File:Old Boston days and ways; from the dawn of the revolution until the town became a city (1909) (14804474073).jpg

Identifier: oldbostondayswa00craw (find matches)
Title: Old Boston days & ways; from the dawn of the revolution until the town became a city
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Crawford, Mary Caroline, 1874-1932
Subjects: Boston (Mass.) -- History Boston (Mass.) -- Social life and customs
Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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e pushed the news on toRevere. A brand new and not uninteresting explana-tion of the celerity with which the news reachedRevere has just come to me from Mrs. E.Corinna Wheeler, an aged lady still livingin Boston, who says that she is the only sur-viving possessor of the facts about that night. My great-grandmother, she told me in arecent conversation, was Lydia Ballard Lewis,and in 1775 she was a girl of fifteen. It was toher brother, a bright Yankee boy, Sam Ballardby name, that the intelligence of the Committeeof Safety was due, and the exact form in whichshe related the story afterwards to my motheris as follows: It was a great thing in those timesfor the boys to hang about the inn doors to pickup a few shillings and sixpences by holding 120 OLD BOSTON DAYS & WAYS horses, while their owners went inside for adrink. On the week before the eighteenthmy great-great-uncle, then a boy of thirteen,overheard in this way the conversation of twoBritish officers. That conversation was im-
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GREEN DRAGON TAVERN portant. For they talked of the plan to captureHancock and Adams. Sam went immediately with his news to thelandlord of the Green Dragon, and he informedthe Committee of Safety which had its meetingsin an upper room of that tavern. Acting on thisinformation the committee appointed a spyto hide in the rooms where the British held theircouncils. The spy learned the rest. Then thecommittee held another meeting and planned the OLD BOSTON DAYS & WAYS 121 ride of Paul Revere. But on the night of theeighteenth the committee was carefully watched,for the British were determined that they shouldnot do the very thing they accomplished, —that is, get news of the march to Lexington andConcord. The committee did not dare to ven-ture out, but somehow they must send wordto Revere. It suddenly occurred to Dr. Warrenthat no suspicion would be aroused to see aboy running up the causeway from the GreenDragon to Reveres house. So, about ten oclock,he despatched that same thirteen

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