Good Morning, and thank you for joining us for this year's series of Revolutionary War heroines, in honor of Women's History Month.
This week we bring you Mrs. Hannah Davis Leighton.
Early in the morning of April 19th, 1775, Hannah Davis watched her husband Isaac walk off into a great unknown. The situation was serious: British redcoats were marching on Concord to seize ammunition stores owned by the residents of the town and its militia. The gravity of these events was not lost on Hannah, who had watched the Acton men preparing for months, and she knew that her husband had to go. She would not see him alive again.
She was born Hannah Brown in Cambridge on the 26th of March, 1746. She married Isaac Davis, a blacksmith and gunsmith, in 1764, in Acton. They had 6 children. Two died in infancy, but the others lived to adulthood. Over the years, Hannah was witness to the rising militarization of the Massachusetts countryside. Her husband was Captain of the Acton Militia. He made muskets, bayonets, and cartridge boxes, and held twice weekly target practices for his militia company. Hannah lived in the world of the Colonial militia, and she understood their passion and their obligations toward one another.
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The Davis household was already in crisis when Isaac answered the alarm. All four of the children were sick with scarlet fever, a serious illness in the 18th century. As Isaac stepped out their door, he was leaving behind a family in distress. Later recollections by one of his men of that morning emphasize his conflicted feelings about leaving his family: "Capt. Davis said but little that morning. His countenance was firm, but sorrowful. His love for his family was strong, but it could not subdue his ardor for the cause, which he was pledged to support." Hannah faced the opposite end of that burden; instead of leaving, she was left behind. Her military pension petition from 1840 records her emotions on that morning:
"As he was about to place himself at the head of the Company, which, at the beat of the drum, had formed at our door, he turned on it to take leave of us. "Take good care of the children" was all he could say. I heard his voice no more, except in the firm tones of command, as he led his company from the door."
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The petition goes on to say, "Just a few hours after, (Hannah) was the widow of Isaac Davis. The distress of herself and her children, when, in the aftermath of the Battle of Concord, he was brought to them lifeless, can only be remembered in silence."
Even though they were recorded 65 years later, her memories of that April morning remained conflicted; at once proud of the patriot cause, and sorrowful at the cost of liberty. Over the following 8 years, countless women found themselves paying the price of freedom with the lives of their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers. But on that April morning, Hannah stood alone in her grief, one of first Revolutionary widows.
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After the war, life went on. Hannah married two more times, and had three more children. At one point she moved her entire family to Natchez, Mississippi, only to return to Acton following the death of her second husband from Yellow Fever. Her third husband died in 1802.
She lived the rest of her life as a widow, running a women's school from her home. She struggled financially, and attempted repeatedly to secure the military pension she was owed due to her first husband's service. Her application was rejected in 1818. In 1839, a bill was introduced in the Senate to try and secure her pension. It was finally approved in 1840. Hannah died in 1842 at the age of 96, and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Acton, MA, not far from where she buried Isaac.
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