Lincoln Town History
The Revolutionary War
The Colonies writhed under British rule. As tensions with Britain increased, Lincoln formed a Committee of Correspondence, joined in pledges not to purchase British goods, and in early 1775, the town formed it own minute man company.
On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere was headed to Concord, carrying the alarm that a British column was on the march, with the mission to find and destroy a large cache of military arms and ammunition stored in Concord, but Revere was captured in Lincoln by a British patrol.
As the Redcoats marched along the battle road on April 19th, some one hundred Lincoln minute men and militia rallied, the first companies from the surrounding towns to reach Concord. They participated in the fight at the North Bridge. With the “shot heard round the world,” the American War of Independence began.
More than 180 Lincoln residents served in the Revolutionary War. Lincoln men joined General Washington at Dorchester Heights, White Plains, Trenton, Brandywine, and Valley Forge. Some Lincoln men saw action at Saratoga in 1777, Monmouth and Rhode Island in 1778, and Yorktown in 1781. Lincoln’s highest-ranking officer in the Revolutionary War was Brigadier General Eleazer Brooks, who initially opposed the town’s 1754 incorporation but then became a Selectman and one of its most influential citizens.
Images from the Archives
Eleazer Brooks’ draft reply to the Boston Committee of Correspondence, pledging that Lincoln’s households would neither purchase nor consume British tea, 1773 (pg 1)
Eleazer Brooks’ draft reply to the Boston Committee of Correspondence, pledging that Lincoln’s households would neither purchase nor consume British tea, 1773 (pg 2)
In response to the Intolerable Acts, Lincoln's Pledge of Non-Consumption, August 1774, pg 1
Town Reimbursements to The Minute Men for their Equipment, 1776
Colonial Period drawing of the Lincoln Meeting House
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