History of Wilmington Miinutemen

Taken from the 200th Anniversary Committee

The year 1773 opened with the mutterings of the approaching Revolution. A town meeting pledged the town to join with Boston,"yea,with the whole continent,"for the security of the civil rights and the recovery of those that had been taken from the colony by force.A year later the town began to take action about building up its stock of powder and ball--which stored in the attic of the meeting house. In that meeting house September 7,1774,the town voted to accept the delaration of Middlesex County convention of August 30 and 31 at Concord,calling in ringing words for resistance unto death in defense of freedom.On march 6,1775 but little more than a month before Concord and lexington,Wilmington, voted to call on every able-bodied man from 16 to 60 to report the following Wednsday with arms and ammunition,and three days later voted to enlist 24 "good able-bodied minute men".

Diligent searchers of the archives have long since established that from the beginning of Wilmington have given a good account of themselves in the armed conflicts that have "made and preserved us a nation." In the French and Indian Wars they fought as subjects of the Crown,the Provincial forces. The character of that fighting may be judged from the fact that 14 of our Wilmington citizens, with their gallant Captain,Ebeneezer Jones(who built the orginal house on the Stanley Farm) were buried in one grave following the battle of "Halfway Brook,"in 1768.The Rev.Isaac Morrill,for more than half a century the minister of the Wilmington congregation,took the field with his neighbors, and as a "fighting parson" gave evidence of the sturdy qualities that caused him long to be regarded as the outstanding national figure in the history of our town.Again,like a true soldier of the lord, he drew his sword in the Revolution.His is the chimney-like tomb in the southwestern angle of the New Cemetery,close to the Town Hall,and on the slate slab on top,among his and other names,is cut that of "Capt. Cadwalla(N) der Ford."The Fords and the Morrils were related through marriage.

On the fated morning of April 19,1775,two companies of Minute Men started out on the road to Lexington very early in response to the "alarum," one of them commanded by Captain Cadwallader Ford, the other by Capt. Timothy Walker. Later another went out, commanded by Capt. John Harnden. They fought at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. The number of Wilmington men who fought in the Revolutionary War was 260, including 24 captains, several of whom rose to higher command. This indicates that nearly all the able-bodied men of Wilmington were engaged in the struggle for liberty.

Records of the Gowing Family, proudly cherished by the Gowing Family Association, which meets yearly in Wilmington to keep alive traditions of the line, bear out the above story of the march to Lexington. Daniel Gowing, the original member of the family to settle here, lived on the old Gowing place situated on what is now Park street, not far from the North Reading line. He was a member of the Wilmington Train Band and in response to the "alarum" he hastened to report at Wilmington---doubtless at the meeting-house--the morning of the 19th, to Captain Cadwallader Ford. He rode his horse to the rendezvous, and, thinking there was need for haste he reached for a switch, seizing a sapling that grew beside the road. We can see him bending from the saddle, grasping it with the grip of a sturdy farmer, and aided by the motion of his horse tugging it loose, roots and all. It may be that he left his horse at the Centre when he set out in the ranks of Captain Ford's company. When he returned homw after the epic events of the day he found the sapling still on his saddle. It proved to be an elm seedling and he planted it in front of his house. As if marked by destiny to serve as a monument, it took root and grew and was long known as the Lexington Elm. It was cut down about the time of the World War, but its huge stamp bears testimony to its nearly a century and a half of age.

Besides Cadwallader Ford, who rose to the rank of "Leftenant-Colonel" as it was styled, after the British fashion, Wilmington boasted two full colonels, Colonel Joshua Harnden and Colonel William Blanchard, besides Major John Jaquith and Captain John Gowing and a number of other commissioned officers whose graves are marked by the Sons of the American Revolution as those of men who fought in the War of Independence.

The valor and the service of Wilmington men in the Civil War were a quality to mark them as the peers of their forefathers of the Revolution. Ninety-six men formed the Wilmington quota. Of these 14 lost their lives and 11 were discharged for disability. A Wilmington youth, full of martial spirit even as a boy, became General William Henry Harnden of that great struggle. He was a colonel when , as it chanced, commanding a Wisconsin regiment his men captured Jefferson Davis, near macon, Georgia. He left a written account of this affair. He was a brother of Everal Harnden, long a citizen and farmer of Wilmington, whose children's children look back to the town as their old home.

The War with Spain, though not the great national crisis that either the Revolution or the Civil War was, met with response from young men of Wilmington, two of whom enlisted with the Wakefield Company of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment and saw service in Porta Rico. Since those days other men who saw service in that war, or in its correlated campaigns in the Philippines and China have come to make their homes in Wilmington, adding the color of their experiences to the military traditions of the town.

With these examples to emulate, is it a wonder that the men of Wilmington responded in a manner worthy of their patriot forebears to the challenge of the World War? Their records are written in the annals of many far-stretched fronts and widely scattered services. The Wilmington service flag, among its 137 stars, numbers three of gold--those of John Regan, Harold Rogers and Martin Nee, youth of the present generation, playmates and schoolmates of those now active in town affairs, to whose honor the town has made suitable memorials. A few have died dice the war, and a vigorous American Legion post keeps alive their memories and the ideals for which they offered their lives. Four young women went out as nursee.

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