One of the eight men killed in the fight was Woburn-born Asahel Porter, an unarmed noncombatant found dead by the wall of Buckman’s garden. Lexington citizens who commented on the fight said Porter, who had been taken prisoner on the road like Simon Winship, Tom Robbins, and others, was shot trying to escape. For example, John Munroe Jr. stated in his 1824 affidavit:
Asahel Porter, of Woburn, who had been taken prisoner by the British on their march to Lexington, attempted to make his escape, and was shot within a few rods of the common.
Levi Harrington’s 1846 narrative related much the same story as Munroe, suggesting it was the accepted explanation in town for Porter’s death. A different story, however, comes from “A Brief History of the Town of Stoneham, Mass,” a thirty-page pamphlet written by Silas Dean, Stoneham’s town clerk for the (entire) second half of the nineteenth century. It reads:
On the morning of the ever-memorable 19th of April, 1775, he [Porter] was desired by a neighbor, Josiah Richardson, to proceed with him towards Lexington (about three o’clock, A. M.). Somewhere on the way they discovered some British Regulars. Porter and Richardson were also seen by the Regulars, and were taken by them.
Richardson requested permission to return, and was told by the individual to go to another person, who would no doubt give him a release; but in case the second person he went to told him to run he was by the first ordered not to run; being informed that if he did run he would be shot. Richardson did as he was told to do; and though he was told to run, he walked away, and was not injured.
The reason why he was ordered to run was this: that the guard might think him a deserter, and thereby, in the discharge of their duty, shoot him.
Mr. Porter not being apprised of their artifice in telling him to run, got permission in the same way of Richardson. Having liberty to go, he sat out upon the run. On getting over a wall a short distance off, he was fired upon and received his death wound.
Dean’s pamphlet came into print in 1870, nearly a hundred years after the events of Lexington. How could Dean know something about Asahel Porter that none of the first-hand witnesses stated in the many depositions, affidavits, journal entries, and letters recorded at the time?
Unlike the men in Lexington, Dean knew Asahel Porter’s widow.
Who Was Silas Dean?
Born in 1815 in Reading, Silas Dean moved one town over to Stoneham in 1839, at age 24. Beginning in the 1840s, the back room of Dean’s cottage served as the town clerk’s office for the next fifty years. Stoneham historian William Stevens wrote:[1] “Mister Dean has always been careful, painstaking and accommodating in office, and is one of the most esteemed citizens in the area. He is considered the personification of honesty.”
Silas first joined the Congregational Church in Reading at age 16, and after joining the same in Stoneham upon moving there served as deacon for forty-five years. Between his twin roles as town clerk and church deacon, armed with an interest in history, there would have been little about Stoneham Dean didn’t know.[2]
If Dean hadn’t heard the story of Asahel Porter in Reading (there’s some reason to think he might have[3]), he probably would have heard it shortly after his arrival in Stoneham, specifically around the funeral service for Porter’s widow, Abigail Brooks Porter Pierce. Widow Porter had remarried Ephraim Pierce in 1782 and, after relocating with Pierce to Stoneham, lived there until her death in 1840, at age 83.
Widow Porter would have told any number of Stoneham residents the tragic tale of her first husband, including her three children with Pierce who outlived her, so Silas Dean would have had occasion to hear the details (such as they were known second and third hand) from any number of people.
All of which begs the next question: How would Widow Porter know the details of her husband’s death? The likely answer is the man detained with her husband who lived to tell the story Dean ultimately heard: Josiah Richardson, who happened to be the young widow’s brother-in-law.[4] Had Porter’s widow made up the story (unlikely given the tale’s many quirky and mundane details), she would arguably have fabricated one focused on her husband, not what Josiah Richardson heard and did.
Did the British Army Execute Deserters?
Unequivocally, yes. The British army executed deserters, although the only documented executions I found for 1775 were following a trial. Later, General Howe authorized field executions, but again only if approved by an officer. So, if they caught a deserter, he might not have been shot on the spot. Shooting a man suspected of deserting because he was running away, however, seems more plausible. Laws authorizing the police to shoot at fleeing suspects without evidence were widespread until a few decades ago, and probably still exist in many places.
Did Pitcairn give orders for a guard to shoot anyone running from the line? Unknown. He did, however, put out a flank guard to “prevent surprise” before they arrived at the common, so a guard was in place that could not be easily informed that Richardson and Porter were free to leave.
That said, the existence of such orders is hardly farfetched. Captain Parker threatened to shoot the first man who left his line on the common. The British regulars could have easily heard something similar, or could have thought it possible even if they hadn’t.
Shot “Escaping” or “Deserting”?
Is John Munroe’s “shot escaping” version of Porter’s death more credible than the “mistaken for a deserter” tale Dean heard from Porter’s widow? The gap between “shot escaping” and “shot as a deserter” is arguably thin, and requires one to know the mind of the man who fired the fatal musket ball, and perhaps whether Porter received permission to leave the way Richardson did. If Porter saw Richardson walk away, assumed he too could leave, and was shot because he hadn’t received proper approvals (a possible scenario), the versions become indistinguishable.
That said, the “shot escaping” narrative has a big weakness: Richardson had already been released. Why, then, would Porter need to escape? The moment Pitcairn decided to disperse Parker’s Company, the marine major had no reason to further detain anyone his troops took prisoner on the road, so if he hadn’t yet thought to release his prisoners, he would have undoubtedly approved it.
It’s not clear who actually saw the shooting, if anyone. John Munroe was on the green, where Buckman’s barn and sheds blocked the view, and then in the swamp behind Harrington’s. He never set foot on Buckman’s land during the fight. Josiah Richardson, meanwhile, might have.
Notably, Josiah Richardson and Widow Porter were not from Lexington. Neither were even from Woburn anymore. By 1775 both lived in Salem, where Richardson still resided in 1790. So there may have been limited opportunity for the men in Lexington to incorporate Richardson’s version of Porter’s death, whatever it was, into their thinking.
[1] See Stevens 1891 History of Stoneham with Biographical Sketches p192
[2] Stoneham in 1840 consisted of roughly a thousand people from a hundred (more or less) multi-generational families. Mostly farms, the population had remained stable since the revolution; most children moved west when they grew up. But after 1840 a surge in leather and shoe factories allowed children to stay and even brought in new workers.
[3] Asahel and Abigail Porter’s only son, Asahel Jr. lived in Reading until his untimely death in 1819 (age 44). Dean would have been too young to know the man, but one of his earliest memories might have been the stories that would have circulated when Asa Junior died, i.e. stories of the father who died at the outbreak of the revolution.
[4] Josiah Richardson and Asahel Porter married the Brooks sisters in a destination double wedding. See Rev Perley of Seabrook NH, Marriage Records, FamilySearch #007595558, img 204 of 629: 1773, “Oct 13 Mr Asahel Porter and Mrs Abigail Brooks, both of Salem . . . are legally married by me”. The next entry: “Oct 13, Mr Josiah Richardson and Mrs Ruth Brooks, both of Salem . . . are legally married by me”. Abigail and Ruth were both daughters of Timothy and Ruth Wyman Brooks, born in Woburn.
The Lexington Fight 