A Lesson From Little Menotomy

A Lesson from Little Menotomy

Matthew 11:28-30

28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 3 0 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

OPENING

Sometimes we need to pause, breathe, take in the scenery, and just enjoy the presence of the Lord. Sometimes we need to … REST IN CHRIST.

There are many ways to tell if you are at that point, but one might be to take this quiz. Can you fill in the blanks? In fact, if you know the answer, feel free to shout it out-loud.

• I’m ready to throw in the…

• I’m at the end of my…

• I’m just a bundle of…

• My life is falling…

• I’m at my wit’s…

• I feel like resigning from the human…

If you could finish those sayings you might need to take Jesus up on his invitation to come. Apparently you’re experiencing the rat race. Just when you thought you were getting ahead, along come faster rats!

Can I tell you a story this morning? It happened on a very famous day, April 19, 1775, the day the Revolutionary war began. You know the story of “The shot that was heard around the world” where the Redcoats and the American Patriots met in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. But there are some lesser known details that made that day end the way it did. They happened in little Menotomy, Massachusetts.

A Lesson from Little Menotomy

(Taken from the book “The Best Little Stories of the American Revolution”)

In little Menotomy, Massachusetts about two o’clock the morning of April 19, 1775 the townspeople heard the tramp, tramp, of passing soldiers. They heard and felt the measured tread of hundreds of feet. In one house by the road running through the town, the rattle of pewter plates on a dresser awoke a man and sent him scurrying to his window. He saw the British … out of Boston and on their way to Lexington and Concord.

And here, in the town later known as West Cambridge and today named Arlington, Massachusetts, there are lesser known incidents that made that day end the way it did.

After the first British column marched through in the dark hours of early morning, there would be three more British incursions at Menotomy. Between nine and ten o’clock that morning, Lord Hugh Percy’s relief column of one thousand men came tramping through town to meet the original expedition as it fought its way back to Lexington from Concord beyond. Eight-year old Ephraim Cutter watched in awe- and many years later told his grandchildren that the marching men, their bayonets glittering in the sunlight, looked like a river flowing through the small village.

Next to come along, also headed outbound, would be Percy’s supply train … fated, as events turned out, never to catch up with him and his troops. And finally, late in the afternoon, would come the two British columns seen earlier, but returning to base now, badly battered, many of the men exhausted, others wounded, and all fighting their way home through the swarms of angry militiamen harassing them from both sides of the road.

But let’s focus on the fate of that supply train.

At one time it had been close on the heels of Lord Percy’s marching troops. However, the supply rain and its cumbersome wagons did not have such an easy trip

An alerted Menotomy at this hour did not necessarily mean a Menotomy in full fighting fettle, since most of the town’s young men, its Minutemen, had galloped off in the direction the British had taken, both during the night and again in mid-morning. Those remaining were the so-called “old men” of town – who were certainly older and exempt from militia duty but in some cases combat veterans of the French and Indian War.

Several of these old men met at Cooper’s Inn, on the corner of the Medford and Charlestown roads, and decided to ambush the supply train as it passed through the very center of the village. They elected David Lamson, described as part Indian, as their leader, then took cover just down the road from their meeting place.

When the supply convoy drew abreast minutes later, Menotomy’s “old men” rose with their firearms aimed at the horses – Lamson shouted orders to stop and surrender. But the teamsters instead urged their horses ahead. A crackling volley of rebel fire brought down several horses in their traces – and may have killed two of the British. The result was capture of all the supplies and provisions, an unexpected windfall for the area’s militiamen.