J. L. Bell
William Dawes, Before and After His Ride
William Dawes, Jr., is known today only as the other rider who carried news of the British army march to Lexington in April 1775. In fact, like his famous colleague Paul Revere, Dawes was active throughout Massachusetts’s Revolution. Before April 1775 he was a militia organizer, a political fashion icon, and even an arms smuggler whose secret mission for the Patriots’ Committee of Safety helped bring on the same march to Concord he helped to warn about. During the war he took on responsibilities administering and supplying the state’s armed forces. And afterwards he was active in reestablishing one of Boston’s oldest military institutions. Hear all about one of the hands-on figures who made the Revolution happen.
The professional recording of this session was funded by a Preserving America grant from Americana Corner.
[Recorded on 12 August 2023]
Will Melton retired in 2015 after four decades in university and museum fundraising to devote time to gardening, his mandolin ensemble, and history studies and writing. Liberty’s War, An Engineer’s Memoir of the Merchant Marine 1942-45, which he published in 2017, is available from U.S. Naval Institute Press.
