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[Bronze Tablet on Tomb.]

WILLIAM DAWES Jr
PATRIOT, SON OF LIBERTY
AND FIRST MESSENGER SENT BY
WARREN FROM BOSTON APRIL 18 1775
TO WARN HAN COCK AND ADAMS
OF TEIE COMING OF BRITISH TROOPS

|BORN APRIL 6 1745
DIED FEBRUARY 25 1799

PLACED BY TELE
MASSA CHUSETTS } SONS OF THE
Seal
SOCIETY ! REVOLUTION

l APRIL 19 1899 NOTE. – On the seal, “Sons of the Revolution.”

WILLIAM DAwes, JR., was son of William Dawes and Lydia (Boone) Dawes, great-grandson of Ambrose Dawes. He was born in Boston April 6, 1745, and died February 25, 1799. He married, May 3, 1768, Mehitable, daughter of Samuel and Catherine (Mears) May. She died October 28, 1793, aged fortytwo years, two months and twenty-two days. He married (2), November 18, 1795, Lydia Gendall. She died August 11, 1809. By his first wife he had seven children, by his second one child. He was a tanner, and he and wife Mehitable were members of the Old South Church, February 5, 1789. On April 8, 1768, he joined the Artillery Company, and was second sergeant in 1770. Was clerk of the company in 1786. In 1778 he was in correspondence with the Salem Committee of Safety to obtain powder for the Boston patriots. William Dawes, Jr., and Samuel Gore forced their way into the gun-house. While the guard were at roll-call took the guns from their carriages, carried them to a school-house, and placed them in a box under the master’s desk that was used to put wood in. They then covered them with the wood. Afterward the guns were taken to Whiston’s blacksmith shop and hid under the coal. The Committee of Safety, January 5, 1775, voted that Mr. William Dawes be directed to deliver to said (Deacon) Cheaver one piece of brass cannon, and then the said Cheaver procure carriages for said cannon. Under this order the guns were sent by boat to Waltham, and were in active service during the war. After the peace the State of Massachusetts applied to Congress for the restoration of the guns, which was granted May 19, 1788, when Congress resolved that the Secretary of War cause a suitable inscription to be placed on the guns and that he deliver

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the same to the Governor of Massachusetts. William Dawes, Jr., was appointed second major of the regiment of militia in Boston. General Warren sent out William Dawes, Jr., over the Neck, disguised as a countryman, mounted on a slow horse, with saddle bags behind him and a large flapped hat upon his head. He passed all the British sentinels, and arrived in Roxbury the night before the battle of Lexington. He crossed the river at the Brighton bridge, then passed on toward Cambridge and Lexington. General Warren sent for Paul Revere, and sent him by the route over the river to Charlestown, then to Lexington, to arouse the country. He met William Dawes on the Green in Lexington, and they alarmed the patriots there. He removed his family to Worcester, Mass., and was appointed by Congress commissary of that place. At the close of the war he returned to Boston. In 1796, removed to a farm in Marlboro’, and died there February 25, 1799. His remains were brought to Boston and laid in the family tomb in King's Chapel Ground. Some years since a bronze tablet to his memory was placed on this tomb.

[Tomb 18.]

THOMAS DAWES, A. A. S.
Born Augo. 5, 1731, died. Jany 24, 1809, AEt. 78.

Of his taste for the Grecian simplicity
In ARCHITECTURE, there are many monuments
Which he raised when that art was new to us.
The records of Massachusetts shew
That he was one of her active LEGISLATORS
From the year 1776, until he was 70 years old,
When he retired with faculties unimpaired.
To the fiscal concerns of this Metropolis,
To its literary and other Institutions,
He was a zealous Friend. He was an ELECTOR
At the three first elections of President
Of the U. S., and discharged various trusts
To his own honor and the public weal.

TEIE REMAINS OF
MAJOR WILLIAM ERWING
ARE DEPOSITED
IN THIS
TOMB.

MAJOR WILLIAM ERVING, born in Boston September 8, 1734. Graduated from Harvard University 1753. He held the rank of major in the British Army, and was with Wolfe at Quebec and Louisburg. He founded the Erving professorship of chemistry and mineralogy at Harvard University. He died at his home in Jamaica Plain, Mass., May 27, 1791, and was buried May 30th in King’s Chapel Ground.

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BRIG.-GEN. SAMUEL WALDO, merchant, Boston. He resided in Queen street. He married, June 9, 1722, Lucy, daughter of Francis and Sarah (Whipple) Wainwright, of Ipswich, who was born April 30, 1704, at Ipswich, and died August 7, 1741, in Boston.

He was a councillor 1742–5 and 1758. Commissioned brigadier-general on February 7, 1745, and was second in command to Sir William Pepperell in the Louisburg expedition. He was the owner of the Muscungus Patent in Maine, and became the sole proprietor of the 500,000 acres. He was also a large proprietor in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The inventory of this property at his decease was £71,020 14/6d. He settled what is now Waldoboro with German colonists.

He died suddenly, while on an expedition with Governor Pownall, near the site of the present City of Bangor, May 23, 1759.

CAPT. SAMUEL WALDO, son of the general, graduated at Harvard University 1745, and settled at Falmouth, where his father also had a residence. Elected representative 1744; commissioned as commisary February 2, 1744; brevet captain, March 23, 1744; captain, October 12, 1745, and accompanied his father on the Louisburg expedition. He served eight years in the Legislature from Falmouth. He married (1), August 11, 1761, Grizzell, daughter of Lieutenant-Governor Andrew and Mary (Sanford) Oliver of Boston. She was born May 9, 1737, and died December 19, 1761. He married (2), March 9, 1762, Sarah, daughter of John and Abigail (Phillips) Erving, of Boston, who was born in Boston, June 8, 1737, and died November 25, 1817, in Boston. Captain Waldo died April 16, 1770, at Falmouth.

[Tomb.]
EDWARD BROMEIELD.

HoN. Edward BROMFIELD was son of Henry Bromfield, merchant. He was a member of the Artillery Company, Boston, 1679.

In 1684 was a member of Captain Savage’s Military Company of Boston.

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