers and his own conscience. 
 
 The officers of the minute companies held no commis- 
 sions from either Congress or Crown. The pay of these
 
 56 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 soldiers was what a town might vote them. And if, on the 
 return for service rendered on April iQth, 1775, money 
 was granted them by a grateful people, it may have been 
 as a gratuity. Says the historian, Bancroft: "The Con- 
 gress of Massachusetts adopted a code for its future army, 
 and authorized a committee of safety to form and pay six 
 companies of artillery; yet they refused to take into pay 
 any part of the militia or minute-men." Thus it was that 
 the minute-man was, in a sense, his own man, and as such 
 he had a right to be a foremost man. Because he was a 
 minute-man he was expected to be at the front and form 
 the firing line. Old Deacon Josiah Haynes had a right to 
 urge the Sudbury company to cross the South bridge, on 
 their way to Concord; and it doubtless was from a sense 
 of deference to Colonel James Barrett, who requested that 
 the company rendezvous at the North bridge, that Captain 
 Nixon acceded and went there, and the result was, that 
 Sudbury did not begin the fight. There perhaps need be 
 no wonder then, as to why Captain Isaac Davis, being 
 the youngest of the assembled company commanders, 
 should be the first to face the British Regulars in organ- 
 ized resistance. He had a right to be first, for he was 
 a minute-man ; and his company had a right to follow him, 
 for it was a minute company. He said, before starting from 
 Acton, as we have stated, that he had a right to go to 
 Concord by the king's highway, and that he should do so if 
 he met all the British troops in Boston ; surely, then, he 
 should not be deterred by waiting for any one to precede 
 him. He knew no toll-gate of stiff etiquette on the coun- 
 ty's highway ; he recognized no turnpike bar of formality ; 
 he would pay no toll except in powder and ball. He had,
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 57 
 
 that morning, fed his men at his own table; they had made 
 cartridges by his fireside, and being a gunsmith, he had, 
 perhaps, furnished some with guns. 
 
 If, then, anyone had a right to go to Concord with- 
 out hindrance, it was this bold leader and his little com- 
 pany. There is little need of controversy, to settle 
 a point, that settles itself, when we consider the circum- 
 stances. Davis hurried to reach the place he started 
 for, and beside him was his faithful fifer, who like his 
 leader was probably hit, because at the front. It was 
 minute-man music that Luther Blanchard played that 
 morning, and perhaps the first strains that the English 
 soldiers heard at Concord were from young Luther's fife, 
 and it may be, that the last notes that faded out with the 
 dying day were those of " The White Cockade," which the 
 young Acton musician may have played when near the 
 Charlestown peninsula, thus reminding the Regulars of 
 the remark of the Roxbury school boy, who said, as Earl 
 Percy started out playing "Yankee Doodle," that they 
 might return to the tune of " Chevy Chace." 
 
 Such were the Middlesex minute-men ; independent, 
 bold to rashness, going from the fireside council of the 
 farm kitchen to the red field of conflict, unflinching, and 
 asking favors of no one. We hear of them among the first 
 to start, and the first to fall. Among the slain along that 
 wayside battle-field, are conspicuous the names of the 
 minute-men, or of those who went with them. 
 
 Probably none were more zealous in the great struggle 
 for American independence than was this class of old yeo- 
 manry. When the conflict was ended they returned to the
 
 58 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 peaceful pursuits of their home-life in a spirit as manly and 
 self-reliant as they went forth in the hour of battle; con- 
 tent to till the soil, and to develope their little home indus- 
 tries for such rewards as their frugality and diligence 
 afforded. They formed a republic on the principles which 
 they had fought to secure; and they were as earnest in its 
 maintenance in town meeting and convention, as they were 
 in securing it in the day of conflict. 
 
 Though the earthly lives of such men may come to an 
 end, yet there is no death to the influence of their illus- 
 trious deeds. It continues with the liberties their efforts 
 and sacrifices have established and maintained. So may it 
 be with each honored name ; may it be perpetuated and 
 given a proper place in history. 
 
 " So let it live unfading, 
 
 The memory of the dead, 
 Long as the pale anemone 
 
 Springs where their tears were shed, 
 Or raining in the summer's wind, 
 
 In flakes of burning red, 
 The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves 
 The turf where once they bled 1 " 
 
 O. W. Holmes,
 
 00 
 
 H 
 
 c 
 
 G 
 en 
 
 m 
 
 n
 
 THE MINUTE-MAN 
 
 AND THE 
 
 NEW ENGLAND MEETING-HOUSE. 
 
 V. 
 
 The going forth to battle of Calvin and Luther Blanch- 
 ard, and the class of soldiers whom they represented, was 
 not a matter of accident or caprice, but was occasioned by 
 influences which had been at work since the Puritan exodus 
 from England to the Massachusetts Bay shores, which be- 
 gan about 1630. These influences were intensely religious. 
 The Puritan's bible, as he read it, was positive in its teach- 
 ings concerning "A church without a bishop, and a state 
 without a king;" and although the New England immi- 
 grant was obliged to build a civic structure under colonial 
 relations to the British crown, he would only tolerate those 
 relations so long as they were righteous, and he could do 
 it consistantly with fealty to God's word. In process of 
 time he found this impossible, hence a resistance to author- 
 ity that resulted in organized revolt. Thus was the Revo- 
 lution the child of pious parentage; and the militia and 
 minute-men who participated in*it were as much an ethical 
 and religious creation as the soldier of Cromwell, about a 
 half century before.
 
 60 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 The visible symbol of what constituted the New Eng- 
 land minute-man was the New England meeting-house, and 
 the living exponent of the principles it set forth was the 
 minister. Back of every movement of the minute-men was 
 a moral and religious mainspring, tempered fine by what 
 was taught in these homely places of worship, perched 
 bleakly among his own home hills, or nestled snugly in 
 his valleys, or upon his intervales. The cause for which 
 he contended was born in the farm-house parsonage of his 
 minister, who, settled for life, was the oracular authority for 
 what was ecclesiastical and civil, if not militant. The 
 principles of his patriotism were preached on Sundays, and 
 the message was considered heaven-sent. The minister 
 was liberally educated. He was the town's statesman, its 
 umpire in matters of dispute, and the teacher of "higher 
 learning." The meeting-house was the place of town meet- 
 ing, as well as church meeting, and the church government 
 was, in a broad sense, democratic. From such associations 
 and agencies came forth the militia and minute-men of 
 '75; and thus it may be seen that he was not a special 
 creation, but an evolved product of slow-moving forces. 
 
 This estimate of the causes which produced the 
 minute-man magnifies him, and puts him on the high plane 
 of intelligence, where he belongs. There is a correspond- 
 ence between his high character and the privileges of the 
 last century, although, to a casual observer, these may 
 appear meager and stinted. It was the loftiness of his pur- 
 poses that gave him his fighting qualities. 
 
 The wonder may be sometimes expressed as to why 
 such intelligence went with the provincial soldier to the 
 battle-field, and why it was that there were "bayonets that
 
 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 6 1 
 
 could think," at a time when the little red school-house had 
 been but recently raised on the small, three-sided patch of 
 the town's common land at the cross-roads, or in some 
 scant corner of a farmer's close ; but the wonder ceases, when 
 we consider that there were other school-houses; that 
 the meeting-house helped to educate, and that the church- 
 going bell was a school bell, and that as surely as its tones 
 from the little belfry on the common called the yeomanry 
 to arms in the first gloaming of that April day of conflict, 
 so surely, on each successive Sabbath in the years that 
 long preceded, it called the householder's family together 
 into the hard, pen-like pews, where they learned that "Re- 
 sistance to tyranny is obedience to God;" that "Taxation, 
 without representation, is wrong;" and that "All men are 
 born free and equal." Without a response to the bell in 
 the first instance there would have been no response in the 
 last. Without a response in the first instance there would 
 have been no midnight messenger riding out into the dark- 
 ness, striking liberty's sparks as he went, and scattering 
 abroad that alarm that aroused the startled land. No 
 amount of arithmetic, or grammar, or geography could 
 make the minute-man of '75 ; it required years of tutorage in 
 those educational processes that were inaugurated at the 
 beginning of each colonial town, when the General Court, 
 that gave it an incorporated existence, made that existence 
 conditional upon its maintenance of a gospel ministry. 
 Hence it was that the minute-man could get along without 
 the school-house better than without the meeting-house 
 and the minister; for his minister was his library, his 
 sermons were his lecture courses, and the Bible his book 
 of all books.
 
 62 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 To show that our position is correct, and to show what 
 the minute-man was in his religious relations, we have only 
 to notice what history says of him in this respect. We are 
 informed by Hon. John S. Keyes, the historian of Concord, 
 that Captain Miles, who commanded a company from that 
 town, stated that "He went to the battle in the same spirit 
 that he went to church;" so it was with other officers of 
 that memorable period, and also of the war period just pre- 
 ceding it. 
 
 General John Nixon, who commanded the regiment 
 at Bunker Hill, in which Luther Blanchard fought, was, in 
 his later life, a member of the Sudbury church. Colonel 
 Josiah Brown, who commanded a regiment in one of the 
 Crown Point expeditions, with which regiment, it is sup- 
 posed, Simon Blanchard was at one time connected, was 
 also prominently connected with this church, and as a token 
 of his regard for it, gave it a piece of land, the proceeds of 
 which were for the supply of the communion elements. 
 Samuel Dakin of Sudbury, who was a captain in Colonel 
 Brown's regiment, in one of the Canada expeditions, thus 
 graphically writes concerning the men of his company, in 
 a letter written to his wife, dated September 25, 1755: 
 "I am in good health, and my company are so obedient to 
 me, and so loving to one another, that it makes my life ex- 
 ceeding comfortable and pleasant. I have never yet heard 
 one thwarting word in my company, but they seem all to 
 have a brotherly care one for another; and have never 
 heard one profane word among them, and their forwardness 
 to attend religious exercises is delightful to me ; so that I 
 have many mercies." In a letter of later date, he writes 
 as follows of his company: "They are all well, and I
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 63 
 
 hope I shall be very happy in my company, and they are 
 ever ready to attend prayers, and singing of Psalms, which 
 we have practiced on our journey." 
 
 In a memorandum of Captain Dakin's, dated Septem- 
 ber 27, 1756, he states as follows: "And now, going on 
 an expedition to Crown Point, I have given myself up 
 wholly to God, to be at his disposal in life or death." It is 
 stated that Rev. Samuel Woodward of Weston, when 
 about one hundred men had gathered at the house of Cap- 
 tain Samuel Lamson, on the morning of April igth., offered 
 prayer, and then, seizing a musket, went with the company 
 in pursuit of the regulars. 
 
 We are informed of Rev. John Swift of Acton, that as 
 Captain Davis and his men swept past his house, while 
 Luther Blanchard was playing his fife, he flung after them 
 a pastor's blessing. It was from the house of a deacon in 
 the Acton church, that the three young men, Abner 
 Hosmer, Calvin, and Luther Blanchard went forth; and 
 James Hayward, one of the slain, was the son of another 
 deacon of the same church. 
 
 Such was the moral and religious make-up of the 
 militia and minute-men of '75; and such are some of the 
 elements of which their character was constituted. In 
 the world's extended annals, perhaps no man was ever 
 better fitted for his task, and, it may be, results more 
 noble or lofty were never more quickly achieved. Born of 
 such noble purposes, bred in such humble temples, and with 
 a dauntless spirit, made ironclad against cowardice by an 
 unfaltering faith in God, but with such rude accouterments 
 as would invite defeat, he went forth and made a throne
 
 64 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 tremble, and the right hand of its proud despot loosen its 
 grasp on an oppressed continent. 
 
 At the day's dawning of April iQth, the red cross of St. 
 George danced gayly on the folds of a flag whose prestige 
 was a power to them who fought beneath it ; at the day's 
 declining that banner had drooped, and many who followed 
 it had fallen never to rise till the great resurrection. They 
 had met the militia and minute-men. They had seen writ- 
 ten upon the wall in unmistakable characters, the truth 
 that "bayonets could think," though they who carried them 
 had only been taught of God by their ministers, in their 
 humble meeting-houses among their farms, on their rugged 
 hills. Yes, true it was, that, by a courage born of their 
 character, the militia and minute-men changed the flag of 
 America between sun and sun on April iQth. Sublimely 
 has the poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, described the con- 
 trast in those weary, war-vexed hours, in his poem, "The 
 Battle of Lexington," of which the following is a part : 
 
 " Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing, 
 
 Never to shadow his cold brow again ; 
 Proudly at morning the war steed was prancing : 
 Reeking and panting he droops on the rein ; 
 Pale is the lip of scorn, 
 Voiceless the trumpet horn, 
 Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high ; 
 Many a belted breast 
 Low on the earth shall rest, 
 Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed by.
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 65 
 
 " Snow-gilded crags where the hoarse wind is raving, 
 
 Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, 
 Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, 
 Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale ; 
 
 Far as the tempest thrills, 
 
 Over the darkened hills, 
 Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, 
 
 Roused by the tyrant band, 
 
 Woke all the mighty land, 
 Girded for battle, from mountain to main. 
 
 " Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying ; 
 Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest 
 While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying 
 
 Wraps the proud eagle they roused from her nest : 
 
 Borne on her Northern pine, 
 
 Long o'er the foaming brine 
 Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun ; 
 
 Heaven keep her ever free, 
 
 Wide as o'er land and sea 
 Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won.'
 
 THE DESIGN 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BLANCHARD MEMORIAL STONE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 He, who preserves one fragment of history that would 
 otherwise be lost, is like one who makes two blades of 
 grass grow where but one grew before, a public benefactor; 
 and he who makes prominent an historic event, that had 
 hitherto been kept too obscure, performs an act which is 
 akin to its preservation. 
 
 To render a service of this latter character is one 
 object of the donor of this memorial stone. Luke Blanch- 
 ard has sought to do justice to one whose well-deserved 
 merit entitles him to a place with his compatriots Davis, 
 Hosmer, and Hay ward, whose remains repose within the 
 granite mausoleum at Acton center. 
 
 That these four Acton minute-men should be equally 
 honored admits of no doubt. Together they marched 
 down the little country lane that led out into the great 
 world on that calm April morning ; and, together hurried 
 to Concord whither it was said by the midnight messenger 
 that the foe was rapidly hastening ; together they stood on
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 67 
 
 the bank of the Concord river, when it alone separated 
 them from some of the best troops of the British throne ; 
 together they stood, as their leader offered them an 
 early sacrifice upon their country's altar ; and shoulder to 
 shoulder they met the enemy and received his fire. 
 
 Yes, as they were not separated in life, so in death 
 they should not be divided. So thought the donor of this 
 memorial stone, and suiting the action to the noble thought 
 he set about erecting that which gives a like prominence 
 to them all. Truly, as Daniel Webster exclaimed at the 
 dedication of Bunker Hill monument, "A duty has been 
 done;" and as in years to come other generations shall 
 make a pilgrimage to this new tribute to departed worth, 
 and shall read the inscription on the one side as it sets 
 forth the name and brief history of Luther Blanchard, the 
 Revolutionary fifer, they will turn with satisfaction and 
 read also the inscription on the other: 
 
 "ERECTED IN 1895 
 
 BY LUKE BLANCHARD, 
 
 GRAND-NEPHEW OF LUTHER." 
 
 The work that has been accomplished by the erection 
 of this new memorial is supplemental to the great service 
 done by the State and the Town of Acton in 1851, when it 
 erected the so-called Davis monument to the memory of 
 Captain Isaac Davis, Abner Hosmer, and James Hayward. 
 
 Why the name of Luther Blanchard was not inscribed 
 on that memorial may, perhaps, in part be accounted for 
 by the fact that he was not a native of Acton ; and if the 
 design was only to record the names of such as were native- 
 born citizens, this explains it.
 
 68 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 But we think this is hardly a sufficient reason for such 
 a notable omission, for Acton was the town of Luther 
 Blanchard's adoption; and though born in the adjacent 
 territory, which is now Boxboro, the proximity of the 
 two places was such as might well lead them to hold hon- 
 ors in common. Small difference then should it make as 
 to the relationship of nativity in this instance. But another 
 reason that may be assigned for the unfortunate omission 
 is that young Blanchard died of a wound, and was not 
 killed outright. But so did James Hayward die of a 
 wound. Though he was struck by a musket bullet a short 
 distance from Lexington yet he lingered for some hours. 
 Even if the wound received by Luther Blanchard at the 
 North bridge had not proved fatal, although there is no 
 evidence to show that it was not that wound which, irri- 
 tated by hard service in the entrenchments at Bunker Hill, 
 caused his death, it is no reason for giving him a second 
 place in history. Tradition says he died of a wound re- 
 ceived in battle; and if so, it makes no difference when or 
 where. 
 
 He was one of Acton's Revolutionary martyrs, and 
 was laid upon his country's altar; and no monument to the 
 memory of her illustrious children, who fell upon that first 
 memorable morning, can be complete without his name. 
 In erecting, then, this simple memorial, though it be not 
 as imposing in its material proportions as yonder shaft 
 that rises above those other noble slain, yet in its humble 
 symplicity it says as much to the world, and hence, he who 
 erected it is as surely a public benefactor as they who, out 
 of the treasury of a great Commonwealth, have done that 
 which in its material relations is more imposing.
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 69 
 
 In selecting a suitable stone as a marker of the spot from 
 which his grandfather and grand-uncle went forth to battle, 
 Luke Blanchard had the good taste to take one from the 
 adopted town of those whose deeds it was to commemorate. 
 He selected a natural stone on the soil of Acton, and 
 with painstaking had it suitably inscribed and placed in 
 its present position. In the selection of a memorial 
 stone of such a character, the donor has done an act that 
 is suggestive of the great truth, that it is neither " Storied 
 urn nor animated bust" that make mementoes interesting 
 and valuable, but the character of that which is commemo- 
 rated. The donor of this monument might, out of his 
 abundant resources, have erected a massive memorial of 
 marble or of bronze, but he has taught us by this simple 
 selection, that a name may make anything great, and that 
 a mere boulder from any of our New England hills, if in- 
 scribed with the name of a minute-man of '75, may serve as 
 good a purpose as column or pyramid. 
 
 In the erection of a memorial of this kind, more may 
 be accomplished by the donor than we at first suppose. It 
 stands there as a faithful guide-post of freedom, pointing to 
 the path that our fore-fathers trod to obtain it. The way 
 that led from the humble home of Luther Blanchard to the 
 old North bridge was, for all the ardent youth knew, a path- 
 way to the grave, or to exile, or a British prison. The out 
 come of the strife was uncertain, for the issue none could 
 foresee. But the glorious, objective point to those patriotic 
 spirits was as clear and distinct as the sun in the heavens 
 on that bright spring day. What was it to him or his com- 
 rades " Though the paths of glory lead but to the grave," 
 they would walk in them, nevertheless, for it was freedom's
 
 70 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 way they trod, and the priceless boon, for which his father 
 had fallen on the far-off plains of Quebec, was to him as 
 precious as it was to his sire. And as the traveller stops 
 by this niche in the road by the quiet country-side, he reads 
 on that granite surface, that they who would have rights in- 
 alienable must maintain them at a cost it may be of all that 
 is dearest. Surely, then, this humble tribute is more than 
 a mere marker of where Luther and Calvin Blanchard once 
 lived, and of the farm from which one went to an early 
 grave, and from which both went forth to glory; it is 
 a guide-board to liberty for the generations to come, and 
 points the way in which we are to preserve our heritage. 
 
 Space forbids further suggestions that come from the 
 service done by the donor of the stone. It speaks for itself, 
 as it stands alone by the wayside. The tired school boy, 
 as he rests for a moment beside it, the teamster and the 
 toiling laborer, as they pass it in their daily round of duty, 
 the curious traveller and the errandless tramp, all may alike 
 be benefitted as they catch new inspiration, when reminded 
 by this wayside souvenir of the great nobility of man, when 
 it is brought to its highest endeavor in a noble cause.
 
 SIMON BLANCHARD, 
 
 Son of Calvin, and Grandson of Simon who was Killed 
 at Quebec, 1759.
 
 ANCESTRAL ANNALS 
 
 OF 
 
 CALVIN AND LUTHER BLANCHARD. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Thomas, the first ancestor of Calvin and Luther 
 Blanchard in America, of whom we have any knowledge, 
 came to this country from near Andover, England, with 
 his son George, born in 1616, on the ship Jonathan, in 
 1639; and by the best authority obtainable by us, settled 
 in Braintree, Mass. The name of Thomas Blanchard is 
 on the record of that town as early as 1648, and is also 
 found there some years later. At just what date he took his 
 departure for Maiden, or what was the cause of his change 
 of abode, we have not ascertained. There is reason, how- 
 ever, for the supposition, that a land purchase from a for- 
 mer pastor of the Braintree church was a chief factor in 
 the case, as history informs us, that Thomas Blanchard, on 
 February 12, 1650-1651, bought a farm of Rev. John 
 Wilson, minister of Braintree, for two hundred pounds. 
 The Wilson-Blanchard farm was in the southerly part of 
 the territory of Maiden, near the border of the marsh land. 
 The farm included the entire promontory, which projects
 
 72 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 out into the marshes near the mouth of the north creek 
 of the Mystic river, and the place was formerly known 
 as "Wilson's Point," and " Blanchard's Point." Its area 
 extended from the Mystic to the small stream or creek, 
 which separates Medford and Maiden ; and from the north 
 creek easterly of the Craddock grant, according to historian 
 Corey, who states, that, until as late as 1855, traces of the 
 cellar and chimney could be seen upon the highest point 
 of the Wellington farm. After the death of Thomas 
 Blanchard, which occurred in 1654, the house and land 
 was divided between two of his sons, George and Nathaniel ; 
 and the latter, in 1657, sold half of his land to his younger 
 brother Samuel, who was at that time building a second 
 house on the estate. In process of time, John Guppy 
 acquired a one-quarter right to the Wilson estate of 
 Nathaniel Blanchard, which was bounded on the north by 
 Nowell's creek, which separates Medford from that part 
 of Maiden now Edgeworth. A house on the place subse- 
 quently went into the possession of Thomas Shepard. 
 
 Some of the Blanchards long lived in the vicinage of 
 the ancestral domains, but by 1795, the last landholder 
 bearing the Blanchard name had left the locality. Years, 
 however, before the paternal estate was wholly abandoned, 
 and conveyed to others, the exodus of one or more repre- 
 sentatives of the family, to the territory of what is now 
 Littleton, had taken place ; for, as before observed, we hear 
 of Joseph Blanchard, the grandfather of Calvin and Luther, 
 on the ground as early, at least, as 1717-1718. The 
 causes that led Joseph to take up his abode there, were, 
 we believe, two-fold, viz. : The purchase of a large land 
 tract there by Ralph Shepard, a neighbor of his family ;
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 73 
 
 and the marriage of Joseph, his father, son of George 
 Blanchard, to Hannah Shepard, who, we conjecture, was a 
 daughter of Ralph Shepard, formerly an inhabitant of the 
 territory of Charlestown, now Maiden. As this conjecture, 
 however, is not based directly on the data of record, but is 
 the result of inference, it is proper to state our reasons for 
 the inference, which are as follows : 
 
 ist. We are informed, as a matter of history, that 
 Joseph, son of George Blanchard, born 1654, married Han- 
 nah Shepard. 
 
 2d. In 1635, Ralph Shepard, with his wife, Thank- 
 lord or Thankslord, aged 23, and his daughter Sarah, aged 
 2, came to America from Stepney Parish, London, Eng- 
 land, on the ship Abigail, and after living for a short time 
 in Dedham, Weymouth and Rehoboth, settled in Maiden. 
 
 3d. The following record is found in the Proceed- 
 ings of the Littleton Historical Society: "Sarah, born 
 
 1633; Abraham, ; Isaac, born June 20, 1639; Triall, 
 
 born December 19, 1641, married, 1660, Walter Powers; 
 Thankful, born February 10, 1650; Jacob, born June, 
 I ^53; (perhaps) Ralph, who died January 20, 1711 or 
 12; (perhaps) Daniel ; Mary, born about 1660-62." 
 
 4th. We are informed that the foregoing record is 
 made up, at least in part, from tradition, and is not claimed 
 to be complete. 
 
 5th. In that early period of our country, probably, 
 a record of births and deaths was not so carefully kept as 
 in an age which makes the keeping of records compulsory ; 
 and, as a matter of fact, as is well known to historians, 
 omissions on public records, of names and dates pertaining 
 to families, are not unusual.
 
 74 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 6th. The sons, Ralph and Daniel, who have, by con- 
 jecture, been assigned to the years 1653 anc * 1660, may 
 have been born between 1641 and 1650, and in the interim 
 between 1653 and 1660 one or more children may have had 
 birth and, if so, they would be of about the age of Joseph 
 Blanchard, who married Hannah Shepard. 
 
 7th. We have found, upon examination of the gene- 
 alogy of other Shepard families, no one, oi which we con- 
 sider it probable, that Hannah, the wife of Joseph Blanch- 
 ard, was a member. 
 
 8th. The homesteads of the Blanchards and Shepards 
 were not far distant from each other. Ralph Shepard's 
 house was situated in what was called " Bell Rock pasture," 
 which was, probably, in the vicinity of what is known as 
 "Bell Rock burying ground," near which there is a station 
 on the Saugus branch of the Boston & Maine railroad. 
 This burying ground, and probably also the pasture here 
 referred to, took their names from the fact that a bell was 
 placed near there which, in the early settlement of the 
 town, was used to call the inhabitants to meeting. The 
 house of Ralph Shepard, and a lot of land, of about four- 
 teen acres, which belonged to the homestead, was purchased 
 in 1666 by the Rev. Benjamin Bunker, a minister, who was 
 ordained in Maiden, December 9, 1663, and who, at one 
 time, owned land in Charlestown, about Bunker Hill. The 
 Shepard homestead is described as lying north of the par- 
 sonage and meeting-house lots, on both sides of "Penny 
 Ferry," which crossed the Mystic river, in the locality of 
 the present Maiden bridge. 
 
 9th. The location of the Blanchard and Shepard farms 
 made the families, for those times, neighbors. They were
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 75 
 
 probably worshipers at the little meeting-house near Bell 
 Rock, where the children associated on Sundays, and, per- 
 haps, they attended the same school, which may have been 
 the one which Ralph Shepard petitioned might be kept at 
 his house, but which petition was not granted. The marshes, 
 outstretching between Blanchard's Point and the home of 
 Ralph Shepard at Bell Rock, were only at times overflowed 
 with the tide water, which came up the Mystic river, and the 
 little estuaries, which may have run between the two places 
 here and there on the marsh land, would hardly form a 
 barrier, at low tide, to the neighborly visits of the two 
 families. 
 
 loth. Ralph Shepard, some time subsequent to 1663, 
 purchased a large land tract of six hundred and ten 
 acres, of Lieutenant Joseph Wheeler, of Concord, who 
 in turn received it from the government. This land 
 lay in the form of a triangle, according to Mr. Harwood, 
 the local historian, and was situated between the Indian 
 plantation of Nashoba, and what is now Westford. It is 
 stated, that in the tract of land, at or near the Elbridge 
 Marshall farm, was the home of Joseph Blanchard. " Na- 
 gog pond formed the base of the triangle, and the apex 
 was two miles one-quarter and sixty rods north from the 
 south-west end of Nagog pond, which would bring it to a 
 point on the Westford line, on or near the Deacon Man- 
 ning farm, but south of the road." 
 
 nth. A large part of the Shepard family moved to 
 the Littleton territory, and settled on land in the locality 
 of the paternal purchase; and among these was Walter 
 Powers the husband of Triall Shepard, who bought land of 
 his father-in-law, and took possession of it as early as 1666.
 
 76 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 In view of these circumstances, we believe the fair infer- 
 ence is, that Joseph Blanchard married Hannah, a daughter 
 of Ralph Shepard, and that her name, like that of many 
 another member of a large family, in that busy and prac- 
 tical period of colonial life, was not placed on record, as 
 may have been the case with others of his children ; and we 
 believe that the prime cause of Walter Powers' and Joseph 
 Blanchard's going to Littleton territory was the land pur- 
 chase of their father-in-law, Ralph Shepard. 
 
 As undisputed tradition locates the birthplace of Cal- 
 vin and Luther Blanchard on the farm now occupied by 
 Mr Albert Littlefield of Boxboro, a short distance northerly 
 of the Boxboro railroad station, it may be that Simon, their 
 father, came into possession of this farm, either by inherit- 
 ance or purchase, and built upon it the house which origin- 
 ally stood there ; or, it may be, that Joseph Blanchard, the 
 father of Simon and Jemima, moved from his early estate 
 on the Ralph Shepard purchase, and established a new 
 homestead on the farm afterwards occupied by Simon, and 
 where Luther and Calvin were born. 
 
 There is evidence of more than one of the Blanchard 
 family being early in Littleton territory ; for, in the old 
 burying-ground of that town is, as we have noticed, a grave- 
 stone to John Blanchard, son of Thomas, who died October 
 10, 1745, aged nearly twenty-seven years. 
 
 As we have now traced the paternal and maternal an- 
 cestry of Calvin and Luther Blanchard to about the be- 
 ginning of their history, as it is related to their Littleton 
 life, let us now notice something about the territory in 
 which they located. 
 
 The tract of country, in which the Blanchards and
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 77 
 
 Shepards lived, teemed with Indian reminiscences. It was 
 once the home of Tahattawan, a chief of the Nashoba In- 
 dians, who, until the demoralization and devastation of 
 Philip's war, lived in peaceful and pleasant occupation in a 
 region whose sunny hillsides furnished abundant game, 
 whose valleys and plain-lands furnished planting places for 
 their corn, and where the little woodland lakelets of Nagog 
 and Fort ponds supplied plenty of fish and wild water-fowl. 
 Surely, Tahattawan and Pennakennit, who came after him, 
 had ample reason for selecting such a place for a mis- 
 sion home; and as the blessed light of Christianity was 
 let in upon the hearts of these children of the woods, well 
 may we suppose that its results were no less perceptible 
 and benign, than the sunlight that came down through the 
 treetops, on the deep forest shade. That this was so, 
 history gives abundant evidence, for so manifest were the 
 graces, as developed by the entrance of God's word, that 
 the colonial authorities made good use of these Christian 
 Indians in negotiating with King Philip for the ransom of 
 captives. Thomas Dublet, or Nepanet, was an agent 
 in the release of Mrs. Rowlandson, who was captured at 
 Lancaster, and was afterward ransomed near the foot of 
 Wachuset mountain, Princeton, Mass., at or near a spot 
 now marked by a memorial. 
 
 The wigwam of Thomas Dublet, tradition states, was 
 near the Joel Proctor place. It is said that the fragment 
 of a pot presented by Mr. Proctor, and supposed to have 
 been Thomas Dublet's, is in the Reuben Hoar Library at 
 Littleton. If the supposition concerning it is correct, 
 the associations suggested by it are exceedingly interesting; 
 for Sarah Dublet, the wife of Thomas, may many a time
 
 78 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 have stood over it and stirred the savory contents of potted 
 venison, or pigeon or wild turkey, which was, perhaps, sea- 
 soned with sweet herbs, that grew in the garden plots of 
 the Powerses, the Shepards and the Blanchards, and were 
 generously granted her for the picking. But the hearth of 
 Sarah's wigwam is cold, and from it the smoke no longer 
 curls upward through the treetops, indicatiug the presence 
 of an Indian abode. In the act of incorporation of the 
 town of Littleton, in 1714, Sarah Dublet is supposed to 
 be referred to in the statement " And that Five hundred 
 Acres of Land be reserved and laid out for the Benefit of 
 any of the Descendants of the Indian Proprietors of the 
 Said Plantation that may be surviving; a Proportion thereof 
 to be for Sarah Dublet, alias Sarah Indian." The reser- 
 vation thus made was the origin of the Littleton hamlet, 
 called Indian New-town. Sarah Dublet, in 1734, was the 
 only heir to this five hundred acres, and old and decrepit, 
 she at length conveyed it to pay for her maintenance. 
 
 The original dwelling of the Blanchards was probably 
 constructed of logs, and the inmates were exposed to the 
 hardships of pioneer life in New England in the last part 
 of the seventeeth century ; and, probably, Joseph himself 
 frequently held such watch and ward over his possessions 
 as the times, made perilous by the predatory incursions of 
 the Northern and Eastern Indians, required for years after 
 the close of King Philip's war. Doubtless the narration 
 of events, then recent, and the daring and fortitude ex- 
 hibited by his relatives, led Simon, the son of Joseph, and 
 father of Calvin and Luther, who was born October 5, 1728, 
 to enlist in his country's service. But not only was the 
 neighborhood which was occupied by the Powerses, Shep-
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 79 
 
 ards and Blanchards rife with thrilling traditions, but 
 it also contained landmarks and other objects that were 
 rich in historic association. 
 
 Near Nashoba Hill, Walter Powers, an uncle of Joseph, 
 erected, as is supposed, a " block house," the near neigh- 
 borhood of which, if not the exact site, is still pointed out. 
 The presence of this old garrison building, although in 
 times of tranquility it was a mere defensive farmhouse, was 
 suggestive of what was war-like, and of ominous reports of 
 Indians, which had more than once sent the little house- 
 holds of the neighborhood from their warm firesides to this 
 friendly stronghold for protection. But, probably, an event, 
 which, more than any other, tended to make an impression 
 upon Simon in his boyhood, was a sad mishap which befell 
 three of the Shepard family, Isaac, Jacob and Mary, by 
 which the two brothers lost their lives and the sister was 
 captured. The event occurred on February 12, 1675-1676, 
 just after the burning of Lancaster by the forces 
 under King Philip. Isaac and Jacob Shepard were 
 threshing grain in the barn, south of the house, on the 
 south side of the lane to the present Pickard place, near 
 the road. They had stationed their sister Mary, aged 
 fifteen years, on Quagana hill, to watch for Indians, but 
 she was taken by surprise and captured, her two brothers 
 were killed, and the building was burned. Mary was 
 taken away by the band of savages, but escaped the follow- 
 ing night upon a horse, which the historian Hubbard 
 states, was captured by the Indians the day before at Lan- 
 caster. 
 
 As the old Powers block-house and its neighborhood 
 are closely associated with Calvin and Luther's ancestry,
 
 80 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 they, perhaps, require more than a passing notice. The 
 house stood near Nashoba hill, and was long known as the 
 Reed house, because it was occupied later by Mr. Samuel 
 Reed. It was about a story and a half high, and had two 
 rooms on the ground floor, and two chambers or attic 
 rooms. It was destroyed by fire about 1828. The site of 
 the building, it is believed by the Littleton Historical 
 Society, has been nearly or quite definitely ascertained, 
 and that the house was undoubtedly built and originally 
 used by Walter Powers. 
 
 In the vicinity of the block-house is what was, prob 
 ably, the first burying-ground of the early grantees. This 
 has been called the Powers burying-ground, and is said to 
 have contained an area of about eight rods by six. Years 
 ago, about a score of small rude grave-stones were visible, 
 standing about two feet out of the ground, having brief 
 inscriptions upon them. The bodies were buried with feet 
 toward a wall, which extended on one side of this burial 
 plot. In this ground, the body of Walter Powers was 
 undoubtedly interred ; and it may have been originally set 
 apart by him as a family burial place, and perhaps most of 
 the bodies buried there, were of the Shepard, Powers, and 
 Blanchard households. 
 
 Several years ago a simple, natural stone was found in 
 the wall, near the premises, bearing the inscription, " W. P., 
 1708," the day of the month, which was also given, corres- 
 ponding within two or three days with the date of Walter 
 Powers' death, in the Concord records. As other similar 
 stones, it is said, have been discovered thereabouts, it is 
 evident they were removed from the old graves by some
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 8 1 
 
 one who cleared this ancient burial place of the forefathers 
 for the plow, which subsequently obliterated the mounds. 
 At what date this spot ceased to be used for interments 
 is not known, but, as one of the earliest dates in the Little- 
 ton Common graveyard is 1717 or 1718, and no stone bears 
 the name of Powers or Shepard, and but three bear the 
 name of Blanchard, we conclude that the little, lone spot, 
 east of the hollow by the wall, contains the dust of those 
 ancient householders, but this region, once so identified 
 with these three family names, long since ceased to hear 
 them spoken, except as belonging to parties living else- 
 where. Other families have taken their places; not a fur- 
 row in a Littleton field is now turned by a Blanchard; not 
 an acre is tilled by a Powers or a Shepard, but the whole 
 range of territory, from the old garrison-house, through 
 " Newton " or " Newtowne," where Thomas Blanchard 
 owned meadow land, to the Albert Littlefield farm, the 
 early home of Calvin and Luther, is now trodden by 
 stranger footsteps, and inhabited by those not to the 
 ancient " manor born." The little plot, which probably 
 contains what is mortal of the pioneer grantees of the I7th 
 century, alone keeps its treasure, notwithstanding that 
 which indicated its whereabouts has been so unfortunately 
 removed, as if the living begrudged the resting places of 
 the dead. But even this little which remains will yet 
 waste; and not until the great resurrection morning, will 
 that be restored which will give a semblance of the prime 
 actors who have long been silent. But, though dead, their 
 influence, and the results of what they did is still active. 
 The present is a product of a busy past, and while the old 
 woodland walls have tumbled, and the loose stones lie
 
 82 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 moss-grown in the shrubbery, and the land ranges have be- 
 come indistinct, yet the greater community that has come 
 in, with its improved schools and more comfortable home- 
 steads, are but the outgrowth of the noble efforts of those 
 who, by their sturdy toil, thus early staked out their claims 
 and established their rude boundary lines. 
 
 Not only did Joseph, the younger, live in a period in 
 which the events and traditions connected with Philip's 
 war were fresh, but he lived when he himself was an actor 
 in stirring scenes of a similar character. It was the first 
 quarter of the Eighteenth century when the drear wood- 
 lands again rang with the savage shout, and the fair inter- 
 vals were again to be fought over by the settlers. The foe 
 might at any time be seen in his doorway, or he might at 
 any time discover signs of lurking savages, who were 
 lying in wait to kill or capture their victims and 
 burn his dwelling. The sound of a musket fired in the far 
 off forest, an unusual smoke rising upward on the hazy 
 horizon, the strange imprint of a moccasined foot in the 
 soft meadow land, the return from the pasture path of a 
 wounded cow, a herd of deer fleeing affrighted through 
 the clearing, all of these might be omens that betokened 
 danger, and rendered the ordinary life of Joseph Blanchard 
 one of watchfulness and suspense. 
 
 This was the period of the daring ranger expeditions 
 which called for a sagacity and military prowess that were 
 exceptional. In this service Joseph's own townspeople 
 and kinsmen were engaged. In one of these expeditions 
 Ephraim Powers, with seventeen others were attacked 
 by Indians, while on the march from Northfield to Fort 
 Dummer. Jonathan Lawrence, a comrade of Powers, was
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 83 
 
 captured and taken to Canada. Powers was stripped, 
 robbed of his firearms and wounded in the head. In the 
 ill-starred expedition of Lieut.-Col. John Winslow to Nova 
 Scotia, in 1755, were several soldiers from Littleton, among 
 whom were David and Walter Powers, husbandmen. This 
 is the expedition that took the French Neutrals, so called, 
 from their pleasant homes in Arcadia, which event the 
 poet Longfellow has made pathetically prominent in his 
 poem, " Evangeline." Some of the neutrals, who were re- 
 moved, were brought to Littleton. They are called on the 
 town records, "Neuters." This unfortunate class was 
 billeted out among the towns of the Bay Province, and 
 were the wards of the places to which they were assigned. 
 Thus was the age and environment of Simon Blanch- 
 ard's father of a nature suited to stamp its impress 
 upon the children ; and it is no wonder that when the last 
 of the dark and eventful intercolonial wars between Eng- 
 land and France set in, Simon, who was born October 6, 
 1728, should enlist in that perilous service, which brought 
 the soldier face to face with, perhaps, one of the worst 
 combinations of men that ever engaged in civilized warfare; 
 a mongrel element of Indians, French and halfbreeds. As 
 the conflict waged by the English was mainly by expedi- 
 tions into a cold, rough country, the hardship was unusu- 
 ally severe. We conclude Simon was in several expedi- 
 tions. 
 
 His name is among a list of men certified to, Septem- 
 ber 27, 1755, belonging to Col. Josiah Brown's regiment; 
 as engaged in the expedition against Crown Point. (State 
 Archieves, vol. 93, page 206). His name is also on a mus- 
 ter-roll, dated Boston, March 4, 1758, of a company under
 
 84 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 command of Captain Daniel Fletcher. Entered service 
 September 1 5 ; served until September 30. (State Archives, 
 vol. 94, page 71). He is also spoken of in connection with 
 the Crown Point expedition, year not given, but probably 
 1755; reported sick at home. 
 
 His last and crowning act of service was at the capture 
 of Quebec, which took place December 17, 1759. This 
 place was captured by General Wolf and his daring army 
 of English and colonial soldiers, who made their way up a 
 narrow pathway above the St. Lawrence river, and at early 
 morning surprised Montcalm, the French commander, on 
 the plains of Abraham. In the conflict that ensued Gen- 
 eral Wolf fell, with many of his triumphant followers, and 
 among these was Simon Blanchard. 
 
 In this connection a few facts may be interesting rela- 
 tive to the expedition that Calvin engaged in, to take from 
 the English the same capital city of Canada, that his father, 
 but a few years before, helped them to conquer from the 
 French. This expedition started in September, 1775. It 
 is thus described by the historian Quackenbos: "No one 
 can estimate the hardships that devoted band were called 
 on to endure ; now forcing their way through tangled 
 thickets and over pathless mountains; and now wading 
 through swollen rivers, pushing their boats before them, or 
 borne away by rapids and struggling for life amid the 
 waves; worn out, sick, cold, hungry, disheartened. Not a 
 few gave up the expedition, and returned to Massachusetts. 
 With some of his bravest men, Arnold pushed on to a 
 French village for supplies, leaving the rest of his force in 
 a most critical position. The last ox was killed and dis- 
 tributed; the last dog was eaten with avidity; then roots
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 85 
 
 and moose-skin moccasins were their only resource. When 
 the aid sent back by Arnold reached the famished band, 
 they had eaten nothing for two days. Even such suffering, 
 however, could not discourage these brave hearts." 
 
 In 1760, administration papers were granted for the 
 settlement of the estate of Simon Blanchard. One of the 
 sureties on the probate bond was Sarah, the widow of 
 Joseph Blanchard. According to the inventory filed the 
 estate was appraised as follows: Real estate, i6o;; per- 
 sonal property, 62 i6s 6d; total 212 i6s 6d. Among 
 the assets was given the following item : "And also wages 
 due for his services done His Majesty at Quebec, 
 29 is." Among the charges the first item was: "To 
 mourning for herself and children." From the report of 
 the appraisers, relative to the real property, we are led to 
 infer that Simon Blanchard's farm was adjacent to lands 
 of his father, for they give the boundary lines on the north- 
 westerly and southwesterly, as lying along "land and 
 meadow of Joseph Blanchard." The children being minors, 
 guardians were appointed for them. Joseph Worster serv- 
 ing for Calvin, and Ephraim Hosmerfor Luther. Accord- 
 ing to tradition, a portion, at least, of the home farm passed 
 into the hands of Calvin, born February 27, 1754. Calvin 
 married Abigail Reed of Westford. They had nine chil- 
 dren, among whom was Simon, who was born in Boxboro, 
 April 3, 1784. As the oldest son, Calvin, kept the home- 
 place, Simon went to Littleton, where he learned the 
 cooper's trade of Joseph Fletcher. After working at his 
 trade seven years he married Martha Shattuck, a descend- 
 ant of Rev. Benjamin Shattuck, first minister of Littleton. 
 They had two children. October 27, 1814, Simon married
 
 86 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 for his second wife, Mary, daughter of Joseph and Sarah 
 Keyes of Westford. They were the parents of nine chil- 
 dren, among whom was Luke, the third son. 
 
 LUKE BLANCHARD. 
 
 A memorial volume, commemorative of Calvin and 
 Luther Blanchard would, perhaps, hardly be complete 
 without a short, biographical sketch of the publisher. 
 
 Luke Blanchard was born in Boxboro, January 17, 
 1826. His early life was spent on his father's farm, and, 
 like most country children, he was busily occupied with 
 such work as a boy could do, and received but scanty 
 school privileges. At the age of eleven he commenced 
 driving an ox-team to Boston ; a work which tended to test 
 his patience, and by the vicissitudes of the weather, to test 
 also the strength of his physique. 
 
 The boy successfully endured the tests, and at the age of 
 twenty-one, after having attended school at Nashua, N. H., 
 one term, he started out for himself as a dealer in country 
 produce, which business he has successfully pursued up to 
 the present time. Besides conducting an extensive com- 
 mission trade in country produce, he has dealt extensively 
 in real property, and is also engaged in the lumber busi- 
 ness. His landed possessions are situated in several of 
 the states, and also in the British provinces. 
 
 The commission office and headquarters of the Blanch- 
 ards are at No. 20, Quincy Market, South Market street, 
 Boston, where Luke Blanchard, with his son, Arthur F., 
 born January 21, 1864, do business under the firm name of 
 L. Blanchard and Company.
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 87 
 
 Mr. Luke Blanchard married Miss Jerusha Vose, April 
 8, 1858. They are the parents of four children, two of whom 
 are living. Each of the surviving children reside at West 
 Acton, Anna is a member of her father's household. Ar- 
 thur married Miss Charlotte T. Sanderson, daughter of Hon. 
 George W. Sanderson of Littleton, January 28, 1891. 
 
 Mr. Blanchard is, for a person of his age, in fairly 
 good health, and conducts his business with the zest and 
 carefulness of former years. Being a pioneer in apple ex- 
 portation, he has continued to interest himself in the busi- 
 ness, not only by employing his capital, but by giving it 
 his personal supervision. Thus we conclude, that the an- 
 cestors' traits have been transmitted to, and had develop- 
 ment in their descendants ; and the act of Luke Blanchard, 
 in endeavoring to perpetuate the memory of his worthy 
 sires, may be considered as a thankoffering to them, and a 
 reminder to posterity of the source, under Providence, of 
 whatever prosperity they may be permitted to enjoy.
 
 CAUSE OF 
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD'S DEATH. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls, 
 
 O, kingdom of the past ! 
 There lie the bygone ages in their palls, 
 
 Guarded by shadows vast, 
 
 Thy mighty clamors, wars and world noised deeds 
 
 Are silent now in dust, 
 Gone like a tremble of the huddling reeds 
 
 Beneath some sudden gust. 
 
 Here 'mid the bleak waves of our strife and care, 
 
 Float the green Fortunate Isles 
 Where all thy hero spirits dwell, and share 
 
 Our martyrdoms and toils. 
 
 Russell Lowell. 
 
 As we close this brief history of Luther Blanchard, it 
 may be appropriate to consider some things relative to the 
 cause of his death.
 
 go LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 The inscription on the memorial stone states, that 
 "Luther was the first man hit by a British bullet at the old 
 North Bridge, and died in the service of his country a few 
 months later." This inscription, according to oft repeated 
 and well authenticated tradition, might be supplemented 
 by, From the effects of the wound. That this tradition 
 may have its full force and effect, we submit the follow- 
 ing considerations: 
 
 1st. When there is no evidence against a proposition 
 or statement which is not only possible but highly prob- 
 able, it takes but little evidence to establish it. 
 
 2d. When the truth of a proposition or statement is 
 possible and highly probable, and there is a strong pre- 
 sumption in its favor, it takes much evidence to overthrow 
 it. 
 
 When these rules are applied in the case before us, 
 the fact that Luther Blanchard, the young Acton fifer, 
 died of the wound received at Concord, stands out dis- 
 tinctly and in a way to challenge rebuttal. To begin with, 
 we believe it safe to assert that there is no authority, either 
 of tradition or of record, for assigning his death to any 
 other cause; neither, to our knowledge, has such authority 
 ever been quoted, or found its way into public print. If 
 there have been any doubts, they have, so far as we are 
 informed, been unaccompanied by substantial reasons 
 therefor, and have arisen rather from the absence of any 
 official report relative to the cause of Luther Blanchard's 
 death, than from one scrap of evidence that the cause was 
 other than tradition declares it to be. 
 
 To consider closely the main features of this subject, 
 let us notice the two general sources from which history
 
 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 9 1 
 
 springs. These are, first, tradition as to things remote, 
 and living heresay as to things intermediate and in the 
 near past ; secondly, the data or dictum of records written 
 or printed. 
 
 In the instance before us, when we turn to these two 
 sources, we find on the one hand tradition ample in quan- 
 tity, and trustworthy in quality ; and on the other, such 
 sufficient reasons for any absence or omission of records, 
 written or printed, as might satisfy any inquirer for the 
 facts. As to the information that has come to us from 
 tradition, it is substantial, simple and natural. It comes 
 from families and from citizens whose patriotic fervor has 
 been undoubted, whose integrity none may question, and 
 whose opportunity to know has been good. 
 
 That the traditions concerning Luther Blanchard's 
 death have mainly come from his own family is only natu- 
 ral, and what under the circumstances might be expected. 
 Had he died only a few hours after receiving his wound, as 
 was the case with James Hayward, his death would have 
 been so closely connected with its cause, that the two 
 events would as a matter of common knowledge hardly 
 have been separated. The whole tragedy being almost in 
 one simultaneous and single act, the tidings of it would be 
 as of one event, and would naturally be told in the simple 
 statement, He was shot and soon died. But under the cir- 
 cumstances attending the death of Luther Blanchard, this 
 could hardly be expected, for it was an instance involving 
 weeks and months, with all the intermediary incidents and 
 episodes in that epoch making period, from the retreat of 
 the Regulars April igth, to the fierce conflict at Bunker 
 Hill, June i/th. The chronological space was altogether
 
 92 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 too long, and the complication of perils was too great for the 
 detailed experience of a wounded soldier to be followed by 
 the public through camp and field and hospital, till he was 
 reported on the muster rolls " dead." There were no town 
 " war committees " then, to as carefully note things as in 
 our Civil War; it was a time when each family was left 
 mainly to keep the record of its own soldier members. 
 
 The siege of Boston was one of prolonged and perilous 
 vicissitude. During its continuance there were enlist- 
 ments and re-enlistments ; families were decimated, house- 
 holds were broken up, lands abandoned and left in barren- 
 ness. It was enough for each family and hamlet to know 
 that their own loved ones were spared, and if others went 
 forth and died, they would hardly stop to consider the 
 cause of their death. In the time of our country's early 
 wars, town records were few and scant, and even complete 
 lists of the greater casualties were, if obtained, not always 
 preserved. But the records of communities and of mere 
 neighborhoods, and much the more of single households, 
 were still more fragmentary and scant. Stationery was 
 scarce, the king's stamp upon paper was a mark of detesta- 
 tion to an incensed, tax-oppressed people, and but little 
 patronage would the royal revenue receive from the patri- 
 otic householder, even by the scant purchase of a piece of 
 crown paper, upon which to preserve a brief family record. 
 Even in our own day, few are they who have a written 
 record of family casualties in the late Civil War. Their 
 reliance is on the sad inscriptions written on their hearts 
 or upon the public records of the state or nation. 
 
 Small opportunity, therefore, was there for the public 
 at large to be apprised at once of the cause of Luther
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 93 
 
 Blanchard's death. They might know by the military rolls 
 that he died ; but when he died, and of what, few would 
 stop to investigate or even to inquire. Not so with the 
 family. Although the age was such a practical one, and 
 the sentimental side of things was so often ignored, and 
 from sheer necessity it had to give way to the more sub- 
 stantial, there, nevertheless, were tenderly cherished in 
 the memory of households the choice annals of each life 
 history, and the details and causes of events that brought 
 bereavement and loss. Leading events were remembered 
 and rehearsed to the children and the children's chil- 
 dren, until, like the ballads and legends of the old Scottish 
 minstrels, they at length became engrafted upon society, 
 and finally crystalized into national history. So it was in 
 the instance of this conspicuous actor in the American 
 Revolution. 
 
 As the echo of the shots that were fired, responsive 
 to those which hit the youthful musician and those others, 
 whose names like his have immortalized the annals of 
 Acton, died away, and the smoke, mingling with the morn- 
 ing mists of the river and the meadows, rose upward and 
 faded, so the details of the conflict and a portion of the 
 sequel, as these affected only the individual actor and his 
 family, were lost sight of by the public in the great din 
 and dreadfulness of the scenes of that memorable year 
 between April 19, 1775 and March 17, 1776, when the 
 last English man-of-war left the Massachusetts Bay waters. 
 But, little by little, the facts through tradition have come 
 to the front, and so may they continue to become prom- 
 inent until honor is given to whom honor is due, and
 
 94 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 standard history incorporates with our nation's leading 
 events these interesting family annals. 
 
 In view, then, of the exceptional nature of the times, 
 and the consequent obscurity of the circumstances attend- 
 ing Luther Blanchard's death, it is not strange that the 
 public was not apprised of its cause ; nor that it should fail 
 to be known other than by family tradition, nor readily 
 pass into history. Neither is it a matter of wonder that 
 the Provincial war records failed to give the cause of his 
 death ; it was for these to give the fact of his death ; for 
 the recording officer to do more than this, might, under the 
 circumstances, be going beyond his province ; for Luther 
 Blanchard, it is alleged, died from a wound received at the 
 Concord fight, and not from a cause incident to any ser- 
 vice in the Continental army. When he was struck by the 
 British bullet, he was a minute-man, and as such, as we 
 have seen, was doing a quasi independent service. After 
 he arrived at Charlestown, his work as a minute-man 
 ended ; at that time he began a new service, and entered 
 by a new enlistment that organization called the Contin- 
 ental army, for eight months' service, designed for the 
 siege of Boston. As, then, the wound causing his death 
 was received prior to this later enlistment, nothing, per- 
 haps, should be expected from the Continental army rec- 
 ords, except the words found there, " Reported dead." 
 But when we turn to the true and natural chronicler of 
 personal events, and search the only source of history that 
 can be expected to preserve and transmit them, we hear 
 the utterance of unmistakable voices. Then it is, that we 
 have testimony that should be unquestioned as to its trust- 
 worthiness, because they who gave it were honest and
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 95 
 
 competent witnesses. It has never been a matter of doubt 
 by members of the Blanchard family of Boxboro or Acton 
 that Luther died from the wound received at the Concord 
 North bridge, although, no one ever pretended to give the 
 exact time. 
 
 Among those who have made the oft-repeated and 
 positive declaration that Luther died of his North bridge 
 wound, was Calvin, his brother, who, being also at the siege 
 of Boston, until he went on the Canada expedition in Sep- 
 tember, was in a position to know whether or not that 
 wound was ever healed ; and, moreover, on his return from 
 Canada, he could easily ascertain if it caused his death. 
 Calvin Blanchard always stated in unequivocal terms that 
 his brother Luther died from the effects of that wound ; 
 and, repeatedly, did his son Simon state what he had so 
 often heard from his father's lips about his uncle Luther. 
 
 We would state here, that if the value of tradition is 
 to be rated by the grade of character of those who com- 
 municate it, it is entitled in this case to a high estimate; 
 for Simon Blanchard was a most estimable citizen, and a 
 man unusually careful and considerate in speech ; what he 
 heard and believed, he repeated just as it was, and trans- 
 mitted to posterity only what he sincerely and earnestly 
 believed. In an interview with a citizen of Acton con- 
 cerning the cause of Luther Blanchard's death, he informed 
 us that Mr. Simon Blanchard told him when a boy, that 
 his father said his uncle Luther died of a wound received 
 at the Concord fight. Mr. Luke Blanchard, son of Simon, 
 says that his father was always positive in stating that his 
 father told him that his brother Luther died of the wound 
 received at Concord. Thus has the tradition come down
 
 96 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 through the one natural channel whence such information 
 usually passes into the future. By such rills the great 
 river of history gathers and widens and flows, until it 
 becomes a mighty stream and landmark of time at which 
 they who thirst for a knowledge of the past, stop and 
 drink. Much of standard history is received from tales 
 told first by the hearthstone or by the group seated by 
 the country-side, or uttered, it may be, at the crossroads 
 store, or at the village inn. 
 
 Once exclude that portion of our country's chronicles, 
 which has come down through private channels, and many 
 of our choice annals would be lost. But it is unnecessary 
 to dwell longer on the evidence upon which this interest- 
 ing fact rests, for we believe enough has already been 
 stated to substantiate every claim that has been made for 
 the youthful fifer. 
 
 Before closing, however, we would state, that every 
 presumption in the premises perhaps favors what the testi- 
 mony here adduced or reviewed tends to establish. Each 
 statement made about the cause of Luther Blanchard's 
 death, which stands collaterally related to the main issue, 
 or which as an episode stands related to the main fact, is 
 corroborative of it. The assertion that has often been made, 
 that Luther Blanchard died in a building of Harvard Col- 
 lege, then used as a hospital, coupled with the assertion 
 that he died of the wound received at the old North bridge, 
 is a coincidence of statements, which we believe makes 
 probable all that is alleged in each, for naturally the two 
 traditions, being thus connected, stand or fall together. 
 That Harvard College was used as a barrack, and hence 
 presumably as a place for any sick soldier, is a fact estab-
 
 LUTHER BLANCH ARD MEMORIAL. 97 
 
 lished in history, being given in a history of Harvard 
 College and also in the history of Middlesex County, 
 published by Lewis and Company, in 1890, vol. i, page 
 89. In the latter volume, it is stated, that in April 1775, 
 when the Massachusetts militia was concentrated at Cam- 
 bridge, the college government removed the library and 
 apparatus to Andover, and a little later, ordered it to be 
 removed to Concord. The legislature was afterwards 
 applied to for indemnification for damage done by the sol- 
 diers, when they occupied the building, and for loss of rent. 
 
 If the statement that Luther Blanchard died of any 
 wound is correct, the circumstances are such as lead almost 
 conclusively to a belief that it was the one received at the 
 North bridge ; for there was but little opportunity for him 
 to receive a wound anywhere else, without its being re- 
 corded, and without its being known to his brother. It is 
 not claimed that his name is on the list of casualties at 
 Bunker Hill. In the siege of Boston there was little, if 
 any skirmishing of a nature that much imperilled the 
 American ranks, and no battle was fought there after June 
 I7th. As late as August ist, the name of Luther Blanch- 
 ard, with the rank of corporal, is on the muster rolls. 
 This leads to the presumption that he was able-bodied at 
 that time and without any serious injury at the battle of 
 Bunker Hill. That he died of disease is, in the presence 
 of the slightest testimony that he died of a wound, hardly 
 admissible for a moment. 
 
 We are informed he was a man of fine physique, ath- 
 letic and powerful. The Middlesex contingent of the con- 
 tinental army was operating on its native heath, and there 
 were no unusual perils of climate to be encountered. Thus
 
 98 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 it is, that every circumstance and tradition concur in de- 
 claring that Luther Blanchard's death was from a wound 
 made by a British musket ball at the North bridge, 
 Concord, Mass., April igth, 1775. It is unnecessary to 
 explain any silence of history concerning this matter prior 
 to the last quarter-century. History is not always com- 
 plete until years after the occurrences which it relates. 
 Length of time is a great revealer of what has transpired 
 within its mysterious cycles. History shrinks and gathers 
 and grows again as successive resurrections disclose the 
 false and declare the true. As men come and men go, 
 they leave at last the world's annals in the hands of those, 
 who in an unprejudiced way, and un warped by the petty 
 influences of locality and personality, do justice to its 
 actors. Then, history arrives at its best, then, if ever, it 
 is finished. 
 
 Not until tradition could be given its right place; not 
 until there was set upon it a fair appraisal; not until beliefs 
 were built upon evidence, rather than upon the absence 
 of it, was Luther Blanchard given his merited place in the 
 annals of the Revolutionary war. 
 
 As to how it occurred that Luther Blanchard, after 
 receiving a fatal bullet wound at the old North bridge, 
 April iQth, could continue in military service, and mean- 
 while pass through the fierce conflict at Bunker Hill, and 
 the rigor of camp life, and of work in the intrenchments 
 about Boston, and succumb afterwards to its effects, is not 
 for us to explain. We are called upon to deal with the 
 evidence of facts, not to formulate theories as to a reason 
 for their existence, nor to offer explanations regarding 
 their relations. The question is, Did he die as tradition
 
 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 99 
 
 has alleged ? Not, How came he to die thus ? But, if no 
 read)' explanation could be given, it might be dealing 
 unfairly with evidence, and impair the rights of the truth, 
 to doubt the credibility of witnesses, because we cannot 
 readily explain what they testify to. 
 
 Life is full of strange mysteries, and great is the mys- 
 tery of living, and the history of human transactions is not 
 always complete in its philosophy, nor clear as to the pro- 
 cesses that evolve the facts it preserves ; yet the province 
 of history is not impaired by this, nor its accumulations 
 and conclusions discredited. But, although not called for, 
 it is by no means difficult to conjecture how it happened 
 with Luther Blanchard. It is not hard to suppose that a 
 wound might terminate fatally, which, for a season, gave 
 but little discomfort. Repeatedly in the surgical reports 
 of the war department are such instances doubtless re- 
 corded, even in modern times, with all the improved meth- 
 ods for the removal of gunshots and the prevention of 
 subsequent mischief. But a century or more ago, surgery 
 was, as compared with its present perfected condition, near 
 its infancy ; and a bullet, fitting the bore of a British 
 musket, lodged in or passing through a human body, or 
 even slightly injuring it, may easily be conceived to occa- 
 sion mischief months afterwards, under adverse conditions, 
 such as an exposure to the elements, hard service and 
 neglect. That these conditions existed there can be little 
 doubt. Military life, at its best, is wearing to the soldier 
 in the ranks. The gloss and coloring of a dress parade, 
 and the gay glamour of a gala occasion in times of peace 
 are but faint hints of what war is. War is war, although 
 it be in one's own neighborhood, and where many of its
 
 100 LUTHER BLANCHARD MEMORIAL. 
 
 asperities can be softened by the best ministrations of 
 friends and a grateful country. So, doubtless, Luther 
 Blanchard found it in the camp at Winter Hill, which 
 locality in those days was, perhaps, bleak in winter, and in 
 summer exposed in bald barrenness to the hot rays of a 
 New England sun. Moreover, Luther Blanchard was not 
 the soldier to shirk ; the stern spirit of his ancestors, that 
 sent Calvin through the Kennebec wilds into Canada, and 
 his father before him to Quebec, doubtless prompted him 
 to his best endeavor, and led him to hold out in the camp, 
 till further persistence was impossible. 
 
 Our conjecture based upon the foregoing conclusions 
 is, that the ball which hit Luther Blanchard struck him in 
 a manner that left him free of limb to march and to fife ; 
 and that when he enlisted at Cambridge for an eight 
 months' service as a Continental soldier, he was compara- 
 tively robust and strong ; but that the wound received 
 April iQth, from complicated conditions and agencies while 
 in camp, became active and acute, and finally proved fatal. 
 Such a conjecture explains all that is necessary, and is 
 consistent with what is claimed in this history.
 
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