Joseph Warren

 

Joseph Warren was born in Roxbury, Province of Massachusetts Bay, to Joseph and Mary (née Stevens) Warren. His father was a respected farmer who died in October 1755 when he fell off a ladder while gathering fruit in his orchard. After attending the Roxbury Latin School, Joseph enrolled in Harvard College, graduating in 1759, and then taught for about a year at Roxbury Latin.^[2][1] While teaching at Roxbury, Warren pursued postgraduate studies at Harvard, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in 1763 after defending a thesis against the proposition that all disease was caused by obstruction of bodily vessels.^[3] He married 18-year-old heiress Elizabeth Hooten on September 6, 1764. She died in 1773, leaving him with four children: Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, and Richard.^[4] Before his death in 1775, he was engaged to Mercy Scollay.^[5]

While practicing medicine and surgery in Boston, he became involved in politics, associating with John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other leaders of the broad movement labeled Sons of Liberty. He was one of the leaders of Patriot activities during the Liberty Affair and facilitated an agreement with Hancock and government customs officials prior to the Boston demonstrations.^[6]

Warren conducted an autopsy on the body of young Christopher Seider in February 1770, and was a member of the Boston committee that assembled a report on the following month's Boston Massacre. Earlier, in 1768, Royal officials tried to place his publishers Edes and Gill on trial for an incendiary newspaper essay Warren wrote under the pseudonym A True Patriot, but no local jury would indict them.^[7]

In 1774, he authored the song "Free America," which was published in colonial newspapers. The poem was set to a traditional British tune, "The British Grenadiers."^[8]

Warren owned at least one enslaved person. This unnamed man, formerly held by Joshua Green, helped Warren with his medical practice.^[9][10]

 

As Boston's conflict with the royal government came to a head in 1773–1775, Warren was appointed to the Boston Committee of Correspondence.^[11] He twice delivered orations in commemoration of the Massacre, the second time in March 1775 while the town was occupied by army troops. Warren drafted the Suffolk Resolves, which were endorsed by the Continental Congress, to advocate resistance to Parliament's Coercive Acts, which were otherwise known as the Intolerable Acts. He was appointed President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the highest position in the revolutionary government.

In mid-April 1775, Warren and Benjamin Church were the two top members of the Committee of Correspondence left in Boston. On the afternoon of April 18, the British troops in the town mobilized for a long-planned raid on the nearby town of Concord, and already before nightfall word of mouth had spread knowledge of the mobilization widely within Boston. It had been known to rebel leadership for weeks that General Gage in Boston had plans to destroy munitions stored in Concord by the colonials, and it was also known that they would be taking a route through Lexington. Some unsupported stories^[12] argue that Warren received additional information from a highly placed informant (usually claiming it was from Margaret Kemble Gage, the wife of General Thomas Gage),^[13] that the troops had orders to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. However, there is little evidence of this as the troops apparently had no such orders. Regardless, Warren learned there was some British expedition likely to begin that night, and so sent William Dawes and Paul Revere on their famous "midnight rides" to warn Hancock and Adams in Lexington. (There is growing consensus in new scholarship that Mrs. Gage never did conspire against the British and that Warren needed no informant to deduce that the British were mobilizing.)^[14]

Warren slipped out of Boston early on April 19, and during that day's Battle of Lexington and Concord, he coordinated and led militia into the fight alongside William Heath as the British Army returned to Boston. When the enemy were returning from Concord, he was among the foremost in hanging upon their rear and assailing their flanks. During this fighting Warren was nearly killed, a musket ball striking part of his wig. When his mother saw him after the battle and heard of his escape, she entreated him with tears again not to risk life so precious. "Wherever danger is, dear mother," he answered, "there will your son be. Now is no time for one of America's children to shrink from the most hazardous duty; I will either set my country free, or shed my last drop of blood to make her so."^[15] He then turned to recruiting and organizing soldiers for the Siege of Boston, promulgating the Patriots' version of events, and negotiating with Gen. Gage in his role as head of the Provincial Congress.

 

Warren was commissioned into the Continental Army at the rank of major general by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1775. Three days later, he arrived at Charlestown just before the battle of Bunker Hill began and made his way to where Patriot militiamen were forming. Upon meeting General Israel Putnam, Warren asked where he thought the heaviest fighting would be; Putnam responded by pointing to Breed's Hill. Warren subsequently volunteered to join the militia at the rank of private against the wishes of both Putnam and Colonel William Prescott, both of whom unsuccessfully requested that he serve as their commander instead. Warren declined their request due the fact that Putnam and Prescott held more military experience.

During the early stages of the battle, Warren repeatedly stated that "These fellows say we won't fight! By Heaven, I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood!"^[16] Defending the Patriot redoubt against two failed attacks by British troops, he kept firing his gun until running out of ammunition and was killed in action during the third and final assault by British gunfire. The man who killed him was possibly Lieutenant Lord Rawdon, who personally recognized him, or by a British officer's servant, an account supported by a forensic analysis conducted in 2011.^[17]

After the battle, Warren's body was stripped of his clothing, repeatedly bayoneted and then buried in a shallow ditch by British forces.^[18] Captain Walter Laurie, who participated in the battles of Lexington and Concord, later wrote that he "stuffed the scoundrel with another rebel into one hole, and there he and his seditious principles may remain."^[19] American soldier Benjamin Hichborn subsequently wrote a letter to John Adams on December 10, 1775, claiming that Lieutenant James Drew, a Royal Navy officer stationed onboard the sloop HMS Scorpion, went to Breed's Hill "a day or two" after the battle and exhumed Warren's body, "spit in his face, jumped on his stomach, and at last cut off his head and committed every act of violence upon his body... In justice to the officers in general I must add, that they despised Drew for his Conduct."^[18] Warren's body was exhumed again ten months after his death by his brothers and Paul Revere, who identified the remains by an artificial tooth Warren had installed in his jaw.^[20] His body was interred in the Granary Burying Ground. In 1825, it was exhumed and reinterred in St. Paul's Church in Boston before being moved one final time in 1855 to his family's vault in Forest Hills Cemetery.

 

 

General Gage is rumored to have said that Warren's death was equal to the death of 500 ordinary colonials.^[21] It encouraged the revolutionary cause because it was viewed by many Americans as an act of martyrdom.

At the time of Warren's death, his children were staying with his fiancée, Mercy Scollay, in Worcester as refugees from the Siege of Boston. She continued to look after them, gathering support for their education from John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Benedict Arnold, and even the Continental Congress.^{[citation needed]} Joseph's youngest brother and apprentice in medicine, John Warren, served as a surgeon during the Battle of Bunker Hill and the rest of the war, and afterwards founded Harvard Medical School and co-founded the Massachusetts Medical Society.

 

There are at least four statues of Joseph Warren on public display. Three are in Boston: one in the exhibit lodge adjacent to the Bunker Hill Monument, another on the grounds of the Roxbury Latin School, and the third atop the puddingstone at his grave site at the Forest Hills Cemetery (this statue was commissioned by the 6th Masonic District, and dedicated in a ceremony by the Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts on October 22, 2016). The fourth is in a small park on the corner of Third and Pennsylvania avenues in Warren, Pennsylvania, a city, borough, and county all named after the general.

Fort Warren on George's Island in Boston harbor, started in 1833, was named in his honor. In 1840, the first Warren School was built on Salem Street in Charlestown, Massachusetts near Bunker Hill. It relocated to School and Summer Streets in 1868, and later merged with the Prescott School to form the Warren-Prescott School.^[22]

Fourteen states have a Warren County named after him. Additionally, Warren, Pennsylvania; Warren, Michigan;^[23] Warren, New Jersey; Warrenton, Missouri; Warrenton, Virginia;^[24] Warren, Maine; Warren, Massachusetts; Warrenton, North Carolina; Warren, Connecticut^[25] and 30 Warren Townships as well as Warrensville, Eldred Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania are also named in his honor.

The New York county of Warren is named after him, but the town of Warrensburg within that county is not; the town is in fact named after James Warren, a prominent early settler.^[26]

The streets of Detroit, Michigan, were redesigned after the 1806 fire, based on the Pierre L'Enfant Plan for Washington, D.C.; Warren Avenue in Detroit is named after Joseph Warren.^[27]

Five ships in the Continental Navy and United States Navy were named Warren in his honor.

Warren Square in Savannah, Georgia, is also named for him, as well as Warren Street in Trenton, New Jersey.^[28]

 

Warren joined the Freemasons, being initiated in the St. Andrew's Lodge, and later became Past Provincial Grand Master of Massachusetts.^[29][30]

Warren was a Scottish Freemason. He was a member of Lodge St Andrews, No.81, (Boston, Massachusetts), which held a Charter from the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The Lodge continues to meet in Boston under the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. The date he joined the Lodge is not known but was during the period after the inauguration of the Lodge on St Andrew's Day, 30 November 1756 and 15 May 1769 when he is recorded in the Grand Lodge of Scotland's membership register as being the Master of the Lodge.^[31] Paul Revere and William Palfrey are also recorded, in the same entry, with Revere being named as Secretary of the Lodge.^[32][33] Warren was appointed Grand Master of all Scottish Freemasonry in the 13 colonies by the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

He was appointed Grand Master of the newly established Provincial Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in that same year.^[34][35] Upon his death, Joseph Webb became Acting Grand Master.

The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts has an award in his name for Masons who have served the fraternity, the country, or humanity with distinction. It is the second-highest honor conferred by the Grand Lodge, surpassed by only the Henry Price medal. The Henry Price medal is usually awarded to those who served with distinction in the Grand Lodge, while the Joseph Warren medal may be conferred upon any Mason within the Grand jurisdiction.

Warren Lodge No. 32 of the Grand Lodge of New York is a historic Masonic lodge that meets in Schultzville, New York. It was founded in 1807 and named in memory of Joseph Warren.

Walter Coy portrayed Warren in the 1957 film Johnny Tremain.^[36] Warren also appeared in episodes 5 and 9 of the 2002 animated television show Liberty's Kids.

Ryan Eggold was cast as Warren in the 2015 miniseries Sons of Liberty.

Warren is featured in the song "Wildfire" by the band Mandolin Orange (renamed Watchhouse) on their 2016 album Blindfaller.^[37]

Joseph Warren is referenced in the A. W. Burns/George W. Hewitt song "America Shall Aye Be Free".

• Patriot (American Revolution)
• List of Freemasons
• Boston Tea Party

• Cary, John (1961). Joseph Warren: Physician, Politician, Patriot. University of Illinois Press. Crown Publishing.
• Di Spigna, Christian (2018). Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero. Crown. ISBN 9780553419320.
• Fischer, David Hackett (1994). Paul Revere's Ride. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195088472.
• Forman, Samuel A. (2012). Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty. Pelican Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4556-1474-5.
• Frothingham, Richard (1865). Life and Times of Joseph Warren. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company.   Life and Times of Joseph Warren public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Hardman, Ron; Hardman, Jessica (2010). Shadow Fox: Sons of Liberty. Fox Run Press. ISBN 978-0-9819607-0-8.
• Warren, Joseph, ed. (1928–1936). Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group.
• Tourtellot, Arthur Bernon (1959). Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-393-32056-5.
• Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1887–1889). Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Bibcode:1887acab.book.....W.

• Forgotten Patriot Leader of the American Revolution Who Was Killed in Battle Profile of Joseph Warren's life and death.
• The Other Ride of Paul Revere: The Brokerage Role in the Making of the American Revolution Social Network Analysis using only organizational affiliations identifying Joseph Warren and Paul Revere as central to the events leading up to the American Revolution.
• The Sword of Joseph Warren Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society with a first-hand account of Joseph Warren's death at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joseph Warren.

• Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation Devoted to the life and legacy of America's "Founding Martyr".
• Dr. Joseph Warren on the Web Compendium of full texts of Joseph Warren's writings and speeches, including weekly updates.
• National Park Service: Dr. Joseph Warren Profile of the hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
• Joseph Warren Dies a Martyr in the Battle of Bunker Hill New England Historical Society account on the death of Joseph Warren.
• Painting: Joseph Warren Description of the portrait of Joseph Warren by John Singleton Copley on display at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
• The Warren Tavern: History