The Lexington Alarm Reaches Wilbraham

Even though Paul Revere, William Dawes Jr., and Dr. Samuel Prescott are remembered as the celebrated Patriot messengers of the famous “Midnight Ride,” they were in fact part of a much larger network of riders who carried the alarm throughout the Province of Massachusetts Bay on the night of April 18, 1775. Their mission was to warn local militias and minutemen that British regulars were on the march toward Concord to seize colonial military supplies.

This illustration depicts Samuel Prescott raising the alarm in Concord. American History Central

In the tense weeks leading up to that night, Patriot leaders had learned through informants that British General Thomas Gage planned to strike at the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, then meeting in Concord. When the redcoats began their secret march, the prearranged signal, two lanterns hung in the spire of Boston’s Old North Church, flashed across the Charles River. Paul Revere immediately set out from Charlestown, rousing the countryside as he rode toward Lexington. William Dawes took a different route from Boston’s South End, and Dr. Samuel Prescott joined the warning effort farther along the road.

By the time Major Pitcairn led his advance guard onto Lexington Common in the gray dawn of April 19, the local “minutemen” were already assembled, muskets in hand. Ordered to disperse, they stood their ground. The British fired the first volley of the American Revolution.

The news of bloodshed traveled swiftly. Couriers mounted the fleetest horses, spreading the “Lexington Alarm” across New England. The message was clear: war had begun.

By midday on April 20, a lone rider came thundering down the Bay Road into Wilbraham. His horse, lathered and smoking with sweat, scarcely slowed as he shouted the news before Samuel Glover’s door: the British had fired on Massachusetts men! He urged the town’s minutemen to hasten to the rescue, then galloped on toward Springfield.

The alarm spread through Wilbraham like wildfire. Samuel Glover mounted his horse and rode at full speed down the West Road (now Main Street), calling on his neighbors, Jones, Bliss, Brewer, Merrick, and Warriner, Captain of the minutemen, to assemble. Charles Ferry shouted the alarm, his voice echoing from Oliver Bliss’s place to Noah Stebbins’s farm on the mountain.

Messengers raced across every road and valley. Merrick rode westward to alert the Hitchcocks, Stebbinses, Chapins, and Langdons near the Scantic. Burt sent his strongest son over Rattlesnake Peak to summon the Crockers, Cones, Russells, and Kings, then to sweep back along the East Road (now Glendale Road), by the Chaffees, Hendricks, and Carpenters, and over the mountain by Reverend Noah Merrick’s home.

At Isaac Morris’s house, the call came again. “Edward,” Morris said to his son, “bring the horse.” Moments later, powder horn slung, bullets in pocket, and musket in hand, the younger Morris galloped off, joined by Comfort Chaffee, Jesse Carpenter, and others answering the call. From south of the Scantic, Enos Stebbins and Asa Chaffee rode to William King’s, gathering Ezekiel Russell, Rowland Crocker, and more. All converged near Nathaniel Warriner’s barn, half a mile south of the village center.

Before sunset that evening, thirty-four Wilbraham men, blessed by their wives and watched by the prayers of fathers too old to fight, set out on the Great Bay Road to defend their colony and, if need be, to die for their liberty.

Within ten days, the “Redcoats” had retreated to Boston, and Wilbraham’s minutemen returned to their farms and families. But the sound of that alarm, first struck on Lexington Green, had reached every corner of Massachusetts, and the spirit it stirred would not rest until independence was won.