Lexington’s Sam Adams Connection
APRIL 2024
Hometown Historians
BY:
—Andrew McAleer is the author of the Henry von Stray historical mysteries and served as a U.S. Army Historian.
—William Kyle Auterio volunteers for the Lexington Historical Society as a greeter.
Lexington’s Sam Adams Connection
The Hometown Historians are local historians dedicated to preserving unique historical events, monuments, and sites before they slip from the pages of history.
On the night of Paul Revere’s and William Dawes’ famous “Midnight Ride” from Boston to Concord on April 19, 1775, Founding Father and a signer of the Declaration of Independence Samuel Sam Adams (1722-1803) was in Lexington with fellow patriot John Hancock.
Although Adams was by trade a beer brewer, he was an excellent writer and skillful propagandist. He used these talents to resist British control over the American colonists by writing and publishing articles attacking the British. When the British marched into Lexington on the morning of April 19, 1775, part of their mission was to arrest Adams and fellow “colonial radical” John Hancock. Fortunately, Revere and Dawes were able to warn Adams and Hancock in time for them to escape their impending arrest. The “wanted” patriots, however, didn’t venture far from the Battle Green.
According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, American politician Edward Everett gave a speech on April 19, 1835, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. Everett noted how Adams and Hancock were in a neighboring field within earshot of the battle, and when Adams heard the “volleys of firearms,” he “threw up his hands” and exclaimed, “Oh, what a glorious morning is this!”
As years passed the Adams quote became paraphrased to the one we recognize today and the one appearing on Lexington’s official flag, “What a glorious morning for America!” The spot in or around where Adams uttered his famous quote is memorialized in an 1885 granite tablet within walking distance of the Battle Green and is located at 16 Meriam Street.
Photo: William Kyle Auterio
The plaque reads:
“On this hill Samuel Adams Hearing the Fire of the British Troops April 19, 1775, Exclaimed to Hancock “What a Glorious Morning for America!”
Stay tuned! In the next Lexington Times the Hometown Historians track down a Lexington memorial site vicariously connected to Juneteenth.