Jason Russell House

Jason Russell House
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district Contributing property
The Jason Russell House
Location	7 Jason St. Arlington, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°24′58″N 71°09′31″W
Part of	Arlington Center Historic District (ID85002691)
NRHP reference No.	74000363
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 9, 1974
Designated CP	September 27, 1985

The Jason Russell House is a historic house in Arlington, Massachusetts, where at least twenty-one colonial combatants died fighting on the first day of the American Revolutionary War, April 19, 1775 (the Battles of Lexington and Concord). The house was purchased in 1923 by the Arlington Historical Society which restored it in 1926, and now operates it as a museum from mid-April through the end of October, together with the adjoining Smith Museum, built in 1981 to house changing exhibitions of life in Arlington.

Construction

About 1740, Jason Russell (1716–1775), a relatively prosperous farmer and militiaman, constructed the house on pasture land he inherited in 1738. To have the front facing south, in the New England tradition, he placed the north side angled toward the Concord Road (now Massachusetts Avenue), so that the east-facing front was facing slightly south. The house is a typical New England farmhouse with five windows across the front, a door in the center and a large chimney in the middle of a pitched roof. There is some evidence that components in the hall (or kitchen) and its chamber above, as well as the garret, were salvaged from Grandfather Jason's original structure of 1680. The hall and parlor of the house, with their chambers and the garret, are essentially unchanged today, although in 1814 a porch (or vestibule) was added to the front door, and further extensions were subsequently added to the sides around 1863. Inside the central part are four rooms: to the left of the entry are the kitchen and children's chamber (above), and to the right, the parlor and parlor chamber. The kitchen ceiling retains its original whitewash and sponge painting decorative surface treatment. The outside walls may have been plastered originally, but in 1924, when the house was restored, wood sheathing was installed.

Robert Nylander proposed in 1964 that the house was built in two stages; however, research conducted in 2012 by the Dendrochronology Laboratory at Oxford University confirms that the home was erected during a single campaign in 1745, as had been maintained by Russell family lore. The Oxford study also revealed that many of the timbers used in the house were made from lumber cut in 1684–85 or earlier and was probably salvaged from an older building on the property.

April 19, 1775

Patriots' Grave in the Old Burying Ground, Arlington, Massachusetts.

On April 19, 1775, the house and its surrounding yard was the site of the bloodiest conflict of the first battle in the Revolutionary War, resulting in more colonial troop deaths than anywhere else along the battle road. As British troops marched back towards Boston, heavy fighting occurred along their route through Arlington (then Menotomy). Brigadier-General Hugh Percy gave orders to clear every dwelling to eliminate snipers, and houses along the way were ransacked and set afire by the retreating British. The running battle continued to Jason Russell's house, where Russell was joined by men from Beverly, Danvers, Lynn, Salem, Dedham, and Needham at his house.

The history of the Jason Russell House on April 19, 1775, is also the history of a family. Jason and Elizabeth Russell had raised six surviving children here. Three had married and moved to Mason, New Hampshire; a fourth, Thomas had established a grocery store across the street in 1773 and had married the following year. Remaining at home were Elizabeth (called Betsey by the family), who was 18, and Noah, who had just turned 12 the previous month.

But on that day the history of the house and yard became the history of a whole region as part of the Battle of Menotomy.

Around midnight of the night before, a rider named Paul Revere had passed the house on his mission to warn that the British regulars (soldiers) would be coming by on their way to Lexington and, ultimately, to Concord.

About half an hour later William Dawes would pass by with the same message.

And around 2 in the morning about 700 troops under the command of Lieutenant Col. Francis Smith would march “quietly” by.

The Troops Assemble

Meanwhile, the rides of Revere and Dawes triggered a flexible notification system (express riders as well as bells, drums, alarm guns, bonfires, and a trumpet) to let the towns within 25 miles of Boston know that a sizable body of troops was on the move. Accordingly, militias and minutemen groups from many outlying communities assembled and began marches that would eventually bring them to Jason Russell’s property.

Around 9 am troops began to assemble in Danvers, including the part that is now Peabody, comprising two companies of minutemen under Israel Hutchinson and Gideon Foster as well as three militias under Samuel Flint, Samuel Eppes, and Jeremiah Page. These left at different times and via different routes but all arrived in Menotomy about the same time. One body of minutemen had gathered at the Bell Tavern, at the corner of what is now Main and Washington in Peabody. Setting out at 10, they covered 16 miles in 4 hours, to arrive in Menotomy by early afternoon. The Town of Beverly contributed three companies of militia, some of whom were trained as minutemen. In all, perhaps 300 men assembled from just Danvers, Peabody, and Beverly.

Around noon or so, Jason Russell, who was “old” (59) and lame, started bringing his family up to the George Prentiss house, beyond the ridge of the hill behind the house, where they could be safe with others. But partway up, he let the family go on alone and returned “to look after things at home.” On his arrival, patriot militias were already stationing themselves around the house. From bundles of shingles that were lying about, because Jason had been preparing to reshingle, he and some patriot militias formed a barricade behind his gate, thinking this would be a good position from which to fire on the enemy as they returned.

Some men from Danvers went into a “walled enclosure” and reinforced that protection with additional shingles. Other troops stationed themselves among the trees on the property, such as those in the orchard on the slope behind (on the south side of) the house. Danvers's Gideon Foster, having been warned by the more experienced Hutchinson of the possibility of a flanking attack, also set up among the trees rather than behind barricades.

Jason and the patriot militias positioned themselves somewhat back from the road itself. At that time, a little west of Russell’s house, the road traversed a hilly area that obscured the patriots’ view of the approaching armies – as well as the armies' view of the patriots. On the far side of the road lay a mill pond with a “margin” that extended across to the space in front of the patriots. A brook that flowed between Russell’s house and that of his northerly neighbor may have marked the near edge of the margin.

The Battle

“Unfortunately, Jason Russell and the others had made one great miscalculation….” Around four o'clock the British left the Foot of the Rocks, about a mile up the road, and while the main column was coming by the main road, flanking parties were also advancing on both sides. The patriots had not counted on the flanking parties.

While the troops were still on their way, Ammi Cutter, Jason’s neighbor on the north side of the road, spotted Russell among the militias, crossed over the road and the brook, and begged Jason to go to a safer spot. But Jason replied, “An Englishman’s home is his castle,” and stayed with the waiting ambush. As Cutter returned across the hollow, the north side flanking party spotted him and took pot shots at him. He managed to reach the old mill, where he tripped and fell among some logs, with bullets sending chips of bark all around him. Fortunately, the flanking party left him for dead and passed on.

Meanwhile the southside flankers came upon the patriots stationed on the slope that rose south of the house. Jotham Webb, a minuteman serving under Danvers’ Colonel Hutchinson, was “shot through the body and killed by the first fire.” Abednego Ramsdell of Lynn also "fell immediately”. Reuben Kennison, from Beverly, was felled by British musket balls and bayoneted to boot.

Two friends, Daniel Townsend and Timothy Munroe, who were from the part of Lynn that became Lynnfield, were standing in the yard behind the house, firing at the British troops. Then, according to Lewis and Newhall,

"Townsend had just fired, and exclaimed, 'There is another redcoat down,'  when Munroe, looking round, saw, to his astonishment, that they were completely hemmed in by the flank guard of the British army, who were coming down through the fields behind them. They immediately ran into the house, and sought for the cellar; but no cellar was there. They looked for a closet, but there was none. All this time, which was indeed but a moment, the balls were pouring through the back windows, making havoc of the glass. Townsend leaped through the end window, carrying the sash and all with him, and instantly fell dead. Munroe followed, and ran for his life. He passed for a long distance between the parties, many of whom discharged their guns at him. As he passed the last soldier, who stopped to fire, he heard the redcoat exclaim, 'Damn the Yankee! He is bullet proof – let him go!' Mr. Munroe had one ball through his leg, and thirty-two bullet holes through his clothes and hat. Even the metal buttons of his waistcoat were shot off."

And it was not just the window fragments that did Townsend in; he had also been shot through with seven bullets.

As the flankers closed in and the main body of regulars was advancing along Concord Road, Jason Russell and a number of other troops rushed to take refuge in the house. Because Russell was old and lame, he was in the rear and was felled by two bullets at his own doorstep, then received "eleven bayonet stabs from the exasperated enemy as they passed in and out."

Eight of the colonials who did manage to find their way into the house – a combination of men from Danvers, Beverly, and Lynn – also managed to find their way to the basement. They were safe there (at least for the time being), as any redcoat who tried to open the basement door and come down could easily be shot himself, and one did yield his life in the attempt. Another British regular was shot elsewhere on the premises.

Other colonial troops entered the house but failed to find the basement. None of them survived, and their bodies were found on the kitchen floor with others at the end of the day. How many? The corpses were not fully identified until over a century later, but as of now just eight of them are not (yet) known to have been killed outside.

This accords nicely with the story appearing in an unsigned letter written by a British soldier describing the events of that day:

“In another house which was long defended by eight resolute fellows, the grenadiers at last got possession, when after having run their bayonets into seven, the eighth continued to abuse them with all the [beastlike rage] of a true Cromwellian, and but a moment before he quitted this world applied such epithets as I must leave unmentioned..."

Such a bloodletting would be consistent with the copious amounts of blood that surrounded the bodies at the end of the day.

The Aftermath

Bringing the Warriors Back Home

The next day, the body of Reuben Kennison was returned to the Ryan Side neighborhood of Beverly and buried in a plot next to the farm where he had been living and working with his wife Apphia; they had been married for less than a year. Apphia later remarried, but when she passed away in 1842 at the age of 89, she still had in her possession the shirt that Reuben had been wearing on April 19, 1775.

The Bodies on the Floor

Bullet holes in the main staircase of the house are still visible.

Speaking in 1864, Samuel Smith reported that “[o]ur people gathered up the Americans who were killed in and about the house, and laid them side by side in the south room, and when Mrs. Russell came back to her home she found them there, weltering in their own blood, her husband and eleven others. She said that the blood in the room was almost ankle deep. The house itself was riddled with bullets, and the marks of them in many places are still visible. The same blood-stained floor remained on that room till a year ago” - that is, until 1863.

The twelve were soon brought by oxen-drawn sled to the Precinct burying ground and buried in a mass grave, clothes and all, although the bodies were neatly laid out. A Capt. William Adams, who lived nearby, is reported to have brought a sheet from his house for Jason himself, as he could not bear to see his neighbor buried without a winding-sheet.

A plain obelisk of New Hampshire granite was later raised above the grave. The inscription on the monument reads:

"Erected by the Inhabitants of West Cambridge, A.D. 1848, over the common grave of Jason Russell, Jason Winship, Jabez Wyman and nine others, who were slain in this town by the British Troops on their retreat from the Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19th, 1775. Being among the first to lay down their lives in the struggle for American Independence."

The nine others, forgotten at the time that the monument was erected, have since been identified as: John Bacon, Amos Mills, Jonathan Parker, and Nathan Chamberlain of Needham; William Flint, Thomas Hadley, and Abednego Ramsdell of Lynn; Elias Haven of Dedham; and Benjamin Pierce of Salem.

Of the twelve, only eight are not known to have died outside the house and so are most likely to have been killed inside. As noted above, Jason Russell himself was felled on his own doorstep, while Abednego Ramsdell was one of the first to be killed by the flankers rounding the south side of the house. Two others, Jabez Wyman and Jacob Winship, died not at Jason Russell's house, but "were most barbarously killed and mutilated" down the road at Cooper's tavern, and were evidently placed with the others after the fighting had ceased.

The Russell Family

Jason Russell's estate was settled in 1776. His house and 117 acres of land were divided between Noah, his only son left at home, and his widow, Elizabeth. She received the 17 acres the house was standing on together with half the house, "Libberty to use the oven when wanted" and additional privileges of use, including space in the barn. Noah received the other half of the house, half the barn and some lands. Other children got other parts of the estate. Elizabeth Russell lived in her northerly rooms until the eleventh of August 1786 when she died aged 65.

See also

• Battle of Menotomy
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Arlington, Massachusetts

References

• Askew, Thomas A. and Jean M. (1975), Beverly, Massachusetts and the American Revolution: One Town's Experience, Beverly American Revolution Bicentennial Commission
• Chase, Ellen (1910), Beginnings of the American Revolution -- Based on Contemporary Letters Diaries and Other Documents, New York: The Baker and Taylor Company, Vol. III.
• Cutter, Benjamin and William R. (1880). History of the Town of Arlington, Massachusetts. Boston: David Clapp & Son.
• Fischer, David Hackett (1994), Paul Revere’s Ride, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Hanson, John Wesley (1848), History of the town of Danvers, from its early settlement to the year 1848. Danvers: the author.
• King, Daniel P. (1835), “An address commemorative of seven young men of Danvers, who were slain in the battle of Lexington; delivered in the Old South meeting house, in Danvers, on the sixtieth anniversary of the battle. With notes,” Salem: W. & S. B. Ives.
• Lewis, Alonzo (1848), History of Lynn, Boston: J. B. Eastburn
• Lewis, Alonzo, and Newhall, James R. (1865), History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant, Boston: J. L. Shorey, 1865
• Nylander, Robert Harrington (1964). "Jason Russell and His House in Menotomy," Old Time New England, LV(2): 29-42.
• Parker, Charles S. (1907), Town of Arlington Past and Present: A Narrative of Larger Events and Important Changes in the Village Precinct and Town from 1637 to 1907, Arlington, C. S. Parker & Son, Publishers
• Philbrick, Nathaniel (2013), Bunker Hill -- A City, a Siege, a Revolution, New York: Viking.
• [PHS 2020], "April 19, 1775 - Part 1" (ca. 2020), Peabody Historical Society & Museum, accessed October 26, 2024.Smith, Samuel Abbot (1864). West Cambridge on the Nineteenth of April, 1775. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son.
• [SAR 1894] Sons of the American Revolution 1894 Yearbook. Contains list of names and towns of all patriots killed on April 19, along with the places of their deaths, on pp. 126-127.

External links

• Arlington Historical Society page on the house