"Listen my children, and you shall hear--"

Most of us have had to read or even memorized Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and we all learned about the Revolutionary War in school. Finding a connection between history and family is always fun and makes those lessons from school more meaningful.

1775 - The Lexington Alarm, the first battle of the Revolutionary War, was fought in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. British troops had moved from Boston toward Lexington and Concord to seize the colonists' military supplies and arrest revolutionaries. But British troops met resistance from the Minutemen and American volunteers who harassed the retreating British troops along the Concord-Lexington road. Paul Revere, on his famous ride, had first alerted the Americans to the British movement.

Locating information about Jane Grey Temple, Grandpa Stone's mother, I found this:

Jane's father was James Temple, (1789-1861) his father was Stephen Temple, Jr., born 1764 in New Hampshire and died in Adams, MA in 1854. He was married to Susannah Wood. Stephen enlisted in The Revolutionary War April 21, 1777 at Camp West Point and was still listed on the muster rolls in 1781.

His father, Stephen, Sr., was born 1731 in Worcester, MA and died in 1809. He married Sarah Bates and they had 14 children. Stephen was probably a grantee of land from Plymouth, VT in 1761, lived in Winchester, NH from 1764-1772 and moved to Northbridge, MA before 1775.

In April 1775 he joined The Lexington Alarm and was listed as a private. Sept. 26, 1775 he was listed as a sergeant and a corporal in March of 1777. In June 1776 he received compensation for his losses sustained at Lexington and Bunker Hill. I found no listing of those losses. Stephen was again listed in service in 1780 and belonged to Westford, MA.

---"You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,-
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
They crossing the fields to engage again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load."------