NUMBER FORTY-SEVEN.

THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL, 1775.

Materials for the Romance of our history scattered through the country-Events of the 19th April, 1775-Alarm given from Boston to the neighboring towns-Escape of Adams and Hancock from Lexington to Woburn-A salmon left behind and sent for-Second retreat to the woods-Capture of a prisoner by Sylvanus Wood on the 19th of April-After thirty years Wood applies for and obtains a pension-Visits Washington and is introduced to General Jackson-Proposed National monument at Lexington commemorative of the 19th of April.

In times to come, when the novelist and the poet shall seek out the romance of our history, it will be discovered, in rich abundance, in every part of the land. Tracing the annals of the United States, from the first settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth, it will be found, that, in addition to the great events and the great characters, which form the substance of the public narrative, there are incidents of a local and personal kind, not immediately affecting the political fortunes of the country, but often of a most stirring or touching character. There is nothing in ancient or modern history more beautiful than the story of Pocahontas. The captivity of Mrs. Rowlandson is not to be read without tears, after a lapse of nearly two centuries. How wonderful the spectral appearance of one of the Regicide Judges of Charles I., to repel an assault of savages on a New England village in 1675! The life and adventures, the wars and the wanderings of Daniel Boone, in more recent times, will furnish one day the staple of an Iliad and Odyssey of border prowess and fortune; and then the glimpses of pure Indian life, as we catch them on the prairie and in the wigwam, uncontaminated or unrelieved by the contacts of civilization!

The straits and sufferings of our forefathers, who first landed on the continent; the perilous exposures of a wild frontier (and such a frontier, though ever flitting westward as you approach it, there has always been-is now);—the military operations of the colonies in the wars between England and France, from Louisburg to Carolina, from Detroit to the Spanish Main; above all many incidents which occurred in the great struggle for Independence, have filled the country with romantic traditions, many of which have already been turned to good account by ingenious writers of the present day, while others await the future poet and novelist. Even the ancient churchyards have a rich harvest in reserve for our Old Mortalities. Hearts as brave as any that rest under monuments of brass and marble in Westminster Abbey moulder beneath old moss-grown slate stones, in every part of the United States. These reminiscences of bye-gone times are not, however, all of a tragic or even a serious cast; some of them, on the contrary, contain the lighter element, which is required to make up the tragi-comedy of human fortune, though sparingly admitted into the sober pages of history. Some traditions of this latter kind, closely interwoven with events of the greatest gravity, are preserved in the neighborhood, (Burlington, Mass.,) where this paper is written.

Several circumstances led the patriots in Boston in the carly spring of 1775, to anticipate that some important movement into the country would be made by the Royal forces, partly for the seizure of military stores, which had been collected in many of the towns in the interior, partly to arrest obnoxious individuals, to overawe the people, and generally to subdue the spirit of disaffection. As early as November, 1774, a secret society had been formed in Boston, composed principally of the mechanics and artisans of that town, but in close concert with the patriotic leaders, for the express purpose of obtaining information in advance of all projected movements of this kind. Among the circumstances which,

in the spring of 1775, led to the expectation that some expedition into the country was meditated, was the detachment, by the royal governor of Massachusetts, Gage, of eleven hundred men, who traversed the neighboring villages, about the end of March, throwing down the stone walls by which the fields, in that part of the country, are divided and enclosed. One can scarcely imagine any thing better calculated to cause alarm and indignation, that being the season of the year in which good farmers put their stone walls and fences in order. Officers in civil dress were also sent round the country, to survey the roads and obtain information where military stores were deposited. A party came to Concord in Massachusetts, for this purpose, on the 20th of March, 1775, the very day on which Burke, in the House of Commons, spoke the last word of peace and hope in the inimitable oration “ ciliation with America."

on Con

But the fated hour drew nigh. It had been preparing for centuries. It was too late for prudence to avert; for force to resist; the mighty clock of ages and empires must strike, and the new era begin. On the 15th April the grenadiers and light infantry, the flower of the army, were relieved from daily routine duty, under pretence of learning a new exercise. At twelve o'clock the next night, the boats of the transport ships in the harbor, having been repaired, were launched and moored under the sterns of the men-of-war. Not a step of these movements-the displacement of the troops-the midnight preparation of the boats for service-but was scanned with eagle eyes by the members of the society above mentioned. It had been concerted that, if the royal forces were embarked in boats to cross to Charlestown or Cambridge two lanterns should be lighted in the steeple of the old church on Copp's hill, and one if they marched out by land through Roxbury.

The 19th of April was the day appointed by Governor Gage for an expedition to Concord. All possible means were

are

adopted, by guarding the roads the evening before, to prevent the tidings from spreading through the country. Ah, Governor, the words "Grenadiers, forward, march!" hardly whispered at dead of night, at the head of the column, before two flaming messengers from the belfry of the old church, are streaming over the graves of the sleepers on Copp's hill. Like the beacon fires which announced in the palaces of Argos that Troy had fallen, these flashing heralds ran through the villages of Middlesex, to proclaim that the sceptre of a mightier than Priam had departed. Not content with lighting the signal in the old church steeple, Paul Revere immediately crossed in a boat to Charlestown, borrowed deacon Larkin's horse, dashed by the royal sentinels who were guarding the road by the gibbet, at the end of Charlestown neck, passed at the top of his speed through Medford and West Cambridge, giving the alarm and setting the bells to ringing on the way; and in a few hours the tocsin was sounding from half the steeples in Middlesex county.

At about midnight, Revere reached Lexington, and delivered to John Hancock and Samuel Adams a message from Dr. Joseph Warren, (the hero of Bunker Hill,) acquainting them that the troops were in movement, as was supposed, for Concord, and that they must provide for their own safety, their seizure no doubt being one of the objects of the Royal governor. These proscribed patriots were passing the night at the house of the Rev. Mr. Clark, the minister of Lexington, between whom and Hancock there was a connection by marriage. It would not be possible within the limits of one of these papers, if indeed this were the place for such a narrative, to relate the events of that eventful morning, as they occurred on Lexington green, nor is it necessary. They have been told in some of the brightest pages of the history of the country. Our business is with what passed under the humble roof of Mr. Clark's dwelling, an old, black, weather-beaten

house, the front buried in shade, still standing, and well worth going to Lexington to see.

Besides Hancock and Adams there were at Mr. Clark's house, Mrs. Hancock, the widow of the governor's rich uncle, and Miss Dorothy Quincy, to whom the governor was paying his court, and who afterwards became his wife. Not sorry, it may be presumed, to display his chivalry before her, he passed the night (as she was accustomed to relate) "in cleaning his gun and sword, and putting his accoutrements in order," determined to go out and join the militia on the green. It was with great difficulty he was dissuaded by Mr. Clark and Samuel Adams, the latter of whom, clapping him on the shoulder, said, "That is not our business; we belong to the Cabinet." It was not till daybreak that he yielded, and consented with Samuel Adams to retreat to a place of greater safety. They left the village of Lexington as the bayonets of the grenadiers were seen gleaming in the distance, Samuel Adams exclaiming at the sight, "Oh, what a glorious day is this!"

Hancock and Adams were hastily conducted to the house of the Reverend Mr. Jones, the minister of the north-west precinct of Woburn, now forming the town of Burlington. This house, a respectable rural parsonage, shaded by noble trees, is now occupied by the Rev. Samuel Sewell, one of the successors of Mr. Jones, and is next door to that from which this paper is written. The ladies, whose safety was not supposed to be threatened, had been left behind; but the bullets whizzed about their heads, as they stood at the windows watching the strange scene. At length they were sent for, to come to Mr. Jones' in Mr. Hancock's carriage, and (it must be mentioned as one of the recorded res gesta of the day) they were especially enjoined to bring with them a fine salmon, which had been provided for their dinner; rather earlier, it would seem, in the season than salmon are now brought to market. Had the British officers known that it was left be