Harper's Young People, May 10, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly

HOURS WITH THE OCTOGENARIANS.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.

Between thirty and forty years ago I went on a pilgrimage to places hallowed by events of the great and successful struggle of Americans for freedom and independence.

I there found many things and persons remaining as mementos of that contest. All were hoary with age, and some were crumbling and tottering ruins. All were rapidly passing within the veil of human forgetfulness, for houses, fortifications, battle-fields, and men and women would soon become only pictures on Memory's wall.

From the lips of the venerable men and women whom I saw I heard thrilling narratives of their experience in those days of strife. In hidden recesses of memory and in written notes I preserved those narratives for the entertainment and instruction of the youth of this generation, hoping to be with them to tell the tales myself. Here I am, and I propose to relate to the readers of YOUNG PEOPLE some of the stories I then received from living lips. I will begin with the story of

THE FIFER OF LEXINGTON.

Lexington! Concord! What American boy or girl has not heard of these two little villages in Massachusetts, where the first blow was struck for independence, and where the hot flames of the Revolution first burst out, on the 19th of April, 1775? One of my first pilgrimages was to these villages.

It was a bright, sunny morning in October, 1848, when I travelled by railway from Boston to Concord--a distance of seventeen miles northwest of the New England capital. There I spent an hour with Major Barrett and his wife, who "saw the British scamper," and had lived together almost sixty years. The Major was hale at eighty-seven, and his wife, almost as old, seemed as nimble of foot as a matron in middle life. She was a vivacious little woman, well-formed, and retained traces of the beauty of her girlhood.

After visiting the place of the skirmish at Concord, I rode in a private vehicle to Lexington, six miles eastward, through a picturesque and fertile country, and entered the famous village at the Green whereon that skirmish occurred, and where a commemorative monument now stands. After a brief interview with two or three aged persons there, we drove to the house of Jonathan Harrington, in East Lexington, who, a lad seventeen years old, had opened the ball of the Revolution on the memorable April morning with the war-notes of the shrill fife.

As we halted before the house of Mr. Harrington, at a little past noon, we saw an old man wielding an axe vigorously in splitting fire-wood in his yard. I entered the gate, and introduced myself and my errand. The old man was the venerable fifer.

"Come in and rest yourself," he said, kindly, as he led the way into the house.

Although he was then past ninety years of age, he appeared no older than many men do at seventy. His form was nearly erect, his voice was firm, his complexion was fair, his placid face was lighted by mild blue eyes, and had but few deep wrinkles, and his hair, not all white, was very abundant. I took a seat on a chintz-covered lounge, and he sat in a Boston rocking-chair.

"I have come," I said, "to make some inquiries about the battle of Lexington."

"It wasn't a battle," he answered; "only a skirmish."

"It was a sharp one," I said.

"Yes, pretty sharp, pretty sharp," he replied, thoughtfully. "Eight fine young men out of a hundred were killed; two of them my blood-relations."

"I understand you played the fife on that morning," I said.

"As well as I could," he replied. "I taught myself to play the year before, when the minute-men were training; and I was the only person in Lexington who knew how to fife. That ain't saying much, though, for then there were only eight or ten houses in the village besides the meeting-house."

"Did you belong to the minute-men?" I asked.

"I was a minute-_boy_. They asked me to fife, to help Joe Burton make music with his drum for Captain Parker's company. Poor Joe! His drum-head was smashed, and he lost a little finger in the fight. Captain Parker's company was drilled the night before the fight, for Sol Brown, our nearest neighbor, came from Boston at sunset, and said he had seen nine British soldiers in overcoats walking toward Lexington. Sam Adams and John Hancock were at Parson Clark's house, where Dorothy Quincy, Hancock's sweetheart, was staying. Gage wanted to catch and hang 'em, and it was believed the soldiers Sol had seen had been sent out to seize 'em that night. A guard of eight men under Sergeant Munroe (who kept a tavern here) was stationed around Parson Clark's house. A little past midnight Paul Revere--you've heard of Revere--came riding like mad from Cambridge, his horse all afoam, for the weather was uncommonly warm. He told Munroe he wanted to see Hancock. 'He didn't want to be disturbed by noise,' said the Sergeant. 'Noise!' said Revere; 'you'll have noise enough soon, for the regulars are coming!' Hancock heard him, and opening a window, called out, 'Revere, I know you; come in.' He went into the house a moment, then came out, mounted his horse, and started on a gallop toward Concord. Very soon everybody in Lexington was astir."

"Were you on duty then?" I inquired.

"No," he said. "I went to bed at eleven o'clock, and, as all boys should do, slept soundly. My mother (who was a Dunster, and one of the most patriotic women of the time) called out to me at three o'clock: 'Jonathan! Jonathan! get up. The regulars are coming, and something must be done.' I dressed quickly, slung my light gun over my shoulder, took my fife from a chair, and hurried to the parade near the meeting-house, where about fifty men had gathered, and others were arriving every minute. By four o'clock a hundred men were there. We did not wait long wondering whether the regulars were really coming, for a man dashed up to Captain Parker and told him they were close by. The Captain immediately ordered Joe to beat the drum, and I fifed with all my might. Alarm-guns were instantly fired to call distant minute-men to duty. Lights were now seen moving in all the houses. Daylight came at half past four o'clock. Just then the regulars, who had heard the drum-beat, rushed toward us, and their leader shouted, 'Disperse, you rebels!' We stood still. He repeated the order with an oath, fired his pistol, and ordered his men to shoot. Only a few obeyed. Nobody was hurt, and we supposed their guns were loaded only with powder. We had been ordered not to fire first, and so we stood still. The angry leader of the regulars then gave another order for them to fire, when a volley killed or wounded several of our company. Seeing the regulars endeavoring to surround us, Captain Parker ordered us to retreat. As we fled, some shots were sent back. Joe and I climbed a fence near Parson Clark's house, and took to the woods near by. Climbing over, Joe fell upon a heap of stones, and crushed in his drum-head. His hand was bleeding badly, and he found a bullet had carried off a part of his little finger. Eight of our men had lost their lives."

"Where were Adams and Hancock all this time?" I inquired.

"Not far off," he replied. "When the first shots were heard, they were advised to fly to a place of safety, for their lives were too valuable to the public to be lost. At first they refused to go, but were finally persuaded, and retired to a thick wooded hill not far off. Dorothy Quincy went with her lover. They were married in the fall. It is said Sam Adams, hearing the firing on the Green, exclaimed, 'What a glorious morning for America is this!' I have no doubt he said so, for it was just like him."

"You said two of your blood-relations perished in that fight," I observed.

"Yes," he replied; "they were Jonathan and Caleb Harrington. Caleb, and Joe Comer, who lived a mile from Lexington, had gone into the meeting-house to get some powder stored in the loft. They had taken it to the gallery when the British reached the meeting-house. They flew to the door, and started on a run for the company. Caleb was shot dead at the west end of the meeting-house, but Joe, though wounded, escaped. Jonathan had stood his ground with the rest. His house was near the meeting-house. He was in front of his own house when the regulars fired the third time. He was shot in the breast, and fell. His wife, Ruth, stood looking out of the window, with their only child, nine years old, by her side. She saw her husband fall, and ran out to help him. He raised up, stretched his arms toward her, fell again, and was dead before she could get to him. Oh, it was too cruel, too cruel!"

"There were brave men in that little band of patriots," I remarked.

"Brave men!" said the old man, his mild eyes beaming with unusual lustre, "braver men never lived. Not one of them left his post until Captain Parker, seeing it was useless to fight against so many regulars, told them to disperse. There was one man who wouldn't go even then. It was Jonas Parker of this town. He lived near Parson Clark's. He had said he would never run from an enemy, and he didn't. He had loaded his musket, put his hat, containing powder, wadding, and bullets, between his feet, and so faced the regulars. At the second fire he was wounded, and fell on his knees. Then he fired his gun; and, though he was dying, he reached for another charge in his hat, when a big red-coat killed him with a bayonet on the very spot where Jonas first stood. Wasn't that pluck?"

"Rare pluck," I answered. "The names of such men should never be forgotten."

"They never will be," replied the old patriot, excitedly. "Their names are all cut deep in marble on the little monument down yonder on the Green--Robert Munroe, Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jun., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, John Brown, and Asahel Porter. Should the marble perish, their names are cut deeper in the memory of Americans."

"You said it was a warm night when Paul Revere rode from Cambridge to Lexington," I said.

"Yes," he replied; "it was a very early spring. Young leaves appeared on the 1st of April. The grass on the village green was so tall on the morning of the 19th that it waved in the light wind that was blowing. At noon that day, when the British were driven from Concord, the quicksilver was eighty-five degrees in the shade, and the door-yards were bright with dandelions. The minute-men made it hotter than that--full a hundred in the shade--for the British before they got back to Cambridge that evening."

"Did you serve in the army afterward?" I inquired.

"No," he said; "father went to the war, and I staid at home to help mother take care of things, for I was the oldest boy. I played the fife sometimes after that when the young men in the neighborhood were training for the fight."

By permission of Mr. Harrington I drew a likeness of him sitting in his rocking-chair; and under it he wrote, with a trembling hand--which he attributed to the use of the axe that morning--

JONATHAN HARRINGTON, Aged 90, the 8th July, 1848.

His brother Charles, two years younger than he, came in before I had finished the sketch. I could not but look with wonder and reverence upon these strong old men--children of one mother, who had borne five sons and three daughters--who were nearly grown to manhood when the old war for independence broke out. I bade them farewell, received from the old fifer the benediction "God bless you!" went back to the village green, sketched the monument, and called upon their kinsman, Abijah Harrington, who was a lad fourteen years of age at the time of the skirmish. He saw nearly all of the fight. He had two brothers in it, and had been sent by his mother, trembling on account of her sons, to watch the fray at a safe distance, and obtain for her information concerning her brave boys. They escaped unhurt.