| Sources |
- [S634] Ancestry.com, North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT ; Date: 2016;), Book Title: A genealogy of the descendants of John May who came from England to Roxbury in America, 1640.
- [S509] Sons of the American Revolution - Members, Volume: 360.
- [S5142] Find a Grave - US Index (Famous), Patriot DAWES William Jr 1745-1799 (Veteran) - Midnight Ride with Paul Revere.
BIRTH: 5 Apr 1745 Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts
DEATH: 25 Feb 1799 (aged 53) Marlborough, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
BURIAL* King's Chapel Burying Ground, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts
* This is the original burial site
PLOT: 8B - Tomb 5
MEMORIAL ID: 1870
Revolutionary War Figure. He grew up in Boston and became a tanner while he was active in the Boston Militia. On the night of April 18, 1775 it was his task, along with Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott, to warn the colonists that the British were going to launch an offensive on the countryside. On the way to Concord the three ran into a British road block. Splitting up and fleeing, Revere was captured and later released, Dawes was thrown from his horse and had to walk back to Lexington. Prescott rode on to Concord. The warnings of the trio allowed the local militias to garner their forces and achieve the first victory in the Revolutionary War. During the remainder of the war he served as a quartermaster in central Massachusetts.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1870/william-dawes
 |
Burial-DAWES William
Tomb of William Dawes Jr -- - Kings Chapel Burying Ground (Boston) ~ Patriot, Son of Liberty and first messenger sent by Warren from Boston to Lexington on the night of April 18-19 1775 to warn Hancock and Adams of the coming of the British Troops. + https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1870/william-dawes |
- [S3310] Ancestry.com, Boston, Massachusetts, Birth Index, 1700-1800, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT ; Date: 1997;).
- [S602] Hatcher, Patricia Law, Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Provo, UT ; Date: 1999;), Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots; Volume: 1; Serial: 11127; Volume: 2.
- [S1517] Ancestry.com, Massachusetts, U.S., Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Provo, UT ; Date: 2004;).
- [S8239] Ancestry.com, 1790 United States Federal Census, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT ; Date: 2010;), Year: 1790; Census Place: Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Series: M637; Roll: 4; Page: 45; Image: 62; Family History Library Film: 0568144.
 |
1790 United States Federal Census
Year: 1790; Census Place: Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Series: M637; Roll: 4; Page: 45; Image: 62; Family History Library Film: 0568144 |
- [S509] Sons of the American Revolution - Members, Volume: 250.
- [S3313] Wikipedia: William Dawes, (Name: Wikipedia;), William Dawes.
Dawes, who was known and trusted by Sons of Liberty leader Dr. Joseph Warren, was assigned by Warren to ride from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts, on the night of April 18, 1775, when it became clear that a British column was going to march into the countryside. Dawes' mission was to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that they were in danger of arrest. Dawes took the land route out of Boston through the Boston Neck, leaving just before the British military sealed off the town.[6]
Also acting under Dr. Warren, Paul Revere arranged for another rider waiting across the Charles River in Charlestown to be told of the army's route with lanterns hung in Old North Church. To be certain the message would get through, Revere rowed across the river and started riding westward himself. Later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's historically inaccurate poem "Paul Revere's Ride" would focus entirely on Revere, making him a composite of the many alarm riders that night.
Dawes and Revere arrived at the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington about the same time, shortly after midnight. Revere arrived slightly earlier, despite having stopped to speak to militia officers in towns along the way, as his route was shorter and his horse faster. After warning Adams and Hancock to leave, Revere and Dawes proceeded to Concord in case that was the British column's goal. Revere no doubt knew that the Provincial Congress had stored munitions there, including the cannon which Dawes had helped to secure. Along the way, the two men met Samuel Prescott, a local young physician, who joined them.[7]
A squad of mounted British officers awaited on the road between Lexington and Concord. They had already arrested some riders heading west with news of the troops, and they called for Dawes, Revere, and Prescott to halt. The three men rode in different directions, hoping one would escape. Dawes, according to the story he told his children, rode into the yard of a house shouting that he had lured two officers there. Fearing an ambush, the officers stopped chasing him. Dawes's horse bucked him off, however, and he had to walk back to Lexington. He later said that in the morning, he returned to the same yard and found the watch that had fallen from his pocket. Otherwise, Dawes's activity during the Battle of Lexington and Concord remains unknown.
Dawes and his companions' warnings allowed the town militias to muster a sufficient force for the first open battle of the American Revolutionary War and the first colonial victory. The British troops did not find most of the weapons they had marched to destroy and sustained serious losses during their retreat to Boston while under attack by the colonists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dawes
- [S4094] Daughters of the American Revolution - Ancestors, DAWES, WILLIAM JR -- Ancestor #: A030777.
Service: MASSACHUSETTS Rank(s): PATRIOTIC SERVICE, MAJOR
Birth: 4-6-1745 BOSTON SUFFOLK CO MASSACHUSETTS
Death: 2-25-1799 MARLBOROUGH MIDDLESEX CO MASSACHUSETTS
Service Source: MA SOLS & SAILS, VOL 4, P 559; FISCHER, PAUL REVERE'S RIDE, P 98
Service Description: 1) SECOND MAJOR IN COL HENRY BROMFIELD'S REGT
2) RODE TO SPREAD ALARM, 18 APRIL 1775
https://services.dar.org/Public/DAR_Research/search_adb/?action=full&p_id=A030777
- [S4149] Sons of the American Revolution - Patriots, William DAWES Jr -- SAR Patriot #: P-145216.
State of Service: MA Qualifying Service: Major / Patriotic Service
DAR #: A030777
Birth: 06 Apr 1745 Boston / Suffolk / MA
Death: 25 Feb 1799 Marlborough / Middlesex / MA
Patriotic Service Description:
2nd Maj in Col Henry Bromfield's Reg't (Boston)
Sources:
SAR Patriot Index Edition III (CD: PP2210, Progeny Publ., 2002) plus data to 2004
Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Vol 4, p 559
Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1995, p98
https://sarpatriots.sar.org/patriot/display/145216
- [S3318] American Battlefields: Hartwell Tavern, (Name: American Battlefield Trust; Location: Washington DC;), REVOLUTIONARY WAR - Hartwell Tavern (A Tavern on the Road to Liberty).
Today in Lincoln, Massachusetts, along the Battle Road in Minuteman National Historical Park, is a small wood frame structure that bore witness to the bloody events of April 19, 1775. Known as the Hartwell Tavern, the structure served as the home of Ephraim and Elizabeth Hartwell as well as a tavern for travelers between Boston and Concord.
Built circa 1732, the Hartwell Tavern was a wedding gift from Samuel Hartwell to his son and daughter-in-law Ephraim and Elizabeth. In 1756, the Hartwell's applied for a license to use their home as a tavern. The house was a busy place, since the Hartwell's had nine children in the home at the time. Like many of the farmers in the region, they used enslaved labor to manage the house and tavern operations. The tavern sat on the busy Bay Road, subsequently known as the Battle Road after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which connected Concord, Lincoln, Lexington, and other communities to the port of Boston. Today it exists partially as Massachusetts 2A and Massachusetts Avenue, with historic segments preserved in Minute Man National Historical Park.
The Hartwell Tavern in Minute Man National Historical Park. Wikipedia
The lives of the Hartwell's and others in Lincoln changed forever on April 19, 1775. A column of British infantry left Boston late on April 18, heading for Concord to seize arms and supplies held by Whig leaders. Before the British Regulars could get out on the road to Concord, Paul Revere and William Dawes snuck out of Boston and sounded the alarm in the local towns. Revere took a northern route through Charlestown, and Dawes worked his way south across Boston Neck. Both men met in Lexington to inform Whig leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock about the advancing British troops. Soon after, they continued westward towards Concord.
Also with Revere and Dawes was Samuel Prescott, who was traveling from Lexington to Concord along the Bay Road. Prescott convinced Revere and Dawes to allow him to join their effort in alarming the countryside to the advance of the British regulars. Just east of the Hartwell farm, a British patrol captured the three men. As the British patrol were interrogating the men, Prescott was able to escape the British patrol by jumping his horse over a stone wall, galloping westward through the woods. As Prescott approached the Hartwell Tavern, he woke Ephraim and provided him information on the approaching British Regulars. Hartwell sent an enslaved girl named “Violet” to spread the word to his son at a nearby farm. Soon Captain William Smith was alerted to the alarm and called out the Lincoln minute men (who would later participate in the Battle of North Bridge). After leaving the Hartwell Tavern, Prescott continued on to Concord spreading the alarm. Revere and Dawes were finally released near Lexington.
British Regulars on the Battle Road near the Hartwell Tavern. National Park Service
After the British Regulars cleared the skirmish at Lexington and marched by the Hartwell Tavern on their way to Concord, the entire countryside was alerted to the British march and the bloodshed at Lexington. That afternoon, as the British began their return march to Boston, they immediately began to encounter militia and minute men companies along the road. Many of these units would use the trees, fences, and stone walls as positions to fire on the regulars. This fighting extended all along the Bay Road back to Charlestown, and soon the Hartwell Tavern and farm were swarming with both Massachusetts and British forces. There is no record of the tavern being used by either side during the battle. Three Hartwell sons fought that day with the Lincoln Minute Men and could very well have taken part in the action on their farm along the Bay Road that afternoon.
After April 19, the Hartwell's carried on their tavern business and small farm, and their three sons continued to serve in the war. The Hartwell Tavern was purchased in the 1960’s by the National Park Service for inclusion in Minute Man National Historical Park (established in 1959). It was restored in the 1980s to its 1775 appearance (while leaving the historic 19th century additions). Interpretation focuses on the events of April 19, 1775 and the Hartwell family after the fighting along the Battle Road. The building hosts tours and living history programs on a regular basis.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/hartwell-tavern
- [S37] Ancestry.com, Massachusetts, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1633-1850, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Provo, UT ; Date: 2005;).
- [S3311] Ancestry.com, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., Marriages, 1700-1809, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Lehi, UT ; Date: 2000;).
|
1745 - 1799 (53 years)
[1, 2, 3, 4, 8] 
