Shot Heard Around the World

[Kurt Williams]

250th Anniversary of the “Shot Heard Around the World” that kick started the American Revolution. Event to be held on April 19, 2025!

[Kurt Williams]

Range Information Packet

Participant Flyer

[Rick Travis]

Participating Ranges & Locations – If you do not see your local range please reach out to us.

Apple Valley Gun Club – Apple Valley – Inland Empire
Artemis Defense Institute – Lake Forest – Orange County
Down Range Indoor Training Center – Chico – Butte County
Escalon Sportsmen Club- Escalon – San Joaquin County
Guns and the 701 – North Dakota
Lemon Grove – Alpine – San Diego
Lincoln Rifle & Junior Division – Lincoln – Placer County
Linden Gun Range – Peters – San Joaquin County
Manteca Sportsmen Inc. – Manteca – San Joaquin County
Ojai Valley Gun Club -Ojai – Ventura County
On Target Indoor Shooting Range – Laguna Hills – Orange County
Paradise Rod & Gun Club – Paradise – Butte County
Project Appleseed
Sacramento Valley Shooting Center – Sacramento – Sacramento County
South Bay Rod & Gun Club – Dulzura – San Diego
Tehama Shooting Association
West Hills Shooting & Training Facility – Artois – Glenn County

[Rick Travis]

Recruitment Event

This event is an excellent way to do the following:

Introduce Family, Friends, Neighbors, Co-workers, etc. to a once in a lifetime event based on engaging history. It makes the event for the first timer multifaceted.

Introduce local politicians and community leaders to the event as well.

[Rick Travis]

Short Heard Around the World History

April 19, 1775 British Colonial farmers, craftsman and shop keepers rose up against the
threat of their own army being sent against them to take their firearms and ammo away. This was
the breaking point in a decade long angst against their government. The British marched on the two
towns of Lexington and Concord where a 14-hour battle would begin with the famous phrase, “For
God’s sake Men FIRE!!!” after the British had killed the first three colonials.
The term “Shot heard Round the world” is from when those citizens took up arms to the
battle cry command and summarily delivered the first fatal blows to the most powerful navy and
army (Britain) in what would be a long eight-year war. Those patriots set the foundation for the
United States of America and became true Americans on that day.
Today we not only celebrate that event that took place 250 years ago…we acknowledge that
fighting for your rights to keep your firearms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment which reads,
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” is an American tradition.
We fire this shot, this morning with thousands of fellow patriots across this great land with
those who do so at the Old North Bridge in Concord.

[Rick Travis]

“Shot Heard Around the World” Quiz

1. What day did Shot Heard Around the world happen?
2. There are two Minuteman Statues…What is significant about the one in Concord?
3. Who wrote “The Concord Hymn” – “BY THE RUDE BRIDGE THAT
ARCHED THE FLOOD, THEIR FLAG TO APRIL’SBREEZE UNFURLED, HERE ONCE THE
EMBATTLED FARMERS STOOD, AND FIRED THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD.?
4. What was used to make the 1875 7-foot minuteman statue?
5. The Lexington Minuteman Statue represents who?
6. What rallying cry did Paul Revere and other riders cry out to alert the people?
7. Who is Sybil Ludington?
8. Who is the White Horseman?
9. Who is Samuel Whitmore?
10. How many casualties were there?
Bonus Question: How many battles occurred that day?

[Rick Travis]

Quiz Answers
1. April 19, 1775 Battle of Lexington & Concord
2. The Concord statue represents the Citizen Soldier moving from his plow to his firearm.
3. Ralph Waldo Emerson who lived in Concord and was 71 when he composed the hymn.
4. Civil war Cannons were melted down to make the statue.
5. Captain John Parker who was the leader of the Lexington Militia.
6. The Regulars are coming!!!
7. Sybil Ludington was a 16 year old girl who rode a similar ride to raise the alarm on April
26, 1777 during a british raid on the town of Danbury Connecticut.
8. Hezekiah Wyman who at age 55 fought the British at Lexington & Concord.
9. Samuel Whitmore, Jr. is the oldest known colonial combatant in the Revolutionary War
at 78 years of age at Lexington and Concord.
10. 273 British 95 colonials
Bonus: More than 10 battles and skirmishes took place from 5AM to 7:30 PM

[Rick Travis]

THE WHITE HORSEMAN
By: Ellen Knight

1 On Patriot’s Day, Winchester may be left out of the celebrations, but on that day in 1775 the
Winchester area was not uninvolved in the conflict. According to legend, it had a remarkable hero.
On the 19th of April in 1775 when news of the British advance came to the Winchester
area (then mostly part of Woburn and Medford), a number of men responded. Lt. Caleb Brooks
and John Symmes joined the Medford minutemen. Others, including company captains Samuel
Belknap and Jonathan Fox, belonged to the Woburn militia that went to Lexington.
Then there was the man who became legendary as the “white horseman.”

When the word was spread to gather in Lexington, Hezekiah Wyman, then 55 years of age,
mounted his white horse and, with musket in hand, set off from his Cambridge Street home for
Lexington. Like other men from Woburn, he was too late for the fighting at Lexington Common
but, continuing up the road, met with British soldiers returning from Concord.

All along the route back to Boston was made the legend of the white horseman
who charged again and again against the British, killing and wounding a number of
the enemy but always escaping, untouched by the shower of bullets around him.
According to one account, “his exploits were well nigh fabulous.”

“When he met the British he began blazing away at them vigorously with his deadly
firearm. Mounted on his strong steed, he rode furiously in the direction of the
British ranks. His aim was taken at close quarters, and his shots were sent with a
constant fatal effect.

“His tall gaunt form, his gray locks floating in the breeze, and the color of his steed
distinguished him from the other Americans, and the British gave him the name of ‘Death on the Pale Horse.’ The
utmost endeavors of his enemy to kill him were unavailing. He passed through the whole melee unscathed and unhurt.

“Once a bayonet charge drove the old man and the party with which he was acting to a distance from
the foe: but he was out of ammunition and was then compelled to pick up some. But he ere long
returned to the charge and this time killed an officer, and after that exploit the report of his piece was
frequently heard till the close of the fight.

“His powerful white horse, careering at full speed over the hills, with the dauntless old man on his
back, was continually to be seen. The British learned to dread the frequent appearance of this
dire rider at unexpected points along the route of their passage, for his aim was true, and the
economical principals in which he was trained forbade his wasting powder or ball.

“He lingered at Arlington long enough to aid in a plot laid by Ammi Cutter for taking the British
baggage-wagon and their guards.” However, the problem with this part of the story is that the wagons
were intercepted by the old men of Monotomy [Arlington] on their way to Lexington, but Wyman was
firing on the British during their retreat back to Boston.

“The story says that Hezekiah pursued the British even after they had entered Charlestown and that
he followed the enemy to their very boats; and then, turning his horse’s head, returned to his home.”
There was apparently an allusion to Wyman in the original manuscript of Longfellow’s famous poem
about “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” though the lines were cut before publication.

And there in the field, in the midnight gloom,
Stood a white steed cropping the clover
bloom Shaking his bar-entangled mane.

Wyman’s name appears on a list of those who served or paid for others to serve in Captain Samuel
Belknap’s company and is listed for five month’s service at Ticonderoga and three months in Jersey. In
March 1777 the town of Woburn voted to pay him 8 pounds, 16 shillings, and 10 pence in part for his
service in the war.

Wyman survived the war. So did the white mare. Wyman lived out his days, until the summer of
1779, in his house not far from the corner of Cambridge and Wildwood Streets (site of the current
195 Cambridge Street). The area where he owned a large section of land was formerly called
Wyman Plains where generations of descendants succeeded him. Upon Wyman land much of the
West Side is now built.

This article © 2018 is a revision of an earlier article by the author, Ellen Knight,
published in the Daily Times Chronicle on April 20, 1998. This revision supersedes all
previous articles. The story as printed in the Boston Pearl was reprinted in the
Woburn Journal, July 29, 1887, and has been retold in other places. Charles Bahne,
“Working with The Atlantic Monthly,” 2010, posted on the “150 Years of ‘Paul Revere’s
Ride’” website.

[Rick Travis]

Samuel Whitmore

Capt. Samuel Whittemore, a seventy-eight year old American farmer, became a legend on April 19,
1775 when he was shot in the face by British soldiers, bayoneted at least six times, and clubbed in
the head with the butts of their muskets. Armed with a musket and horse pistol, Whittemore had
crouched behind a wall near his home as the British retreated to Boston through Menotomy.[1]
As a flank-guard approached, he shot two soldiers dead and possibly killed one more.
Inevitably, the soldiers discovered the old farmer and inflicted their wrath upon him,
leaving him for dead.

In March 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and a wave of relief rippled through the
colonies. On May 12, 1766, Cambridge (which included Menotomy) voted that Whittemore and two
other men should comprise a committee to prepare instructions for their representative to the
Massachusetts General Court, Andrew Bordman. Two weeks later, the committee furnished
Bordman with “their Sentiments upon some particular Points as So Critical a Time as this.”[5] In the
instructions, the committee registered their unequivocal opposition to the Stamp Act, noting
its deleterious effects on the colonies and their approbation of its repeal.

Certainly we all would have nodded our heads in sympathy and forgiven Whittemore
had he simply succumbed to his terrible injuries. However, in an epic demonstration
of New England stubbornness, Whittemore refused to die. Instead, a doctor patched
him up and he lived another eighteen years— though perhaps not in much comfort as
the British musket ball had torn away part of his face.[2] He died in 1793 at age ninetysix.

In the intervening years, Whittemore’s legendary toughness has been greatly
celebrated —in 2005 he was officially proclaimed the state hero of Massachusetts. [3]

But the legend of the old farmer’s “mangled situation”[4] has eclipsed his participation in significant pre-revolutionary
activities. Whittemore’s political involvement began long before his near-fatal encounter with the soldiers on April 19. In the wake
of the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, he served as a committeeman for the Town of Cambridge. He was elected as a delegate to
the Massachusetts Committee of Convention in 1768 and served on the Cambridge Committee of Correspondence.

In March 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and a wave of relief rippled through the
colonies. On May 12, 1766, Cambridge (which included Menotomy) voted that Whittemore and two
other men should comprise a committee to prepare instructions for their representative to the
Massachusetts General Court, Andrew Bordman. Two weeks later, the committee furnished
Bordman with “their Sentiments upon some particular Points as So Critical a Time as this.”[5] In the
instructions, the committee registered their unequivocal opposition to the Stamp Act, noting
its deleterious effects on the colonies and their approbation of its repeal.

We have lately seen the Rights and Privilidges of ye People of this province, and indeed the whole
Continent in the greatest danger ever from an Act of Brittish Parliament which however otherwise
intended would in its opperation have Totally Ruined them & greatly hurt Great Brittain.[6]
Though the Stamp Act had been repealed, the Cambridge committee-men were not easily mollified.
Clearly still suspicious of Parliament, the committee instructed Bordman “to be always watchfull of
any further Danger yet may arise from that Quarter. . . some Regulations may hereafter be made
which may prove unfriendly to our Liberties.”[7]

Whittemore and his fellow committee-men also regarded with distrust any members of the
Massachusetts assembly who might be sympathetic to similar objectives in the future.
We Instruct you to avoid giving your Suffrage for any Gentleman … who by any sort of Dependance or
connections may be under Temptations to yeald to Unreasonable Demands of Prerogative.[8]
Lastly, the committee suggested that Bordman work toward establishing a viewing gallery within
the House so that constituents could gather and observe law-making sessions, thereby providing
“an oppertunity to any person who desires it of seeing that nothing is passed by that Assembly that
is not of Real Benefit & Advantage to their Constituents.”[9] The committee hoped that being forced
to legislate in full view of a vigilant populace would enhance accountability among the
representatives.

By 1766, almost a decade before he would be shot, stabbed, bludgeoned and left for dead along
the Battle Road, the watchful eyes of Whittemore—already seventy years old—were uneasily fixed
on Parliament, Crown officials in Massachusetts, and local representatives in the general assembly.
As the first rumblings of revolution sounded underfoot, Whittemore took a position at the fore as a
prominent member of his community.

Whittemore’s next opportunity to participate in politics arrived in response to the dissolution of
the General Court by Gov. Francis Bernard in 1768. In February of that year, the legislative assembly
had sent a circular letter to the other colonial legislatures “to communicate their mind…upon a
common concern.”[10] In this letter, the assembly had protested the Townshend Acts as imposing
unconstitutional duties and taxes upon the colonists and invited the other legislatures to join
Massachusetts in opposition. Bernard, upon orders from the Secretary of State of the Colonies Lord
Hillsborough, demanded that the legislature rescind the vote concerning the circular letter. The
assembly refused and, in consequence, was dissolved.

By September, Massachusetts was still without a general assembly and Boston was roiling with
news that regiments would soon be arriving in the town. The Boston town meeting decided to send
a circular letter to the various towns proposing that a Committee of Convention be held at Faneuil
Hall in Boston on September 22, 1768. Though “Deprived of a General Council in this dark and difficult
Season,” the Selectmen expressed their conviction that “the loyal People of this Province, will
… immediately perceive the Propriety and Utility of the proposed Committee of Convention: And
the sound and wholesome Advice that may be expected from a Number of Gentlemen chosen by
themselves.”[11] The Selectmen invited each town to choose representatives to attend the
convention.

According to Cambridge town records, on September 26, 1768, Cambridge held a town a meeting
at which Whittemore served as moderator. Seemingly without electing any representatives or
conducting any business whatsoever, the meeting adjourned “to Tuesday next at three of the clock
in the afternoon.”[12] This put Cambridge in jeopardy of not being able to participate in the
convention as it had already been underway for four days.

The Boston Gazette reported that delegates from ninety towns in the province had arrived to join
the convention but that “the Torries in Cambridge … with the Aid of a veering Whig”[13] were
successful in postponing their town meeting until the next Thursday.

But just a few days later, on September 29, the inhabitants of Cambridge met yet again and a vote
was held to determine “whether it be the minds of the inhabitants of this town to proceed … to
chusing a person to joyn with the Committee of Conventions of the other towns in this province,
now sitting in Boston.”[14] This time, an answer was forthcoming. The town elected Whittemore as
their representative, along with Thomas Gardner.[15]

By the time the Cambridge delegates were elected, the convention had ended. Neither Whittemore
nor Gardner actually attended. The Boston Gazette noted that despite the business of the
convention having already been concluded, “Cambridge, by a very great Majority”[16] had indeed
responded to Boston’s call and elected representatives. Though unable to attend the convention,
the chosen gentlemen “desire[d] to acquaint the Public, that they have carefully read the printed
Proceedings and Result of the Committees, and highly approve.”[17]

In its published consensus, the convention expressed “a
pressing Anxiety of Mind on the Account of heavy and
increasing Grievances”[18] which included Parliament’s
passage of various revenue acts and the arrival of a
standing army in Boston.[19] The convention also
suggested that its participants—“plain honest men”[20]—
would continue to “steadily persevere in orderly and
constitutional Applications for the Recovering and Exercise
of their just Rights and Liberties.”[21]
Whittemore accepted the charge of the Cambridge
townspeople to serve as representative although, since the
lawful General Court had been dissolved, the convention of
towns could have been viewed as an extralegal gathering.
The convention acknowledged that “there are those who
deem it criminal for aggrieved Fellow Subjects to join”[22]
and petition for redress. In fact, Governor Bernard believed
the convention was unlawful and refused to accept any
petitions as doing so could recognize the Committee of
Convention as legitimate.[23]
Whittemore’s willingness to attend the convention despite
its possible unlawfulness and his staunch, publicized agreement with its consensus provide some
insight into his political outlook beyond the one-dimensionality of his legend.

Especially when examined in conjunction with his
earlier post-Stamp Act repeal committee activity, it is
clear that Whittemore was developing some misgivings
about recent Parliamentary policies. This disquiet, of
course, would explode into musket fire within a few
short years.
In December 1772, at age seventy-six, the venerable
Whittemore was elected to the Cambridge Committee
of Correspondence.[24] Just one month earlier, the
first Committee of Correspondence had been formed in
Boston. The goal of the Boston committee was to “state
the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province … to
communicate and publish the Same to the Several
Towns.”[25] Accordingly, they sent a letter (now
known as the Boston Pamphlet) to the various towns,
enumerating the violations committed by Great Britain
and requesting support, advice, and correspondence
from the towns.[26]

Cambridge responded swiftly to the Boston
committee’s solicitation and held a town meeting on
December 14, 1772.

The town voted to form a Cambridge Committee of Correspondence to communicate with Boston.
[27] Whittemore and eight other men were unanimously elected to serve. Whittemore’s name
appeared in the Boston Evening Post on December 21, 1772, followed by his eight compatriots.[28]
According to the Boston-Gazette, the Cambridge town meeting had been “as full as it has been for
the Choice of a Representative, for a Number of Years, if not fuller; and that the People discovered
a glorious Spirit, like Men determined to be Free.”[29] They continued, “May every Town in this
Province and every Colony upon this Continent, be awakened to a Sense of Danger, and unite in the
glorious Cause of Liberty. Then shall we be able effectually to disappoint the Machinations of our
Enemies.”[30]
The communication emanating from Cambridge in 1772 is notably more forceful in tone than
the 1766 committee instructions furnished to Andrew Bordman after the Stamp Act repeal. This
is significant because the three men on the Stamp Act repeal committee in 1766—Whittemore,
Ebenezer Stedman, and Eliphalet Robbins—were all also members of the Cambridge Committee of
Correspondence. In their 1766 instructions, the committee professed to maintain “the strongest
Impressions of the wisdom & Uprightness of the Supream Legislature”[31] and generously
attributed any unfavorable legislation to an “unavoidable want of an adequate knowledge of our
Internal Circumstances.”[32] But by 1772, that august body, if not Great Britain as a whole, was
considered an enemy.
About a year later, Whittemore affixed his signature to a particularly forceful letter that the
Cambridge committee sent to Boston to express their concerns and solidarity with regard to the
Tea Act. Even centuries later, the wording of the letter is potent. The anxiety experienced by the
committee-men is palpable, yet so is their sense of resoluteness in the face of the grave danger that
they perceived:

If we cease to assert Our rights we shall dwindle into supineness and the chains of slavery shall be fast
rivetted upon us …[33]
The late act of the British Parliament impowering the East India Company to export tea on their own
account…and expose the same to sale … is a recent proof of the determination of the Ministry to persue
their Diabolical Plan to inslave the Americans.[34]
A couple of weeks later, the committees of Cambridge, Brookline, Roxbury, and Dorchester met for
a joint conference on resisting the Tea Act.[35] If Whittemore attended this meeting, then he would
have had the opportunity to meet and talk with men that—like him—were destined to achieve
immortality in the annals of the Revolution. Samuel Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, Josiah Quincy, Jr.,
and James Otis, Jr. were all members of the Boston committee.
At this meeting, the committees voted in favor of “using their Joint influence to prevent the Landing
and Sale of the Teas expected from the East India Company.”[36]
Another letter was then dispatched to the towns containing the consensus of the joint conference.
It declared that the arriving tea was even “more to be dreaded than plague or pestilence,[37]”
exhorted townspeople to refrain from consuming tea and to “impress upon the minds of your
friends, neighbours, and fellow townsmen, the necessity of exerting themselves in a most zealous
and determined manner, to save the present and future generations from temporal and (we think
we may with seriousness say) eternal destruction.”[38] The preservation of the immortal souls of
the people of Massachusetts apparently depended upon thwarting the sale and consumption of the
tea.
The Boston Tea Party would occur about three weeks later. In a mere year and a half, Whittemore
would be lying unconscious by a wall near his home, with part of his cheekbone shot off and blood
from multiple bayonet wounds pooling on the ground around him. The retreating soldiers would
exact their revenge upon the old farmer with punishing ferocity, yet would only be met by his utter
imperviousness.
Whittemore appears to always have been a formidable opponent, as evidenced by the following
summary of a legal matter in which he was involved almost forty years prior to the Revolution. In
March of 1738, when Whittemore was a mere youngster of fortyone, he was sued by John Vassall
for defamation.[39] Vassall had just been elected as a Selectman for Cambridge. Whittemore must
have greatly wounded Vassall’s pride in his office when, “with a Loud Voice in the hearing of divers
persons,”[40] he declared that Vassall was “unfit for said trust and was no more fit … than the horse
that he, Samuel, rode on.”[41]
In his lawsuit, Vassall argued that Whittemore’s words brought Vassall “into great contempt and
much despised by the King’s subjects as well as by the Inhabitants of said Town.”[42]

Whittemore was subsequently arrested and, because he lacked the funds to post bail, remained
imprisoned for four days.[43] Ultimately, the Court was unimpressed with Vassall’s allegations and
found that Whittemore’s words were not actionable.
Whittemore, however, still smarting after being jailed, sued Vassall, arguing that due to his
imprisonment his “businesses were impeded, his reputation lessened, and he was put to great
Expence and suffered great Vexation [and] Grief.”[44] The Court agreed with Whittemore that he
had suffered damages and awarded him two hundred pounds.[45]
Our hero need not have fretted so much about his reputation. An astonishing 320 years after his
birth, and 242 years after he crouched behind a stone wall gripping his musket with calloused,
work-worn hands, the old New England farmer is still the subject of great fascination. His
uncommon longevity, the savagery of his injuries, and the triumph of his survival certainly make for
an irresistible story that has been told and re-told through the generations.
History will remember Capt. Samuel Whittemore most vividly at the flashpoint of the Battle of
Menotomy. But his response to the British soldiers on April 19, 1775 should be viewed within the
larger context of his life. Rather than one discrete act, Whittemore’s heroic stand was a single point
in a continuum of action. Long before he was shot, bayonetted, and left for dead on the ground in
Menotomy, he had been entrusted by his fellow townspeople with important duties whereby he
helped shape years. the coming revolution on the local level. Whittemore was even more intimately
connected with the revolution than his legend implies and we owe it to his memory to recognize
him for the full range of the contributions he made to his country.

CITATIONS
[1] Columbian Centinel, February 6, 1793, in Lucius R. Page. History of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. 1630-1877. With a Genealogical Register (Boston: H.O. Houghton and
Company, 1877), 414-415.
[2]Ibid., 415.
[3]An Act Designating Captain Samuel Whittemore The Official State Hero of the
Commonwealth, 2005 (Massachusetts) Senate, No. 1839. Internet
Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070929123454/http://www.mass.gov/legis/bill
s/senate/st01/st01839.htm
[4] Page.History of Cambridge. 414-415.
[5]Cambridge. Town Meeting Minutes, May 12, 1766.
[6]Ibid. [7]Ibid. [8]Ibid. [9]Ibid.
[10]A Circulatory Letter, directed to the Speakers of the respective Houses of
Representatives and Burgesses on this Continent … February 11, 1768, published
letter from the Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, Boston,
1767-1768. The Massachusetts Historical
Society, https://www.masshist.org/revolution/imageviewer.
php?item_id=258&img_step=1&tpc=&pid=2&mode=transcript&tpc=&pid=2#page1
[11] Circular Letter from the Selectmen of the Town of Boston to the Several Towns.
Broadside. September 14, 1768. The Massachusetts Historical
Society https://www.masshist.org/revolution/imageviewer.
php?item_id=259&img_step=1&tpc=&pid=2&mode=transcript&tpc=&pid=2#page1
[12] Cambridge. Town Meeting Minutes, September 26, 1768.
[13] Boston-Gazette and Country Journal, September 26, 1768. Massachusetts
Historical Society, The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Vol. 2, page 252,
3rd col. http://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/2/sequence/274
[14] Cambridge. Town Meeting Minutes, September 29, 1768.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Boston-Gazette and Country Journal, October 3, 1768. Massachusetts Historical
Society, The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Vol. 2, page 258,
1st col. http://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/2/sequence/280
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid., page 257, 2nd col. http://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/2/sequence/279
[19] Ibid. [20] Ibid., 3rd col. [21] Ibid. [22] Ibid.
[23] Boston-Gazette and Country Journal, September 26, 1768. Massachusetts
Historical Society, The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Vol. 2 page 247,
1st-2nd col. http://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/2/sequence/270
[24] Cambridge. Town Meeting Minutes, December 14, 1772. See also William Brattle,
Minutes of Meeting to Consider Boston’s Resolutions for Committees of
Correspondence, Boston Public Library, American Revolutionary War Manuscripts
Collection, call number
MS.G.41.9.78. http://www.archive.org/details/minutesofmeeting00camb
[25] Minutes of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, November, 3 1772, Volume
1. New York Public Library, Archives and Manuscripts Division, Digital
Collections https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/390ed440-bb9b-0132-9f85-
58d385a7bbd0#/?uuid=3984ef70-bb9b-0132-2481-58d385a7bbd0
[26] The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of
Boston (Boston, 1772). Massachusetts Historical
Society https://www.masshist.org/revolution/docviewer.
php?old=1&mode=nav&item_id=649
[27] Cambridge. Town Meeting Minutes, December 14, 1772.
[28] Boston Evening Post, December 21, 1772. Massachusetts Historical Society, The
Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Vol. 4, page 202,
1st col. http://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/4/sequence/280
[29] Boston Evening Post December 28, 1772. Massachusetts Historical Society, The
Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Vol. 4 page 206
3rd col. http://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/4/sequence/284
[30] Ibid. [31] Cambridge. Town Meeting Minutes, May 12, 1766. [32] Ibid.
[33] Letter from Cambridge Committee of Correspondence, November 1, 1773, Boston
Committee of Correspondence, New York Public Library, Archives and Manuscripts
Division, Digital Collections https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d7bfb840-eb82-
0132-fb87-58d385a7bbd0#/?uuid=d8259680-eb82-0132-2666-58d385a7bbd0
[34] Ibid., https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d7bfb840-eb82-0132-fb87-
58d385a7bbd0#/?uuid=d839b6f0-eb82-0132-c738-58d385a7bbd0
[35] Minutes of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, November 22, 1773,
Volume 6. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/557fd5f0-c12e-0132-d597-
58d385a7b928#/?uuid=557fd5f0-c12e-0132-d597-58d385a7b928
[36] Ibid.
[37] In consequence of a conference with the committees of correspondence in the
vicinity of Boston, November 23, 1773 … (Boston, 1773), Massachusetts Historical
Society https://www.masshist.org/revolution/imageviewer.
php?item_id=444&img_step=1&tpc=&pid=2&mode=transcript&tpc=&pid=2#page1
[38] Ibid.
[39] Whittemore v. Vassall, Suffolk County Files Collection, Massachusetts State
Archives, December term, 172. Index number 52857.
[40] Ibid. [41] Ibid. [42] Ibid., 173. [43] Ibid. [44] Ibid. [45] Ibid.

[Rick Travis]

Sybil Ludington

Sybil Ludington has been celebrated as the female Paul Revere because of her ride through Putnam
and Dutchess Counties to warn the militia that British troops were burning Danbury, Connecticut.
Sybil was born in 1761 in what was then known as Fredericksburg, and is now known as the
Ludingtonville section of the town of Kent, New York. Her father was Colonel Henry Ludington,
a respected militia officer who commanded the 7th Regiment of the Dutchess County Militia, a
volunteer regiment of local men during the Revolutionary War. He later became an aide to General
George Washington. She was the oldest of Col. Ludington’s 12 children.

There is much confusion concerning the spelling of her first name. Although it is mostly spelled
“Sybil”, her tombstone displays her name as “Sibbell”. However, she signed her Revolutionary
War pension application as “Sebal”, which is apparently the spelling she preferred. Her sister
Mary spelled her name “Sebil.”

In the 1810 census, she is listed as “Sibel.”, and appears on other records as “Cybil.” Her
name does not seem to appear on any official documents as “Sybil.” The grave of Sybil
Ludington in the Maple Ave. Cemetery. On April 25, 1777, a 2000 man British force commanded
by General Tryon landed at Fairfield, Connecticut, near the mouth of the Saugatuck River, arriving with twenty transports and six
warships. They moved eight miles inland and camped at Weston. The next day the force moved
north into Danbury, doing no damage to private property along the way. In Danbury, however, they
began a search for stores of Continental Army supplies, also leaving chalk marks on the properties
of British loyalists and informers. Properties without chalk marks were set to be destroyed. By 4
PM, several Continental Army storehouses and three private homes were in flames. For security
reasons, the Continental Army had recently transferred its supplies from Peekskill to Danbury,
where they were thought to be safe, and were consequently poorly guarded. The stores included
foodstuffs such as flour, beef, pork, sugar, molasses, coffee, rice, wheat, corn, and several hundred
cases of wine and rum. Hospital cots and tents were also stored there, along with clothing and
shoes and cooking utensils. Medicines and other medical supplies were stored in New Milford,
Connecticut, and were not affected by the British raid. The British soldiers found the rum and
decided to consume it rather than destroy it. More fires were started by drunken soldiers, as military
discipline broke down. Messengers were dispatched in all directions to announce the British arrival
and news of the fires.

Col. Henry Ludington was in charge of the local militia in the Kent/Patterson area. Ludington and
his wife Abigail lived in Kent, New York, and operated a mill, which was located just north of the
current intersection of NYS Route 52 and Ludingtonville Road in the town of Kent, New York. He
fought in the French and Indian War with General Tryon, and served as an aide to General George
Washington during the Battle of White Plains during the American War of Independence. He later
formed the 7th Dutchess County Militia. At the time of the Danbury attack, the militia numbered
400 men.

A messenger was dispatched from Danbury to Col. Ludington with the news of the attack, and he
reached the Ludington home at approximately 9 PM. Col. Ludington began to organize the militia,
but the men were scattered throughout the area in their homes, and it was well into the night. The
messenger was exhausted and not familiar with the area, and would not be able to find all of the
militia volunteers.

Sybil Ludington, who had just turned 16, was very familiar with the area, and left to sound the alert.
It is unclear whether she volunteered for the task, or whether she was asked to do it by her father.
Some accounts indicate that Col. Ludington had planned the route Sybil would take.

Sybil left for her now-famous ride at approximately 9 PM into the
rainy night, traveling 40 miles from her home in what is now the
town of Kent, south to Mahopac, and north to Stormville, before
returning home near dawn the next day. Sybil not only had to
avoid British soldiers in the area, but also British loyalists, and
“Skinners”, who were outlaws with no allegiance to either side
in the War. Some accounts indicate that a church bell was rung
in Carmel after she gave the alarm, and that a man offered to
accompany her on the rest of her ride. These accounts claim that
she declined his offer, but instead dispatched him eastward to sound the alarm in
Brewster.

Col. Ludington’s troops arrived too late to save Danbury, but
fought with the British troops as they left the area.
On October 24, 1785, Sybil married Edmond Ogden, according to
her Revolutionary War pension application. The Ogdens were married by a Baptist
minster named Rev. Ebenezer Cole, but the Rev. Frost’s history of
the Patterson Presbyterian Church states that in 1789 the couple were listed as members of the
Presbyterian Church. They had one son, Henry. Some accounts claim that Odgen was a lawyer while
other research indicates that he actually operated a tavern located on what is now NYS Route 22 on
what later became known in the 20th century as the Stephens farm or Birch Hill. This research
further claims that the Ogdens moved to the Catskills around 1792 and operated a tavern there,
which Sybil ran by herself after Edmond’s death in 1799. Eventually Sybil, her son Henry, now a lawyer, and Henry’s wife moved to
Unadilla, New York, where she lived until her death in February, 1839. Sybil was buried near her father in the Maple Avenue Cemetery.

Historical markers tracing her route can be seen throughout eastern Putnam County.
Artist Anna Huntington’s famous sculpture commemorating Sybil Ludington’s ride rests on the shore of Lake Gleneida on Route 52 in
Carmel.

[Theodore Hampton]

Will we know how many sign-ups for our supporting range? Our two Sacramento Chapters are planning to have a Fun Shoot after SHATW.

[Rick Travis]

Theodore this is a great question. We are working to obtain the range lists of participants for that very reason. Unfortunately, ranges don’t always obtain and provide that information. We are working the process out and eventually we should have ranges and CRPA on the same page. We will be happy to forward what we obtain from the Sacramento ranges or any other range for any chapter. One of the goals in any event is building the community!!!

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