William Dawes

Dawes, who was known and trusted by Sons of Liberty leader Dr. Joseph Warren, was assigned by Warren to ride from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts, on the night of April 18, 1775, when it became clear that a British column was going to march into the countryside. Dawes' mission was to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that they were in danger of arrest. Dawes took the land route out of Boston through the Boston Neck, leaving just before the British sealed off the town.[6]

Also acting under Dr. Warren, Paul Revere arranged for another rider waiting across the Charles River in Charlestown to be told of the army's route with lanterns hung in Old North Church. To be certain the message would get through, Revere rowed across the river and started riding westward himself. Later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's historically inaccurate poem "Paul Revere's Ride" would focus entirely on Revere, making him a composite of the many alarm riders that night.

Dawes and Revere arrived at the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington about the same time, shortly after midnight. Revere arrived slightly earlier, despite having stopped to speak to militia officers in towns along the way, as his route was shorter and his horse faster. After warning Adams and Hancock to leave, Revere and Dawes proceeded to Concord in case that was the British column's goal. Revere no doubt knew that the Provincial Congress had stored munitions there, including the cannons which Dawes had helped to secure. Along the way, the two men met Samuel Prescott, a local young physician, who joined them.[7]

A squad of mounted British officers awaited on the road between Lexington and Concord. They had already arrested some riders heading west with news of the troops, and they called for Dawes, Revere, and Prescott to halt. The three men rode in different directions, hoping one would escape. Dawes, according to the story he told his children, rode into the yard of a house shouting that he had lured two officers there. Fearing an ambush, the officers stopped chasing him. Dawes's horse bucked him off, however, and he had to walk back to Lexington. He later said that in the morning, he returned to the same yard and found the watch that had fallen from his pocket. Otherwise, Dawes's activity during the Battle of Lexington and Concord remains unknown.

Dawes and his companions' warnings allowed the town militias to muster a sufficient force for the first open battle of the American Revolutionary War and the first colonial victory. The British column did not find most of the weapons they had marched to destroy and sustained serious losses during their retreat to Boston while under attack by the minutemen.[8]

On September 9, 1776, Dawes was commissioned second major of the Boston militia regiment. During the war, Dawes worked as a quartermaster in central Massachusetts. British prisoners of war from the Battles of Saratoga complained to Parliament that he gave them short supplies; his family countered that Dawes believed that they were stealing from farmers while being marched to Boston – as most armies on the march were prone to do.

William Dawes' great-grandson, Rufus Dawes, was a Civil War military officer and congressman; Rufus Dawes' children included Charles G. Dawes, who served as Vice President of the United States under Calvin Coolidge, Rufus C. Dawes, a businessman, Beman Gates Dawes, a businessman and congressman, and Henry M. Dawes, a businessman and banker. A brother of Congressman Rufus Dawes was Major Ephraim C. Dawes. Television personality Bill Schulz (William Dawes Schulz) is another descendant of Dawes, as the grandson of Henry M. Dawes' daughter Mary.[14]

William Dawes was also a first cousin of Thomas Dawes, who was a Revolutionary War colonel, a noted architect/builder, and held numerous government positions; another cousin[15] twice removed was Congressman Henry L. Dawes (1812–1903).