On Lexington Common

Week 22: #52 Ancestors – Conflict

By Eilene Lyon

The Putterer’s 6^th great-grandfather, Amos Poor Jr., is an established Patriot in both the DAR and SAR (Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution). He also has the distinction of having been at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.¹

Amos and his younger brother, Eliphalet, belonged to the Newbury militia, under command of Jacob Gerrish, who later held the rank of captain in the Continental Army.² The Newbury men (roughly 40 miles from Lexington), responded to the Alarm. Amos left behind his wife, Sarah, and their two young children, aiming to support the militias to the south, as British troops marched out of Boston.

That early morning in April officially “kicked off” the American Revolution. The events need not have occurred (though something was bound to trigger a conflict at some point), and no one knows how the shooting in Lexington began. The British troops were on a relatively routine, peaceful mission to confiscate militia munitions and provisions in Concord. The companies had been mustered at 9 p.m. on the 18^th to begin their march westward in the night.

The Lexington minutemen gathered in the wee hours and their captain, John Parker, made the decision to disperse when the soldiers arrived. It would have been folly, suicidal even, to take on a force ten times larger. Both he and Maj. John Pitcairn, the British second-in-command, ordered their men to hold fire.

About 70 militia had gathered on the Lexington Common in two ragged lines. Perhaps another hundred townspeople looked on as spectators. The minutemen were slow to disperse, and though ordered by Maj. Pitcairn to leave their weapons behind, they did not. The soldiers had orders to surround and disarm the colonists.

To Pitcairn, these Lexington men were all subjects of King George III. They were fellow countrymen, even if they were in a state of rebellion. It was not his wish to start a war. The first shot may have been an alarm fired in the air by one of the minutemen, or a warning to drop arms fired by a soldier. It may have been only powder, not a bullet. Soon live rounds entered the picture and eight colonists and one soldier lay dead or dying on the green.

Pitcairn later had harsh words regarding the chaotic behavior of his men. Perhaps lack of sleep, food, and the long night march had left the soldiers ill-prepared to deal with the situation in the proper manner. The militia, even less of a disciplined body than the British regulars, offered a conundrum when they sauntered off carrying their muskets, ignoring the soldiers’ demands. Of such confusion, radical transformation of the world is born.

What role did Amos Poor play in these events? It’s hard to discern. It appears that only locals and men from nearby communities were on Lexington Common when the British arrived. After the soldiers resumed their march to Concord, men from distant communities began arriving, which probably included the Newbury militia. They hastened on to Concord where the British compounded their error by burning some of the militia supplies. The colonists mistakenly believed the grenadiers were setting fire to the town.³

Amos served for six days from April 19–25. He served terms of two or three months at a time from 1775 through 1778 around the Boston area.⁴ In addition to his brother Eliphalet, older brother, Benjamin, also served. It’s possible their father, Amos Sr., participated in some way, possibly as a member of the Alarm, being too old for service as a minuteman. It is not known if any of the Poor men suffered injuries. Undoubtedly, they did endure trauma from scenes of carnage, as is typical in any war.

After the war, Amos Jr. relocated his family to Brownfield, Maine, more than a hundred miles from the battlefields of Massachusetts.⁵

Feature image: “The battle of Lexington, April 19th. 1775. Plate I.” In: “The Doolittle engravings of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775.” Collection Guide: Picturing America, 1497-1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory that is now the United States. Humanities and Social Sciences Library / Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, New York Public Library. (Wikimedia Commons)

Amos Poor Jr. on Ancestry.com