Patriots' Day - The start of the American Revolution

April 21, 2014 • 1 Comment

Patriots' Day is not widely celebrated outside of Massachusetts but even in MA it is most commonly called "Marathon Monday", the day of the Boston Marathon, which began in 1897 and is the world's oldest annual marathon. Patriots' Day commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord which occured on April 19, 1775, the first battles of the American Revolution. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the fairly unknown Paul Revere into a household name when he penned the poem "Paul Revere's Ride" in 1860, although he used some poetic license in the poem since William Dawes was not mentioned or that Revere was captured. Today, Patriots' Day reenactments are held annually in the month of April in the towns of Lexington, Bedford, Lincoln, and Concord. There are parades, marches, educational programs, and reenactments commemorating Revere's capture, the battle of Lexington, and the Battle of Concord. The Battle of Lexington is held at 5:45am on Patriots' Day morning on the Lexington Battle Green and it is one of the most popular events to attend. The reenactors show the scurmish that occured at sunrise on April 19th, 1775 that would end up being the first battle of the American Revolution. Below you will find my photographs from a few of the events held in 2014.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

- An excerpt from "Paul Rever's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

This is a photo of the Paul Revere statue in the North End of Boston with the Old North Church in the background. The sculptor Cyrus Edwin Dallin began working on it in 1883, and he needed to make several versions before the design was finalized in 1899, and even then it was not presented to the public until September 22, 1940.