EAST MONTPELIER – One of the most New England of poems was published by James Russell Lowell in 1864. “The Courtin” became popular enough to be published subsequently as a separate volume, with period-type illustrations by none other than Winslow Homer. A charming story, it depicts perfectly the knots that Yankees often tie themselves into before finally (if ever) expressing themselves.
But for all that, the verses I like best are the ones that describe the homely everyday tasks of a farmhouse (this one in the dead of winter) and the objects that we identify with that life and that remind us of its history:
Agin the chimbly crook-necks hung.
An’ in amongst ‘em rusted
The ole queen’s arm thet gran’ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.
The house had likely been built and lived in before the Revolution, and Grandfather Young had been at the first battle of that war, and returned with a broken Brown Bess musket that American militia, like the Minutemen, frequently used. If you look at your own walls, you’ll probably see artifacts that point backward at the history of your family or your own life. The Youngs were sons of the Revolution.
Just south and east of us, Massachusetts and Maine have just celebrated a state holiday, Patriots Day, honoring the Sons of Liberty. On this day they stood fast on the town green in Concord and drove a British expeditionary force of four hundred back to their main body at Lexington, whence they began a disastrous retreat to Boston. In the words of Longfellow, “. . . The British Regulars fired and fled, . . . the farmers gave them ball for ball, from behind each fence and farm-yard wall.”
It’s difficult today, navigating the traffic-choked highways from Concord to Boston, to imagine walking that distance, let alone doing it with the locals taking potshots at you with 75-caliber smoothbores. It must have been one hell of a day for the regulars. They probably reached the city limits with much greater enthusiasm than I usually do 251 years later.
But it was no less onerous for the militiamen who came home wounded or not at all. When they mustered with their weapons on the green, they knew they were going up against the world’s most powerful army. But over the years, as they’d experienced ever heavier outrages from a distant, imperious government, and shared their resentments with their fellows, they’d weighed the odds of doing nothing against the risk of losing everything. It’s what creates a revolution.
In his book, “The Crucible of War,” author Fred Anderson describes beautifully the way the Seven Years’ War prepared the way for the American Revolution. The colonies, which had begun as sort of microcosms of British culture, had evolved, pretty much of necessity, into meritocracies, with a much more powerful middle class. Clashes were inevitable between British officers, who came exclusively from the gentle class, and colonial officers, who often were elected by their men.
Instituted in 1894 as a substitute for Fast Day, a poorly observed holiday, Patriots Day has grown in popularity. In 1897 the Boston Marathon was added. Naturally, the Red Sox play a home game, with a gigantic American flag hanging over the scoreboard and colonial militia re-enactors marching around the outfield.
My dear friend Bea is a Massachusetts resident, so the recognition affords us a three-day weekend, a wonderfully relaxing break in routine. The 19th of April in 1775 was apparently cool and clear in the morning, with cumulus building in the afternoon and a lovely sunset. This year, here, it snowed hard much of the day. But we weren’t marching anywhere, trying frantically to keep our powder dry; we drove a hybrid vehicle to a lovely performance of “Our Town” at Lost Nation Theater. It was interesting to wonder, however, as our own current revolutionary spirit is increasingly matched by similar feelings in growing numbers of our countrymen and -women, how long it will be, the recent disruptions in Minneapolis were most troubling, before we reassert the rights that the patriots of Lexington and Concord deemed worth dying for, if necessary.
Willem Lange is a contractor, writer and storyteller who lives in East Montpelier, Vermont.
