Who is Samuel Prescott?

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Dr. Samuel Prescott (August 19, 1751 - c. 1777) was a Massachusetts Patriot during the American Revolutionary War. He was on the road at 1 A.M. on April 19, 1775 after an evening with his fiancée, Miss Lydia Mulliken, when he met Paul Revere and William Dawes on their ride from Lexington to Concord and joined them to warn of the British attempt to seize the store of arms.

Although he joined the ride late, he was the only one of the three men to reach Concord and warn the town. He then proceeded further west to warn Acton while his brother Abel Prescott rode south to warn Sudbury and Framingham.

The rapid warning of Revere, Dawes, and Prescott alerted the Minutemen of this region in time for them to engage the British Army at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Samuel Prescott later became a surgeon in the Continental Army and joined the crew of a New England privateer. He was captured by the Royal Navy and died between November 23, 1776 and December 26, 1777 while a prisoner in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Sources

Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer ISBN 0195088476
American History, "Midnight Riders," Charles J. Caes, December 2004.

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