92 



$l\)c jTarmcr's ittontljlij bisitor. 



said, to above 20,000 men under the command of 

 the Colonels Ward, Prebble, Heath, Prescott and 

 Thomas, who for the present acted as generals, 

 and having fixed their head quarters at Cambridge 

 formed a line of encampment, the right wing 

 of which extended from that town to Roxhurv, 

 and the left to Mystick, the distance between the 

 points being about thirty miles. They were 

 speedily joined by Colonel Putnam, an old and 

 brave provincial officer, who had acquired expe- 

 rience and reputation in the two last wars. He 

 encamped with a large detachment of Connecti- 

 cut troops in such a position, as to be readily 

 able to support those who were before the town. 



Our attention has been drawn at this time to 

 the battle of Lexington, from the circumstance 

 that the citizens of West Cambridge have re- 

 cently taken steps to produce from the pure 

 granite ledges of this town a beautiful granite 

 monument fifteen feet high, to be erected in the 

 old grave yard, near the scene of action, where 

 the bodies of Jason Russell and eleven others 

 were promiscuously buried in one grave after the 

 battle. The inscription upon the dilapidated 

 stone, we are informed, is to be transferred to 

 the monument, as follows: 



" Mr. Jason Russell was barbarously murdered 

 in his own house, by Gage's bloody troops, on 

 the 19th of April 1775. His body is quietly rest- 

 ing in this srave with eleven of our friends who 

 in like manner with many others were cruelly 

 slain on that fatal day." 



Hon. James Russell and Col. Thomas Russell 

 (the latter a grandson of Jason Russell) with 

 other spirited gentlemen of that town, have been 

 active in reviving the recollection of the scenes 

 of that interesting day of which there remains 

 scarcely a living witness. The burial ground is 

 almost within gunshot distance of the spot where 

 the train of baggage wagons following Lord 

 Percy's detachment were arrested on their way 

 towards Concord. The "alarm list " had collec- 

 ted near the meeting house, at the point where 

 the roads part in West Cambridge: the train 

 carrying supplies to the retreating British troops 

 was here ordered to stop: driving on, they were 

 fired upon. David Lamson (part Indian) whom 

 we remember when young, and who died about 

 the year ]800, was the man who fired the first 

 gun at the train while in the high road opposite 

 the meeting house. Horses as well as men were 

 shot down — the wagons with their contents were 

 taken out of the way, and the slain horses drag- 

 ged some hundred rods distance to Sandy hol- 

 low near the Spy pond on the Watertown road : 

 the bones of these horses were bleaching above 

 ground in this hollow in the days of our early 

 school-hoy remembrance. The vengeance of 

 the retreating British, when returning over the 

 spot where the horses were shot down, was 

 spent on the old ".Adams house," a part of which 

 still stands upon the opposite side of the road a 

 little below the meeting house, by riddling it 

 with bullets. This house is very near the pre. 

 sent West Cambridge railroad depot — so near 

 the railroad track that it became necessary two 

 years since to take away a part of it. The house, 

 it is believed, was the first erecied in that part of 

 the ancient town of Cambridge, more than two 

 hundred years ago: its limbers when taken 

 down were yet sound. According to the fashion 

 of the day, this house was bricked up between 

 the outside clapboarding and the inside wain- 

 scoting: numerous bullets shot into the bricks 

 were extracted from that part of the house taken 

 down. 



On the first of April, the grave was opened 

 where the hodies of the victims were deposited 

 seventy-three years ago. The position of the 



bodies confirmed fully the verbal statements 

 which were related to us more than fifty years 

 since. Twelve bodies, of whom the only names 

 now known were Jason Russell, Jason Winship 

 and Jabez Winship, were buried here with their 

 apparel on, and promiscuously laid in the ground 

 over each other. Walter Russell (grandfather of 

 Hon. James R. who deceased in 1782) was then 

 some twenty years younger than his neighbor, 

 Jason Russell, who was wantonly bayonetted in 

 his own house. The two families of the same 

 name were not near relations. Walter's ancestor 

 settled in the Charlestown precinct, one mile 

 eastward of the meeting house : Jason lived in 

 a house standing a few rods from the main road 

 in Cambridge north-west parish, a little way to- 

 wards Lexington. The king's troops entered 

 and rifled the dwellings as the main body retired 

 down the road. Old Mr. Russell, an invalid 

 non-combatant, unable to retreat, declaring his 

 his house to be his castle, was butchered while 

 sitting in his chair. The next day, in gathering 

 the dead that had not been rescued by their 

 friends, the twelve bodies killed in the neighbor- 

 hood were brought to be deposited in one en- 

 larged grave of the old cemetery ground in close 

 proximity to that denoted by the head stones as 

 the depository of as many as four generations of 

 our ancestors. It came from the mouth of his 

 widow, who lived afterwards within our memory 

 nearly forty years, that her husband, Walter 

 Russell, in the act of interment of these dead, 

 familiar to the scene of blood, threw the 

 bodies in as so many dead animals becoming 

 offensive to the nostrils, until he recognized the 

 well known face of his elder namesake — a bro- 

 ther of the same church and an esteemed excel- 

 lent neighbor: pausing in the work, he went to 

 the deserted house whose floor then reeked 

 where the life's blood had flowed, and brought a 

 bed-sheet to be the covering shroud of its owner. 

 The bodies were laying where tradition had 

 thrown them, having never before been disturbed 

 in their grave : the larger bones have been col 

 lected and placed in a box to be buried on the 

 same spot, over which the new monument will 

 stand. The woolen cloth of the covering gar- 

 ments, the soles of the shoes, a leather pouch 

 containing gun-flints, with several metal buttons, 

 were taken out with the boues : we have in 

 possession two of the buttons, and two of the 

 strong double teeth taken from the head of one 

 of the buried viclims. 



West Cambridge (then called the Menotomy 

 parish, and comprising with Little Cambridge, 

 now Brighton, Cambridge port and Lechmere 

 point and the present town at the seat of Har- 

 vard University, the ancient town of Cambridge) 

 meeting house is situated half way, at a distance 

 of about three miles from either, between the 

 colleges and Lexington: the colleges are about 

 three miles out of Boston. The present location 

 of Lechmere point was the place of crossing for 

 the king's regulars, leaving Boston in two'de- 

 tachments: the army retreated into Boston back 

 through Charlestown, then containing a thick 

 cluster of houses below the neck sou ill- westerly 

 along the foot and sides of Bunker and Breed's 

 hills, both of which are also wilhin the neck. 



Passing over the plains of Menotomy after 

 leaving the "foot of the rocks" below Lexing- 

 ton, the myrmidons of Great Britain seem to 



were related to us by some of those who were 

 actors and witnesses of this scene: the recollec- 

 tion is now quite as vivid as if the same had 

 been described to us only on yesterday. Tin. 

 butchery of Jason Russell, whose name is in- 

 cluded in the list of killed, is the most prominent 

 case alluded to in Mr. Clark's narrative, as an 

 "aged and infirm "man " inhumanly stabbed and 

 murdered " in hi3 own habitation. The " wo- 

 men in child-bed with their helpless babies in 

 their arms " relate to two cases, according to 

 our early impressions. The mother of Mr. Israel 

 Blackington, known to us afterwards as a miller 

 near the foot of the rocks, was shot dead in the head 

 while nursing him in ihehouseof her residence, the 

 infant of a few months preserved alive to become 

 a man. The lady now lives, of course seventy- 

 three years old, the wife of James Hill, Esq., ' 

 whose mother, while nestling the tender infant 

 of the age of a few days, was " turned into the 

 street" at night. She was the mother often 

 children, all of whom were around her, and the 

 second wife of her husband, then suffering from 

 infirmity and lameness, who barely escaped in 

 the rear while the British soldiers were entering 

 the house in front. The frightened children 

 crawled under the bed of their mother, whose 

 position would have secured her from the vio- 

 lence of any other cruelty than that of demons: 

 she was routed and driven from her bed and 

 house. The children afterwards discovered by 

 the marauders and freebooters fled like so many 

 frightened partridges. The house was rifled of. 

 the most valuable articles — a quantity of silvei 

 plate was sought out in its place of concealment,, 

 and carried off. The house was set on fire when' 

 the barbarians left it by piling chairs and com- 

 bustibles in a lower room, with live coals from 

 the fire place. It was saved by the elder child 

 of the family, a daughter of fifteen or sixteen 

 years, who had the presence of mind to «se the 

 water of wash-tubs on the outside, preventing 

 the collected coals from bursting into t flame by 

 clqsing the door to the admission of fie air. Tho' 

 fire had burned through the floorio the cellar. 

 Deac. Joseph Adams, who sustain*' an office in- 

 the West Cambridge church fron/1'59 to 1792, ■ 

 husband and father of this fa/ily, would not, 

 while he lived, suffer the white™ 5 " to cover the 

 smoked summer overhead f '' lc room where 

 this fire was set. Near b/" 18 house of Deac. 

 Adams an armed provjneii/ 1 "" a British soldier 

 shot each other dead at fc sa, " e instant, meet- 

 ing as the latter was #eatfng from a house 



/ i 

 with his knapsack load" down with booty : the 



muskets flashed at Jf sa,ne moment; levelled 

 and aimed as the Ajp" 0B11 '""led the corner of 

 the house. / 



Another insta/ of cru ehy was the case of 

 Capt. Samuel M^ te «l0re, named in the list as 

 wounded. Tf gentleman was shot down in 

 the ground 0/ lin = ,lis ""'" "ell-known tavern 

 house near / stleet : Persons in sight and hear- . 

 ing conce/ 1 were ""'"'esses to the fact of a 

 British sr' L ' r » oil1 ° "I' al "l kicking him, crying 

 out—" \' M Jevil is ,lea '' enough." The "bul- 

 let lod' in ,be head olll ''s old man, who lived 

 cai-iV " '" l,is head sixteen years afterwards, 

 cut' t '" le of ,lis death. 



J\ue\ Frost, marked in the list among the 

 Ang, was also an elderly man, having been 

 ced in the Rev. Mr. Cooke's church records 



have been lashed into a fury of cruelty which,'. !" ame „ "* , 74 '' t,,e y ™ r afler ,,,e ">«riage 

 spent itself no less upon the unoffending an , ," -""^"j T" rememher '"">. »Ml an 



helpless than upon the ass. is in arms, f/, ' ^^ Ph, ' a " n ^ Wl '° ' nanie(l Bi8 ' 



years and more have transpire,! since the st/ 1 *" na "' e ° f Cutter ,0 ,l,e «& of 



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