Reverend Clark’s daughter Betty described the funeral and burial of the seven Lexington men killed in the fight:
Father sent Jonas down to Grandfather Cook’s to see who was killed, seven of them my father’s parishoners, one from Woburn [Porter], all in boxes made of four large boards nailed up and, after Pa had prayed, they were put into two horse carts and took into the graveyard where your Grandfather and some of the neighbors had made a large trench as near the woods as possible and there we followed the bodies of those first slain, Father, Mother, I and the baby, there I stood and there I saw them let down into the ground. It was a little rainy but we waited to see them covered up with the clods and then for fear the British should find them, my Father thought some of the men had best cut some pine or oak bows and spread them on their place of burial so that it looked like a heap of brush.
[Extract from Letter to Niece Lucy Ware Allen, Lexington Historical Society Proceedings, Vol IV, p91-92]
Betty was eleven the day of the fight and an elderly woman when she wrote her niece in 1841, so some details may be misremembered or mischaracterized. Asa Porter was buried separately in Woburn, and all accounts say the skies were clear, not “a little rainy”as she describes. Still, her account firmly places the service and burial in time: Before the British returned from Concord.
The morning after the fight there were numerous wounded to attend to, prisoners to escort to Woburn, and families to move further from the road that the British would march down sooner or later on their return to Boston. Further straining town manpower, around mid-morning Captain Parker took some men toward Concord to meet the enemy. With all that going on, a mass burial on short notice was a lot to pull off. Who helped? Who attended?
A few related records:
- In their statements, Elijah Sanderson and Sylvanus Wood said they helped carry the dead into the meetinghouse. Canavan says Robert Munroe was first brought into the home of his daughter, Anna Harrington. This was probably all accomplished by six or seven o’clock in the morning.
- Lexington town meeting records show a payment to Samuel Sanderson for some or all of the coffins used in the burial. Elijah Sanderson says he went home for his gun, which his brother had taken with him and used throughout the day (presumably Samuel, a militia corporal, went with Captain Parker). It seems likely Elijah prepared the coffins Samuel later billed the town for.
- According to Hudson’s history, the dead men left four widows, two living mothers and six fathers, plus numerous siblings, children, stepmothers, etc.
- Betty’s closest neighbors to the parsonage included many of the families who lost men that morning: Jonas Parker, Jonathan Harrington, plus the Fisks and Tidds and Daniel Harrington.
While nothing is documented, we can speculate close family attended the funeral and burial, and some of those wielded shovels and made the brush pile. The following presents some ideas organized by family, again mostly based on Hudson’s History:
Robert Munroe
The sixty-two-year-old ensign was survived by his wife Anna Stone Munroe, sons Ebenezer and John, daughters Anna Harrington and Ruth Tidd, and numerous grandchildren. Widow Munroe’s sister, Lydia Mulliken, may have attended. Canavan says the Mullikens went to the Munroes when they evacuated their home on the great road.
John Munroe Jr took two prisoners to Jim Reed’s, but may have returned in time to attend–and help with–his father’s burial.
Sons-in-law William Tidd and Daniel Harrington may have been there, although Daniel is said (by son Levi) to have participated in Parker’s Revenge, and it’s hard to imagine the burial happening before the “middle of the forenoon”. Perhaps Harrington went and Tidd stayed to man a shovel. Or they both went. It’s not clear what Tidd’s role as militia lieutenant required that morning. He was chosen selectman the following year for the first time, so his actions on April 19 must have been remembered favorably.
Jonas Parker
The fifty-three-year-old yeoman was survived by wife Lucy (Hudson’s 1912 edition says she was also the younger sister of Robert Munroe), three teenage daughters, and sons Jonas Jr and Philemon. His father, Andrew Parker, was still living at 82. Jonas and Lucy had older children who did not live in Lexington.
Isaac Muzzy
Thirty-year-old Isaac’s immediate family consisted of father John and stepmother Rebecca Munro Muzzy, plus five sisters and three brothers.
Isaac’s new stepbrother, Ebenezer Munroe Jr (son of Jonas, not Robert) had ridden to alarm neighboring towns to show his wounded arm as proof of the fight, so less likely to have attended.
Samuel Hadley
Samuel left his young wife Betty Jones Hadley and three young children, including Samuel Jr less than a year old. His parents, Thomas and Ruth, still lived and he had many brothers and sisters, so the Hadley family may have been well represented.
John Brown
Unmarried John Brown was survived by both parents, Daniel and Anne, plus numerous brothers and sisters, although several no longer lived in Lexington.
Caleb Harrington
Unmarried Caleb may have had a small turnout, with only his father and brother (both Moses) for close relatives, plus stepmother Deborah Winship Harrington. Caleb’s sister, Elizabeth White, had a newborn babe of two weeks so perhaps did not attend.
Jonathan Harrington
Jonathan left his wife, Ruth Fisk Harrington, and an eight-year-old son who died later that year. His father Henry still lived with stepmother Abigail, and Jonathan had seven adult brothers.
Widow Harrington might have felt very alone in Lexington after Jonathan’s death. She had only lived there as an adult. Both parents were dead. She had several half-siblings, all much younger, some of whom might have lived with her on the common (something to investigate). She remarried in Boston in 1777.
The Lexington Fight 