April 19, 2016
Here is an important genealogy tip. Did your ancestor fight at the Battle of Lexington? If so, don’t limit your search to only your ancestor. Expand your search and find out who else was there fighting with them, and learn about their stories.
Research each veteran of the battle. Look for clues and details in their stories that will help fill in the story of your ancestor’s experience.
I was looking at the Battle of Lexington that we celebrate and remember every April 19th.
We picture the events and think of what our ancestors did that day.
Because of the comprehensiveness of GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives we can find news articles of the event and its impact.
Genealogists find biographical articles and obituaries that give more details.
Find all of their stories and you’ll have a much deeper sense of the battle that day.
Jonathan Harrington
Here is the story of 16-year-old Jonathan Harrington – what happened to him that day, and how his life unfolded.
Clues in Harrington’s obituary led me to find an actual daguerreotype of him in his old age.
Isaac Holden
Isaac Holden was only 16 when he fought in the French & Indian War.
He was an experienced veteran, and during the Revolutionary War he was at the Battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill and other battles of the war.
He “shared largely in the sufferings and privations attendant on those who achieved liberties of our country, and at the last shared the bounty which the government bestowed.”
His obituary was printed in the Boston Traveler.
William Monroe
Col. William Monroe heard the night before that “several British officers were seen proceeding on horseback towards the town, with the supposed intention of arresting John Hancock and Samuel Adams.”
He “commanded the Sergeant’s guard, stationed for their protection” at the house where Hancock and Adams were living and alerted them “that 800 British troops were secretly marching” to capture them.
Forewarned, they fled to safety in Woburn, Massachusetts, and Monroe remained with the men in Lexington braced for the British attack.
Monroe’s lengthy obituary recounts the details of the fighting that day.
You can read his entire obituary in GenealogyBank, published by the Hampshire Gazette.
Samuel Payson
Capt. Samuel Payson also fought at the Battle of Lexington. His story reads as if he were speaking directly to us from the old newspapers in GenealogyBank.
On the memorable 19th April, 1775, [I] was at [my] plough, in Sharon [Massachusetts], when [I] received the intelligence of the slaughter at Lexington… [I] immediately took [my] horse from the plough and proceeded to muster the minute men [I] commanded, and marched to drive in the enemy.
His family was there. The times called for action and they responded. As a young man he had fought in three campaigns in the French & Indian War – and, along with his two sons, fought in the Revolutionary War.
He was so dedicated to the Revolution that I “sold [my] farm [and] loaned the money to the town to pay her quota [to finance] soldiers.”
His story is in GenealogyBank, recorded in the Hampden Federalist.
There are more details in the Franklin Gazette.
And, in the Hallowell Gazette.
Later in life Payson lived in Hope, Maine, and died there in 1819, at age 85.
Did your ancestors fight at the Battle of Lexington?
Find their stories and the stories of the many others who fought together in that great battle in GenealogyBank.
Get all of their stories – preserve and pass down the insights from all of them for your posterity.
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- 27 Colonial Newspapers to Trace Your Early American Ancestry
- Tracing Your Colonial & Revolutionary Ancestry in Newspapers
- Revolutionary War Ancestors’ Life Stories Are in Old Newspapers