Benjamin Wellington of Lexington - "The First Armed Man Taken In The Revolution"

How many connections are there between Concord and Lexington, and the 1777 march of the Convention Army?  On the American side, countless Massachusetts militiamen who answered the call on April 19th, 1775, did so again in the summer and fall of 1777.  Benjamin Lock of Lexington is said to be one of them, as evidenced by the journal he kept in 1777 documenting his journey to Saratoga, and his return home after the surrender as a guard with the German column of the Convention Army, as well as the pay receipt he signed in Lincoln in 1778 seven months later.   

Benjamin Wellington, eighth on the Lexington list, has an interesting story of his own.  A bronze plaque (pictured here) at the corner of Follen Road and Pleasant Street in Lexington, on the lawn of Scared Heart Church, notes his capture with the words: "Near this spot at early dawn on the 19th of April 1775, Benjamin Wellington, a minute man, was surprised by British scouts and disarmed.  With undaunted courage he borrowed another gun and hastened to join his comrades on Lexington Green.  He also served his country at White Plains and Saratoga.  The first armed man taken in the Revolution."

According to Charles Hudson's History of The Town of Lexington, Benjamin Wellington was born on August 7, 1743, making him thirty-one years old at the time of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and thirty-four at the time of the surrender at Saratoga.  Hudson notes of Wellington's militia service: "... he belonged to Capt. Parker's company in 1775, and was at the taking of Burgoyne in 1777... It was he who claimed the honor of being the first prisoner taken in the American Revolution." [1]  

While the focus on commemorating events such as Lexington and Concord, or Saratoga is often on a day or few days of fighting, Hudson's history helps us realize that those who took part in these events were real people living real lives.  Wellington, who left his wife and ten year old daughter at home when he marched, likely went to Saratoga with a heavy heart.  His second son, Oliver, who was baptized November 13, 1774, is presumed to have died just a month earlier, on August 29, 1777.  Two years prior, his first son and namesake, Benjamin, had died at age three in December of 1775. [2]

A biography of Wellington on the website of the Lexington Minute Men provides more detail on his capture, with a quote from Lieutenant William Sutherland of the 38th Regiment of Foot, who noted that riding in advance of the British column on the morning of the 19th, he "... saw a vast number of the Country Militia going over the hill with their arms to Lexington & met one of them in the teeth whom I obliged to give up his firelock & bayonet..." [3]  

After the war began, Wellington served for five days in Cambridge from May 6 to May 10, 1775, as a private in a detachment from the Lexington militia commanded by Captain John Parker, then five days again from March 4 to March 8, 1776, at Roxbury.  In 1777 Wellington served as a sergeant in Captain Samuel Farrar's company ("detached from Col. Eleazer Brooks's regt[iment]") with Colonel Jonathan Reed's Middlesex County Regiment, from September 29th through November 7th,  "... to reinforce army under Gen.  Gates at the Northward.". [4]  As a result, two and a half years after he was detained by a British patrol, Wellington would escort thousands of German prisoners from Saratoga to Cambridge.

Was Wellington on Lexington Common with Parker's company when the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired?  The wording on the capture monument indicates that he "... borrowed another gun and hastened to join his comrades on Lexington Green".  Hudson states that Wellington "... belonged to Capt. Parker's company in 1777...".  Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War doesn't indicate that Wellington served on April 19th, but then again others known to have been on the green, including those who were killed, are not listed either.  Poole, in his biography of Wellington, seems to leave open the question of whether Wellington was with Parker's company on the green, writing "If he [Wellington] did obtain a musket, he would have had to hurry to join the hasty assembly of the militia on the Common." [5]

Regardless of whether Wellington was or wasn't in 1775, his name is there now, engraved in granite on a monument erected in 1948 which reads: "Memorial to the Lexington Minute Men who were on the Green in the early morning engagement April 19, 1775...". [6]  Benjamin Lock is listed also, a story for another post.

Next Time: More On Benjamin Lock - “We Do Testify And Declare” 

Last Time: A Lexington-Saratoga Connection Continued - “Our Continental Pay”  

For more on the Convention Army's 1777 march from Saratoga to Boston, see:

   1777 March Blog Home             Overnight Stopping Points        Towns and Villages Along the Way 

   General Whipple's Journal         Burgoyne in Albany                    Annotated Bibliography 

[1] Charles Hudson, History of The Town of Lexington (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913), 2:730. 
[2] Hudson, History of The Town of Lexington, 2:730.  Despite these losses a third son, also named Benjamin, was born in August of 1778, a little over ten months after Wellington returned home from Saratoga.

[3] Bill Poole, "Benjamin Wellington A Brief Biography", 6 (quoting from Vincent Kehoe, "We Were There April 19, 1775"), accessed online at: https://lexingtonminutemen.com/biographies/m-to-z/benjamin-wellington-iii/
[4] MSSRW, 16:829.

[5] Poole, "Benjamin Wellington A Brief Biography", 7.

[6] For a list of names and an images of the back of the monument, see: https://lifefromtheroots.blogspot.com/2014/10/lexington-massachusetts-one-monument.html .