Patriot's Day
In 1894 the Lexington Historical Society petitioned the
Massachusetts State Legislature to proclaim April 19 as "Lexington
Day". Concord countered with "Concord Day". Governor Frederic T. Greenhalge opted for a compromise: Patriots' Day. However the biggest
battle fought on this day was in the town of Menotomy, now Arlington, Massachusetts.[3] Menotomy was on the Concord Road between
Lexington and Concord and Boston.[4] While the fighting was going on in
Lexington and Concord, 5,100 militia men arrived in Menotomy from Middlesex and Essex Counties[5][6]. These men took up positions along the road
the British troops would take on their retreat to Boston.[7] They placed themselves in and around
houses, stone walls, fields and barns. The bloodiest fighting of the first day
of the American Revolution took place inside a single house, the Jason Russell House, in Menotomy[8][9]. Eleven militia men died in this house
fighting British troops trained in bayonet fighting.[10]
Patriots' Day was first proclaimed in Massachusetts in 1894 by
Gov. Greenhalge replacing Fast
Day as a public
holiday.[2] The idea was introduced to the Governor
by the statesman from Lowell, Isaac Henry Paige. It was established on April
19, commemorating the date of the Battles of Lexington
and Concord and the
larger Battle of Menotomy in 1775, and consolidating the longstanding municipal
observances of Lexington Day and Concord Day. It also marked the first
bloodshed of the American Civil War in the Baltimore riot of 1861, during which four members of the Massachusetts militia were
slain and 36 injured. In Menotomy, now Arlington[11], 25 militia men died and 40 British soldiers
were killed.[12] The dual commemoration, Greenhalge
explained, celebrated "the anniversary of the birth of liberty and
union". It is likely that the battles that took place in Menotomy are not
as well known as the smaller battles in Lexington and Concord because the town
has had several names since that day in 1775. In 1938, with the generation that
had fought in the Civil War largely off the voter rolls, the Massachusetts legislature
passed a bill establishing the holiday "in commemoration of the opening
events of the War of the Revolution".[13]
Maine followed Massachusetts in 1907 and replaced its Fast Day
with Patriot's Day.[2] On June 10, 2017, Governor Dannel Malloy signed
a bill establishing Patriots' Day as a statewide unpaid holiday in Connecticut.[1] On April 16, 2018 Connecticut became the
4th state to recognize the holiday.[14][15]
The holiday was originally celebrated on April 19, the actual
anniversary of the battles (fought in 1775). Since 1969, it has been observed
on the third Monday in April in Massachusetts[16] and in Maine[17] (which until the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was part of Massachusetts). The Monday holiday
creates a three-day long
weekend.
Minutemen and citizens marching from Acton to
Concord on Patriots' Day 2012
Observances and re-enactments of the battles occur annually
at Lexington Green in Lexington, Massachusetts (around 6:00 am) and the Old
North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts (around 9:00 am) and in Arlington, Massachusetts on
the Sunday before Patriot's Day. Tours are available of the Jason Russell House in Arlington, Massachusetts on Sunday and Monday[20][21]. On Monday morning, mounted re-enactors with
state police escorts retrace the Midnight Rides of Paul
Revere and William
Dawes, calling out warnings
the whole way.[citation needed]
The most significant celebration of Patriots' Day is the Boston
Marathon, which has been run
every Patriots' Day since April 19, 1897 to mark the then-recently established
holiday, with the race linking the Athenian and American struggles for liberty.[13]
