The Iron Work Farm celebrated its annual Patriots’ Day Spirit twice on Sunday, April 14, 2024.
Patriots’ Day Spirit at the Faulkner House, 5 High
The first celebration from 1 to 3:30 p.m. enabled visitors to travel back in time to the Civil War, when the Faulkner House, on High Street in Acton, was the home of Colonel Winthrop E. Faulkner.
Reenactors from the 12th Georgia Infantry (G and F companies) gathered in the Faulkner woods for the event. I asked their leader if he felt out of place this far North and he quipped, “It’s a new high-water mark of the Confederacy.”
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, reenactors from Company B of the 28 Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the famous Irish Brigade, prepared for the encounter. I asked their leader if he felt out of place this far from Gettysburg and he quipped, “Let us change history! FAUGH A BALLAUGH! [Clear the way!] IRISH BRIGADE COMING THROUGH!”
Volunteers from the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a private relief agency founded on May 23, 1861 to supplement the unprepared and undersized Medical Bureau, were represented.
Since disease killed more soldiers during the Civil War than battle wounds, the twelve Georgia Infantry also brought their own Medical reenactors.
The Patriots’ Day Spirit event attracted some people who weren’t there to fight but were hoping to witness a skirmish or two in the Faulkner woods.
Other civilians took time before the annual event to see the members of the Nashoba Valley Weavers’ Guild, who were also on hand to demonstrate colonial weaving on an old “barn frame” loom.
The second celebration at 5:40 p.m. enabled visitors to travel back in time to the Revolutionary War, when the Faulkner House was the home of Colonel Francis Faulkner, the commander of the Middlesex Regiment.
The event celebrates what really happened on the night of April 18-19, 1775. Many people mistakenly believe that Paul Revere rode “through every Middlesex village and farm,” but he was captured in Lincoln along with William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott.
Prescott escaped and warned the Concord Minutemen that “the regulars are out.”
As the Acton Minutemen website chronicles, “Now at this point, the historical documentation gets a little cloudy, and it is not known with certainty where Prescott headed after this, but circumstantial evidence seems to point to him riding on into Acton and beyond.
“Prescott, it is thought, arrived in Acton, where he alarmed Captain Joseph Robbins, one of Acton’s militia leaders, at about three in the morning of the 19th. Upon hearing the news, Captain Robbins had his 13-year-old son saddle up their horse, whereupon the young boy took off with (or probably without) Prescott across town to alarm Captain Isaac Davis of the Acton Minutemen, and Francis Faulkner and Deacon Hunt of Acton’s other militia unit.”
So, Robbins’ Ride is celebrated with a young reenactor riding to the Faulkner House and calling out “The Regulars are out of Boston – gather your units and head to Concord!”
Then, another reenactor playing Faulkner, stumbled out in his nightclothes and fired his musket three times to spread the alarm to his troops, whereupon the volley was echoed by another musket some distance away, followed by yet another even farther off, demonstrating how the alarm was spread across town.
In other words, Paul Revere didn’t ride “through every Middlesex village and farm.” There were more Alarm Riders on the night of April 18-19, 1775 than you can shake a stick at. And these Alarm Riders didn’t say, “The Redcoats are coming.” In fact, the one in Acton said, “The Regulars are out of Boston – gather your units and head to Concord!”
On Monday, April 15, 2024, the Acton Minutemen mustered at the home of Captain Isaac Davis, which still stands at 39 Hayward Road, and then marched seven miles to Concord led by Captain Isaac Davis and their young fifer, Luther Blanchard.
But, this year’s North Bridge Fight Commemoration was canceled, as Celeste Katz Marston, Managing Editor of The Concord Bridge, reported in a story entitled, “Flooding scrubs Patriots Day North Bridge commemoration; parade marches on.”
In 1775, the Acton Minutemen were the only company present entirely outfitted with bayonets, so they were first in line to advance.
That is why the Acton Minutemen marched ahead of other companies in Concord’s Patriots’ Day Parade, which was still held despite the North Bridge Commemoration of the “shot heard ’round the world” being canceled.
On Monday afternoon, the Acton Historical Society had an open house at the Hosmer House Museum on Main St. in Kelley’s Corner, in honor of Patriots Day.
The Jonathan Hosmer House. Photo: Greg Jarboe
Visitors could see the home of Revolutionary War soldier Jonathan Hosmer and imagine the impact of the events of April 19, 1775, on the family and their neighbors.
While Isaac Davis was the first commissioned officer to die in the Revolutionary War, Abner Hosmer, Jonathan’s younger brother, was also mortally wounded at the North Bridge. That’s when Major John Buttrick of Concord, standing just feet from his own house issued the famed order, “Fire, for god’s sake fire!”
In other words, the “shot heard ’round the world” wasn’t fired in Lexington. It was fired at the North Bridge in Concord. And the Minutemen who probably fired it, because they were leading the attack, were from Acton.
This is why Actonians have history on their side when they say, “The battle of Lexington was fought in Concord by the Acton Minutemen.”