Jason Russell House
The Jason Russell House is a historic house in Arlington, Massachusetts, in and around which at least twenty-one colonial combatants died fighting on the first day of the American Revolutionary War, April 19, 1775. The house was purchased in 1923 by the Arlington Historical Society which restored it in 1926 and now operates it as a museum.
Construction
About 1745, a farmer named Jason Russell constructed the house on pasture land he inherited in 1738. To have the front facing south, in the New England tradition, he placed the north side angled toward the Concord Road, so that the east-facing front was facing slightly south. The house is a typical New England farmhouse with five windows across the front, a door in the center and a large chimney in the middle of a pitched roof. There is some evidence that components in the hall and its chamber above, as well as the garret, were salvaged from Grandfather Jason's original structure of 1680. The hall and parlor of the house, with their chambers and the garret, are essentially unchanged today, although in 1814 a porch was added to the front door, and further extensions were subsequently added to the sides around 1863. Inside the central part are four rooms: to the left of the entry are the kitchen and children's chamber, and to the right, the parlor and parlor chamber. The kitchen ceiling retains its original whitewash and sponge painting decorative surface treatment. The outside walls may have been plastered originally, but in 1924, when the house was restored, wood sheathing was installed.Robert Nylander proposed in 1964 that the house was built in two stages; however, research conducted in 2012 by the Dendrochronology Laboratory at Oxford University confirms that the home was erected during a single campaign in 1745, as had been maintained by Russell family lore. The Oxford study also revealed that many of the timbers used in the house were made from lumber cut in 1684–85 or earlier and were probably salvaged from an older building on the property.
Nylander also claimed in 1964 that after the house passed out of the family in 1896, “a subsequent owner moved it partly off its original foundation to install a furnace.” Bohy and Scott, however, assemble evidence that this was not so, including the age of the mortar between the foundation stones and the results of a ground-penetrating radar study, indicating that the house remains on its original foundation.
April 19, 1775
On April 19, 1775, the house and its surrounding yard were the site of one of the biggest conflicts of the first battle in the Revolutionary War, resulting in more colonial troop deaths than anywhere else along the battle road. As British troops marched back towards Boston, heavy fighting occurred along their route through then Menotomy. Houses along the way were ransacked and plundered by the retreating British. The running battle continued to Jason Russell's house, where Russell was joined by men from Beverly, Danvers, Lynn, Salem, Dedham, and Needham at his house.The history of the Jason Russell House on April 19, 1775, is also the history of a family. Jason and Elizabeth Russell had raised six surviving children here. Three had married and moved to Mason, New Hampshire; a fourth, Thomas had established a grocery store across the street in 1773 and had married the following year. Remaining at home were Elizabeth, who was 18, and Noah, who had just turned 12 the previous month.
But on that day the history of the house and yard became the history of a whole region as part of the Battle of Menotomy.
Around midnight of the night before, Paul Revere had ridden past the house on his mission to warn that the British regulars would be coming by on their way to Lexington and, ultimately, to Concord. About half an hour later William Dawes would pass by with the same message.
Around 2 in the morning about 700 British troops under the command of Lieutenant Col. Francis Smith would march “quietly” by.
The Troops Assemble
Meanwhile, the rides of Revere and Dawes triggered a flexible notification system to let the towns within 25 miles of Boston know that a sizable body of troops was on the move. Accordingly, militias and minutemen companies from many outlying communities assembled and began marches that would eventually bring them to Jason Russell's property.Needham dispatched three companies of militia comprising 185 men. Five of them would never return home.
The men of Dedham appear to have responded with great fervor. They dispatched four companies of militia, one for each parish of the town, and one minuteman company under Captain Joseph Guild. Guild's men left in small groups as soon as enough had assembled to form a platoon. All together about 300 men left that day, reportedly leaving almost no men behind between the ages of 16 and 80.
Around 9 am troops began to assemble in Danvers, including the part that is now Peabody, comprising two companies of minutemen under Israel Hutchinson and Gideon Foster as well as three militias under Samuel Flint, Samuel Eppes, and Jeremiah Page. These left at different times and via different routes but all arrived in Menotomy about the same time. One body of minutemen had gathered at the Bell Tavern, at the corner of what is now Main and Washington in Peabody. Setting out at 10, they covered 16 miles in 4 hours, to arrive in Menotomy by early afternoon. The Town of Beverly contributed three companies of militia, some of whom were trained as minutemen; in addition, 19 men from Beverly mustered together with Hutchinson's minutemen. In all, perhaps 300 men assembled from just Danvers, Peabody, and Beverly.
Around noon or so, Jason Russell, who was “old” and lame, started bringing his family up to the George Prentiss house, beyond the ridge of the hill behind the house, where they could be safe with others. But partway up, he let the family go on alone and returned “to look after things at home.” On his arrival, provincial militias were already stationing themselves around the house. From bundles of shingles that were lying about, because Jason had been preparing to reshingle, he and some provincial militias formed a barricade behind his gate, thinking this would be a good position from which to fire on the enemy as they returned.
Some men from Danvers went into a “walled enclosure” and reinforced that protection with additional shingles. Other troops stationed themselves among the trees on the property, such as those in the orchard on the slope behind the house. Danvers's Gideon Foster, having been warned by the more experienced Hutchinson of the possibility of a flanking attack, also set up among the trees rather than behind barricades. Several units from Dedham, Needham, and Lynn took up positions behind a stone wall that stretched uphill behind Jason Russell's house.
Jason and the provincial militias positioned themselves somewhat back from the road itself. As Lord Percy said later, only the most daring would have approached "within 10 yards to fire at me and other officers." At that time, a little west of Russell's house, the road traversed a hilly area that obscured the provincials’ view of the approaching armies – as well as the armies' view of the provincials.
The Battle
“Unfortunately, Jason Russell and the others had made one great miscalculation....” Around four o'clock the British left the Foot of the Rocks, about a mile up the road, and while the main column was coming by the main road, flanking parties were also advancing on both sides. The provincials had not counted on the flanking parties.For the colonials, this would be a battle unlike almost any other. This was not an army under a single commanding officer; rather, the troops were made up of a number of independent provincial militias and companies of minutemen, together with a number of individuals not listed as mustering among the participating units. The provincials were united in purpose, but lacked formal coordination in action, especially under the surprise of the flanking troops. As Lord Percy wrote back to London the following day, “During the whole the Rebels attacked us in a very scattered, irregular manner, but with purpose and resolution, nor did they ever dare to form into any regular body.” The stories we have are therefore rather of engagements of individuals or of small numbers of people. Some of these happen in or around Jason Russell's House, but the site of other actions is merely somewhere in the 300 yards or so between the house and the Meeting House to the east; timing and sequence are equally uncertain.
While the flanking troops were still on their way, Ammi Cutter, Jason's neighbor from across the mill brook on the north side of the road, spotted Russell among the militias, crossed over the road and begged Jason to go to a safer spot. But Jason replied, “An Englishman's home is his castle,” and stayed with the waiting ambush. As Cutter returned across the hollow, the north side flanking party spotted him and took pot shots at him. He managed to reach the old mill, where he tripped and fell among some logs, with bullets sending chips of bark all around him. Fortunately, the flanking party left him for dead and passed on.
Meanwhile, the southside flankers came upon the provincials stationed on the slope that rose south of the house. Jotham Webb, a minuteman serving under Danvers's Colonel Hutchinson, was “shot through the body and killed by the first fire.” Abednego Ramsdell of Lynn also "fell immediately”. Reuben Kennison, from Beverly, also serving with Hutchinson's company, was felled by British musket balls and bayoneted to boot.
Elias Haven was standing with his brother-in-law, Aaron Whiting, near the meeting-house, when Elias was shot and killed by a British soldier. Haven and Whiting, both from the part of Dedham that later became Dover, were part of Ebenezer Battle's militia company.
Two friends, Daniel Townsend and Timothy Munroe, who were from the part of Lynn that became Lynnfield, were standing in the yard behind the house, firing at the British troops. Then, according to Lewis and Newhall,
"Townsend had just fired, and exclaimed, 'There is another redcoat down,' when Munroe, looking round, saw, to his astonishment, that they were completely hemmed in by the flank guard of the British army, who were coming down through the fields behind them. They immediately ran into the house, and sought for the cellar; but no cellar was there. They looked for a closet, but there was none. All this time, which was indeed but a moment, the balls were pouring through the back windows, making havoc of the glass. Townsend leaped through the end window, carrying the sash and all with him, and instantly fell dead. Munroe followed, and ran for his life. He passed for a long distance between the parties, many of whom discharged their guns at him. As he passed the last soldier, who stopped to fire, he heard the redcoat exclaim, 'Damn the Yankee! He is bullet proof – let him go!' Mr. Munroe had one ball through his leg, and thirty-two bullet holes through his clothes and hat. Even the metal buttons of his waistcoat were shot off."And it was not just the window fragments that did Townsend in; he had also been shot through with seven bullets.
Lieut. John Bacon of Needham was positioned behind a stone wall, next to a veteran nicknamed “Old Hawes,” when Hawes exclaimed “Run, or you are dead; here's the side guard.” Bacon tried to clamber over the wall, but was shot through near the third button on his vest – and was later found laid out with the others inside the house.
The men in the enclosure were unaware of the flankers as they began to fire at the advancing main column. One who survived, Samuel Page, later told of how, after he had snapped his wooden ramrod as he was driving a cartridge into his gun, he had turned to his neighbor Perley Putnam to ask to borrow his, only to see Putnam shot dead by a ball from the British rear guard. What followed was a struggle in which some escaped unharmed, but the British managed to capture and then execute three or four.
As the flankers closed in, Jason Russell and a number of other troops rushed to take refuge in the house. It is said that, because Russell was old and lame, he was in the rear and was felled by two bullets at his own doorstep, then received "eleven bayonet stabs from the exasperated enemy as they passed in and out."
Eight of the colonials who did manage to find their way into the house – a combination of men from Danvers, Beverly, and Lynn – also managed to find their way to the basement. They were safe there, as any redcoat who tried to open the basement door and come down could easily be shot himself, and one did yield his life in the attempt. Another British regular was shot elsewhere on the premises.
Three men from the now-Peabody part of Danvers – George Southwick, Joseph Bell, and Dennison Wallis – managed to find their way upstairs. Sensing a lull, they then ventured down the stairs with Southwick in the lead, till suddenly the outside door was flung open to admit British soldiers. The outcome was gruesome; the first soldier killed Southwick by slashing him across the head.
Joseph Bell was taken prisoner and spent the next two months of his life aboard a British frigate, being returned in a prisoner swap the following June 6.
Dennison Wallis also surrendered and was relieved of his watch and wallet. But then Wallis saw the British killing other prisoners, the ones from the enclosure, and took off running. He received twelve or thirteen bullets in the attempt and finally fell beside a wall that he was trying to jump over. Fortunately, the British left him for dead, and he lived to tell the tale.
Twelve bodies would be found on the kitchen floor at the end of the day. Attempts have been made to infer from this the number of provincials who were killed inside or at least at the Jason Russell House, but this cannot be done, as at that point the floor was being used as a temporary repository for colonial bodies from over the wider area.
But a British officer would later describe some events of that day—events that may well have occurred at Jason's house—in this way:
“In another house which was long defended by eight resolute fellows, the grenadiers at last got possession, when after having run their bayonets into seven, the eighth continued to abuse them with all the of a true Cromwellian, and but a moment before he quitted this world applied such epithets as I must leave unmentioned"Such a bloodletting would be consistent with the copious amounts of blood that surrounded the bodies at the end of the day.
And a little later, an unnamed British officer, evidently tasked with making sure that the captured houses were secure, fought his way into the house and “counted 11 Yankies dead in it & the orchard.”
More fortunate were the troops positioned near Gideon Foster. When they found themselves nearly surrounded, Foster led them down the hill, along the margin of a pond, and across the road in front of the advancing British column, finally finding a safe position behind a ditch wall on the north. From there, they continued firing at the retreating British until the column passed beyond reach. Foster himself believed that he fired as many as eleven times with two balls each that day.
Meanwhile, the East Company of militia from Needham arrived, apparently as the battle was already in progress. On hearing of the “Lexington Alarm” that morning, they had gathered in the driveway of the local minister, where their ammunition was being stored. He “addressed them earnestly, and gave his blessing,” and they started on their way around 10 am. After a lunch break in Watertown, they arrived at Menotomy, but “being ignorant of what are called flank guards, they inserted themselves between them and the main body of the British troops.” Since they would have been coming from the South along the Watertown Road, they must have arrived at or near the east end of Jason's property.
Several men from the East Company took refuge in a barn. Among them, Sergeant Elisha Mills stepped out, got off one shot at the flank guard, then died pierced by six musket balls. His comrade, Jonathan Parker, on being discovered there by the flank guard, made a run for it, but died trying to reach the woods.