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The Haj: A Rifleman Visits Battle Road

Started by The Wolfhound, April 24, 2016, 10:48:37 PM

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The Wolfhound

"Dangerous Cook" and I were due for a trip this year (it is one of big round number years for us), and our Anniversary being April 19, the choice this year was Battle Road.  We flew into Boston's Logan Airport early on Friday the 15th.  Lexington is less than an hour away and we were there in time for morning coffee.  The locals were warm and friendly wondering where we had come from and offering tips on what to be sure to see and do.  All the people we met surprised us at their friendliness. 
Friday was spent getting familiar with the sites and the roads between them.  We started by coming on to the Green at Lexington.  We came in from the East just as Jessie Adair had, from the Boston Road.  At the East end of the Green is the Statue that represents Captain John Parker with his musket facing the Redcoats.  While we were on the Green we could watch the re-enactors practicing their bayonet charge for Monday's battle.  We laid our hands on the stoop of the Jonathan Harrington House (now a private residence) on the spot where Jonathan Harrington died in his wife's arms.  The emotion of that moment cannot be described in mere words.
We rolled East up Battle Road and took in the sites of Menotomy: the Samuel Whittemore  Marker,  and the Jason Russell House.
Soon, we were headed back West to Concord and the North Bridge.  The Visitor Center sits on John Buttrick's farm across the street from his home.  The path leading down to the bridge is the same as trod by Isaac Davis and his Minutemen on April 19, 1775.  At the West end of the bridge stands the Minuteman Statue; Isaac Davis leaving his plow and taking up his musket.  I always tear up telling his story and seeing this magnificent statue and knowing its story and his was all but overwhelming.  We poked around a bit more and finished the day with a Fife, Drum and Bugle concert  by the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division "The Old Guard" Fife, Drum and Bugle Corp.  Outstanding!  Day one had us off to an amazing start but more and better was to come. 

FiremanBob

Author of "The 10/22 Companion: How to Operate, Troubleshoot, Maintain and Improve Your Ruger 10/22"

"Remember constantly that a nation cannot long remain strong when each man in it is individually weak, and that neither social forms nor political schemes have yet been found that can make a people energetic by composing it of pusillanimous and soft citizens." - de Tocqueville

The Wolfhound

I need to shrink the pictures.  Our primary camera uses too large a format.  There will be pictures. 

The Wolfhound

Lexington Green:
John Parker:

The Wolfhound


The Wolfhound

Jonathan Harrington doorstep:
Notice the owner cleaning the windows.

The Wolfhound

Menotomy, Modern day Arlington

The Wolfhound

Day 2, Saturday April 16, 2016
Up early to take in the Captain David Browne Minuteman Company at the North Bridge.  They are fully equipped a as minuteman should be, and demonstrate proficiency in the use of musket and drill in proper military order.  Browne owned the land on either end of the North Bridge and was tasked by the town with (and compensated for) upkeep on the bridge.  He was Captain of one of the two companies of minutemen from Concord.  After demonstrations the group dispersed for chatting with the observers.  We learned a tremendous amount from a man we later identified as "Mr. Rose".  He loves his history and has his facts down solidly!

After this early event, it is time to be instructors at the Harvard Sportsmen's Club Appleseed!  Saturday and Sunday are spent on the line.

The Wolfhound

#8
Captain David Browne's Minuteman Company:
At the North Bridge site
Last pic is "Mr. Rose"

The Wolfhound


The Wolfhound

#10
After two days on the range, we, being gluttons for punishment and history crazy, stayed up late Sunday night to see "Paul Revere's arrival at Lexington".  For realism sake, it happens at 11:30PM.  It was very well staged at the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington where Revere and Dawes alert Hancock and Adams.  Conducted by torch and candle it was not terribly well suited for photography but impressive. Rush back to the hotel for a (very) few hours of sleep and off to Lexington Green (with about 10,000 other folks) to see the Redcoats arrive at 5AM  All the major characters of the story are portrayed individually.  Although the colonial militia probably fired a bit more than in the actual encounter, the point of the British firing first and often was made clear.

The Wolfhound

#11

Once the Massacre on the Green had occurred, we rolled quickly back to the hotel (via the shuttle bus) and struck out for the North Bridge.  Our chosen observation point was from the West bank of the Concord River.  After all, we knew which side the good guys would be on.  Seeing the British Redcoats firing on the Militia was very moving.  Seeing the Redcoats routed was satisfying.  After this event we were scheduled for a much needed nap.  The day was finished exploring Battle Road sites.  By the end we had walked almost 10 miles.

Light Infantry taking control of the bridge,,,,,,

scuzzy

Thanks for the narrative. Sounds like you had a grand ol' time.
An Armed Society is a polite society. Heinlein.

The Wolfhound

#13
The best is yet to come! Stay tuned.

Colonial militia returning fire and the two forces fire a joint salute over the bridge.

The Wolfhound

#14
The Adventure of Acton
Please bear with me for a long winded story but to truly appreciate how unlikely it is, you need to read it all. ;)

It is April 19, 2016. We are up at 4:30 AM to get ready for the Salute at the North Bridge. Rush out the door at 5:30, downstairs to grab the essential of life, COFFEE!  Oh crap, there is no coffee.  The urns are in the kitchen being filled.  It will be out soon, but for us, not soon enough.  We have to go.  Jump into the car and rush over through Concord to the North Bridge.  All the other events have been on the East side of the bridge so we park there.  Of course, this event will be mostly on the west end of the bridge. Grab cameras and head for the bridge.  Most of this event will be reading the accounts of the battle from survivors and family.  The remembrance from Hannah Davis is powerful.  Other accounts relate the battle and the losses.  Cannons and muskets fire in salute, prayers are read and the National Anthem is sung.  After the firing is over comes the surreal moment of the day.  We had over the course of the previous events come to know the National Park Service interpreter who was presiding over the musket armed Militia.  After the salutes watching him go to the cartridge box of each militia man and remove all their cartridges and take them was not lost on me.  I have little doubt that he was only accounting for the powder used but the visual of the Federal representative disarming the citizen soldiers was profound none the less.  A couple of hours in the bag and we are on our own again.   

Back across the bridge under the gaze of "The Minuteman", we call him Isaac as we know who he is.  Chats with the musician and honor guard of militia take some time and we decide to renew our vows at the west end of the bridge.  Who could be a better witness?  We leave for Acton as we wish to see the grave of Isaac Davis and the monument. 

Acton is not far away but coffee is now our immediate priority.  Consult the GPS: Coffee, Acton, Massachusetts…….Acton Coffee House selected, directions followed.  Oops! Looks like this is a stale reference in the GPS.  The shopping center exists but there is no coffee house.  Well, we passed a Dunkin Doughnuts about a mile back they have good coffee, let's go there.  On the way back, "Hey look, Davis Road.  I wonder, if the Davis home is on Davis Road?"     Coffee and breakfast sandwich secured and consumed, we head for the center of town.  The monument is easy to find, it IS the center of town.   Around it are the graves of Isaac Davis, Abner Hosmer, and Richard Hayward, the three native sons of Acton killed as minutemen on April 19th, 1775.  Davis and Hosmer were both killed by the British volley at the North Bridge and Hayward received a fatal wound at the Fiske well on Fiske Hill in Lexington during the retreat of the British.  We take photos and leave coins.  All three of their stories are known to Appleseeders. 

Dangerous Cook's family has come from a Congregational Church background so the Church adjacent to the monument is of interest to her.  We spend some minutes walking the well-kept grounds.  Well, we are in Acton, let's see if the house is perhaps on Davis Road.  Back we go to the outskirts of town and the search is on.  Davis Road it turns out has nothing to do with the Davis home.  We had seen the Acton town Library and concluded, if the Davis home still stands, they would know where it is or where it had stood.  Off we go back to town.  The library is also adjacent to the monument and to the Town Hall.  After pulling into the parking lot we seek the librarian and ask.  The librarian on duty is an immigrant and does not know the details to answer our question but suggests that the Reference Librarian would be able to answer.  We climb the stairs and she is able to know where to look up the answer.  The Davis house still stands on Hayward (we thought she said Haywood) Road.   Before we leave the library we see a display of Acton's Civil War contributions and decide to have a look.  At a case outside the display room we find three people looking at a colonial era musket and swords.  The inscription erroneously calls it a rifle.  As the case has glass on the side in front of the muzzle, one of the gentlemen pulls out his phone to use the flashlight app but my draw with my flashlight is quicker and brighter.  We both gaze up the barrel and confirm: smoothbore!  I check to see whose musket it was and see it is from a minuteman from Stowe, Massachusetts, not anyone I had heard of previously.  Pondering in disappointment out loud that it "might" have been Isaac Davis musket, the other gentleman asks a question I will remember as long as I live: "Would you like to meet Isaac Davis?"

Kosciusko



This is a great post.  Thanks for sharing your experience.  I have added "making the Haj" to my bucket list.


Quote from: The Wolfhound on April 27, 2016, 11:26:57 PM
.... Pondering in disappointment out loud that it "might" have been Isaac Davis musket, the other gentleman asks a question I will remember as long as I live: "Would you like to meet Isaac Davis?"

Yes, please.


PHenry

Awesome. It's good to take a moment in life to do such things. ItsanSKS and I visited Poplar Forest Retreat - Jefferson's "other place" as he called it. We were able to combine an event in GA and a KDC in TN along the way. Trip of a lifetime for sure.  O0
Para ser Libre, un Hombre debe tener tres cosas. La Tierra, una Educacion, y un Fusil. Siempre, un Fusil!  Emiliano Zapata

The Wolfhound

Dangerous Cook and I were startled by his question: "Would you like to meet Isaac Davis?"  We did not have long to ponder before he stuck out his right hand and said, "Hi, I am Isaac Davis".  Such moments are surreal.  Yes, we did indeed meet Isaac Davis in the Public Library in the Town of Acton Massachusetts, on the 241st anniversary of the North Bridge battle.  This Isaac Davis turned out to be the direct linear descendant of the Isaac Davis we were looking for.  Our Isaac was (forgive me if I get the generation wrong) the Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Grandfather of the man in front of us.  With him was his grandfather (great, great, great grandson to the Isaac of the North Bridge),   and his girlfriend.  Conversation began and the day (probably year) reached its high point when he said, "Would you like to see his musket?"  Oh, Yeah, throw me into that briar patch!  "You have the musket?" "It's in the car."  Our new friend Isaac was in town for the Patriot's Day Parade in Acton, the day before.  He brought the musket, a treasured family heirloom, with him from Maine where he lives.  They were killing time seeing the local artifacts (Isaac's sword is one in that case in the library) before heading home to Maine and, it is by nothing less than the hand of God that we were there to speak the name Isaac Davis at that moment, in his presence.  If not for our meandering morning and initial lack of coffee, we would never have met.  We did indeed handle Isaac Davis musket.  I do include the pictures.  I am still in awe.  Mr. Davis was most gracious to allow us to photograph and handle the musket.  He has authorized the pictures he is in to be posted.  It was a delight to meet the Davis family (Mrs. Davis, wife to the grandfather, was in the car having worn herself out the day before and thus skipping the library).  I included detail photos of the lock and the proof marks.  It is not in working condition. There is some issue with the trigger and the ramrod is missing.  But, we held Isaac Davis own musket 241 years after his sacrifice, to the very hour!  I was surprised to find it a French Charleville.  A bit of research made plain to me that my expectation of colonial forces with Brown Bess muskets is wrong.  The captured Charlevilles brought back from the French and Indian war predominated in colonial forces.  The musket has a front sight.  It is the tool of a marksman.  Our Haj continues in the next installment.  Enjoy the pictures of Isaac Davis' musket in the meantime.

The Wolfhound

And a few more pics.....
Plus, did you know that they had the plow that was modeled in the statue was Isaac Davis actual plow?  It is in the Acton Town Hall on display.

And the house is still there but privately owned and inhabited.  For privacy we only shot pics of the monument out front.

Camljr

#19
Posted by proxy....    Only one time... For the  historical significance...



I can't post on the forum anymore so could one of you forward this info to Wolfhound?

FYI,

I too at first took the stone he photo'd http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=6hrg1tej9cqg4oj68vu4b9gkq6&topic=48320.msg331612#msg331612 to mark Isaac Davis's house/farm where the story with Hannah unfolded. I too have visited all the Haj sites he's talked about and have similar photos.

But I subsequently found out, the stone outside the house actually marks the location of the "homestead" ie the farm area of Isaac and Hannah home and is indeed where the Boy Scout's re-enactment march starts. But all the houses there are not original but are a development which occurred and reoccurred over many years and the marker was later placed at the center of the estimated farm area location and thus landed in these peoples front yard. Its not a house which Davis lived in.

There is an Isaac Davis house in Acton but it is elsewhere and is the house in which he was born, ie his parent house. This has its own marker and history  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Isaac_Davis_House_in_2015%2C_Acton_Massachusetts.tiff/lossy-page1-5760px-Isaac_Davis_House_in_2015%2C_Acton_Massachusetts.tiff.jpg and does still stand and is now a private residence.

Cheers
Phil "V"
96 SHOOTS SO FAR!

WSMR Instructor 03/10  -  SAPPER STEEL!

�The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection�   Thomas Paine

Proverbs 22:3  -  A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even when checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy, nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat".
Theodore Roosevelt

The Wolfhound

Thanks Phil.  I appreciate the correction.  We saw a colonial appearing house at the address given by the reference librarian.  Our conclusion was obvious but incorrect.

Kosciusko

#21
You performed the Haj.

met Isaac Davis


AND you were granted the rare privilege  --  to touch the Holy Grail.

It's going to be hard to top  a day like that.    You must be living right.

recommend you buy 1 each     Megamillions and Powerball tickets, combined winnings estimated at over 400 million dollars

maybe your  great good fortune will hold another 36 hours ?

Dude

Absolutely outstanding.   What else can we say?
Strength and honor

Semper SOM/SOM

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state. --Thomas Jefferson

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. --Thomas Jefferson

muffin308

wow  - no words to describe this awesome !   PTL
There...!  His Majesty can now read my name without glasses.  And he can double the reward on my head!  - John Hancock
To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and to be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. - Richard Henry Lee

Texas T

What an awesome experience. I hope to make the trip as well, one day.
"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."  Mark Twain


First Appleseed, September 26-27, 2015;   First Rifleman, September 27, 2015;   First Redcoat, September 27, 2015;   Second Rifleman, September 27, 2015

Thanks Corvette, great instruction!!!

MI IBC, February 2017

The Wolfhound

#25
After our unbelievable visit to Acton, we came back into Concord to check out the town itself and museums.  Seeing the burial ground that contains Joseph Miriam, John Buttrick, and James Barrett among other names familiar to Appleseeders was significant.  This hill was an observation post for the militia before they moved out of town and served the British Regulars in the same way.  Below the hill is the tavern (still standing but now serving as an office building) where our story always brings up the Concord cannon and the tavern keeper.  Later generations of Concord citizens include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott.  These folks are prominent in the museum along with the Revolutionary components.  Walden Pond is nearby (we had planned to visit but managed to forget until after we had left town). The shops in town are worth a wander.  The Cheese and Wine shop was a delightful interlude (yummy samples!)  Wallet sufficiently lightened, the afternoon was spent collecting our preferred souvenirs from the various visitor's centers.

The Wolfhound

#26
And more of Concord:

The Wolfhound

#27
The next morning we vacated the hotel and with our ultimate destination, Plymouth we headed into Boston for the day.  Parked in a commuter lot we took the "T" into Boston Common.  There are costumed interpreters that take you on a 90 minute walking tour of much of the Boston Freedom Trail ($) that gives you a lot of the history.  We thoroughly enjoyed our tour.  We visited the Granary Burial Ground, The old Town Hall, Faneuil Hall, the site of the Boston Massacre, the original spring, and learned much about the founding of the city.  The Granary Burial Ground held the graves of Samuel Adams, John Hancock, James Otis, and Paul Revere among many others.

The Wolfhound

#28
A few including the old Town Hall, Faneuil Hall, and The Old North Church:

The Wolfhound

#29
We completed the walking tour on our own taking in the Paul Revere House, The Old North Church, The Green Dragon Tavern, The Bunker Hill Monument, The USS Constitution (Old Iron Sides) and after taking the "T" back to the common, finished at the Massachusetts State House.  The view of The Old North Church is seen from the Bridge in Charlestown not far from where the Committee of Communication would have been looking for the signal.  Even how the church is plenty tall.  The State House, Senate Chamber housed a few more "Holy" relics on my list: the First Musket Captured from Battle Road and John Parker's Musket.  I could not leave without a picture of the "Sacred Cod".  The stories around it are a lot of fun.  Hey, we found Waldo......in the diorama at Bunker Hill (Ok, I know it is Breed's Hill, I am just using the official names).  The USS Constitution is undergoing a massive re-rigging it is not very photogenic right now.