Boston – Freedom Trail – King’s Chapel and Burying Ground – William Dawes Jr
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William Dawes, Jr. (April 5, 1745 – February 25, 1799) was one of the three men who alerted colonial minutemen of the approach of British army troops prior to the Battle of Lexington and Concord at the outset of the American Revolution. A tanner by trade, Dawes was active in Boston’s militia.
Dawes was assigned by Dr. Joseph Warren to ride from Boston, Massachusetts, to Lexington on the night of April 18, 1775, when it became clear that a British column was going to march into the countryside. Dawes’s mission was to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that they were in danger of arrest. Dawes took the land route out of Boston through Boston Neck, leaving just before the military sealed off the town. Het met Paul Revere at the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington where they decided on their own to continue on to Concord, Massachusetts. Joined by a third rider, Dr. Samuel Prescott, they rode to where weapons and supplies were hidden. Soon after, all three were arrested by a British patrol. Prescott escaped almost immediately, and Dawes soon after. Revere was held for some time and then released. History has slighted Dawes’ role in the midnight ride, largely giving Revere all the credit as a result of Longfellow’s poem, Paul Revere’s Ride.
Recent research suggests that this grave may not in fact be Dawes’ resting place, though. A sketch of the 1,738-square-foot Lot 737 at Forest Hills Cemetery lists 47 names the majority of which are "May," the prominent Boston family whose ranks included 19th-century social reformer Samuel Joseph May and Louisa May Alcott, the author of "Little Women." The 43d name listed, however, reads "William Dawes Mar. 30, 1882 In Tomb, Died 1799." A note that pertains to names 17 through 43 reveals his previous whereabouts: "These remains removed from Boylston Street Burial Grounds." The May family, which Dawes married into in 1768 with his wedding to Mehitable May, owned this lot and may have chose to move their family members out of a crowded downtown burial ground at some point. Which ground remains a mystery as well. The tomb was unmarked until the Sons of the Revolution in 1899 identified it as Dawes’. The 19th-century organization may have ignored historical accuracy in an attempt to applaud patriotism.
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King’s Chapel Burial Ground is Boston’s first and oldest burying place, dating back to just a few months after the town was settled in 1630. Until 1688, when land from the oldest section was taken to build the adjacent King’s Chapel, this burying place was called Johnson’s Burying Ground after Isaac Johnson, an early settler and the first Chief Justice of Boston. Johnson once owned the property and requested to be buried here. Held in such high esteem by his fellow townsmen that they requested to be buried by his side, the land was appropriated for common burial. Serving as Boston’s only burial ground for nearly 30 years, overcrowding quickly became a problem, which resulted in town fathers allocating land for Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in 1659 and Granary Burying Ground in 1660. General interments continued until 1795 and burials in family tombs into the 19th century. In the early 1800s, many of the gravestones were moved from their original position and placed in rows, so it is impossible to tell the exact location of some of the graves.
King’s Chapel Burying Ground is the final resting place of thousands of Boston settlers, including many anchoring members of Boston’s seventeenth and eighteenth-century society. The honor role includes John Winthrop, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony and "City Upon a Hill" visionary; Hezekiah Usher, the first book seller in Boston; Robert Keayne, the founder of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company; John Proctor, a "Writing Master" at the original Boston Latin School; religious icons Reverend John Cotton and Reverend John Davenport; Elizabeth Pain, who many believed was the prototype for the Hester Prynne character in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Mary Chilton, the first woman to step foot off the Mayflower in Plymouth Colony in 1620. The oldest extant gravemarker in this site commemorates the life of William Paddy (1657)