As hostilities grew between Massachusetts and the English government in the 1770s, popular opinion was divided. Concord’s “patriot preacher,” Rev. William Emerson, spoke out for liberty and served as chaplain for Concord’s Minutemen. Meanwhile, his brother-in-law, lawyer Daniel Bliss, remained loyal to the King, and would be forced to flee for his life to Canada when war erupted in 1775.
What was the Provincial Congress?
In 1630, when colonists from England
settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a charter allowed the settlers to run the colony as they saw fit. Therefore, there was a bottom-up government in addition to a top-down government.
Concord is preparing to honor the 250th anniversary of the first battles of the American Revolution on April 19, 2025. Knowing that the eyes of the nation – indeed, the world – will be on Concord and the neighboring towns where these historical battles took place in 1775, planning is well underway.
Menotomy was a village of about 400 farmers, millers, tavern keepers, and their families in 1775. The Battle of Menotomy was one of the bloodiest of the American Revolution.
They were the sons of Death and hell followed with them as they rushed from Sudbury to Concord, Massachusetts, in the lightening dawn of April 19, 1775. Beside them, armed with muskets, swords, pitchforks, and improvised weapons, came two companies of Sudbury minutemen and militia, and behind them (as legend says),
on a white horse, a messenger galloped
west towards Worcester carrying the alarm
“Up! Up! The Regulars are as far as Concord!”
Spring is a time of rebirth, and with the melting of snow we begin to think about the blooming of flowers and the budding of trees as nature reawakens after her winter slumber. But in Concord, the arrival of spring brings to mind more warlike notions, and the sights and sounds of marching redcoats and militiamen fill the town as Concord commemorates the April 19, 1775, Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Have you ever sensed that something bad was about to happen? You don’t know how or why, but it’s as though an ancestral memory is shouting, “Awake! Danger is coming!” So it may have been for three men on April 19, 1775.
Historians have often overlooked a critical aspect of the Battles of Lexington and Concord; the psychological and physical impact on the civilian populace.
Phebe watched out her bedroom window with shock, awe, fear, and trepidation. In his role as Concord militia chaplain, her husband, Rev. William Emerson, had gone out before dawn and was now a half mile away with the rebel forces on Punkatasset Hill.
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