Revolutionary Heroes, and Other Historical Papers | Page 2

whom the people of the United States have reason to be proud."

The contents of this book have been selected from among the great number contributed from time to time by Mr. Parton, and are considered as particularly valuable and interesting reading.

REVOLUTIONARY HEROES.

GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN.
A fiery, vehement, daring spirit was this Joseph Warren, who was a doctor thirteen years, a major-general three days, and a soldier three hours. In that part of Boston which is called Roxbury, there is a modern house of stone, on the front of which a passer-by may read the following inscription:
"On this spot stood the house erected in 1720 by Joseph Warren, of Boston, remarkable for being the birthplace of General Joseph Warren, his grandson, who was killed at the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775."
There is another inscription on the house which reads thus:
"John Warren, a distinguished Physician and Anatomist, was also born here. The original mansion being in ruins, this house was built by John C. Warren, M.D., in 1846, son of the last-named, as a permanent memorial of the spot."
I am afraid the builder of this new house poetized a little when he styled the original edifice a mansion. It was a plain, roomy, substantial farm-house, about the centre of the little village of Roxbury, and the father of Warren who occupied it was an industrious, enterprising, intelligent farmer, who raised superior fruits and vegetables for the Boston market. Warren's father was a beginner in that delightful industry, and one of the apples which he introduced into the neighborhood retains to this day the name which it bore in his lifetime, the Warren Russet.
A tragic event occurred at this farm-house in 1775, when Warren was a boy of fourteen. It was on an October day, in the midst of the apple- gathering season, about the time when the Warren Russet had attained all the maturity it can upon its native tree. Farmer Warren was out in his orchard. His wife, a woman worthy of being the mother of such a son as she had, was indoors getting dinner ready for her husband, her four boys, and the two laborers upon the farm. About noon she sent her youngest son, John, mentioned in the above inscription, to call his father to dinner. On the way to the orchard the lad met the two laborers carrying towards the house his father's dead body. While standing upon a ladder gathering apples from a high tree, Mr. Warren had fallen to the ground and broken his neck. He died almost instantly.
The Boston Newsletter of the following week bestowed a few lines upon the occurrence; speaking of him as a man of good understanding, industrious, honest and faithful; "a useful member of society, who was generally respected among us, and whose death is universally lamented."
Fortunate is the family which in such circumstances has a mother wise and strong. She carried on the farm with the assistance of one of her sons so successfully that she was able to continue the education of her children, all of whom except the farmer obtained respectable rank in one of the liberal professions. This excellent mother lived in widowhood nearly fifty years, saw Thomas Jefferson President of the United States, and died 1803, aged ninety-three years, in the old house at home. Until she was past eighty she made with her own hands the pies for Thanksgiving-day, when all her children and grandchildren used to assemble at the spacious old Roxbury house.
It was in the very year of his father's death, 1755, that Joseph Warren entered Harvard College, a vigorous, handsome lad of fourteen, noted even then for his spirit, courage and resolution. Several of his class one day, in the course of a frolic, in order to exclude him from the fun, barred the door so that he could not force it. Determined to join them, he went to the roof of the house, slid down by the spout, and sprang through the open window into the room. At that moment the spout fell to the ground.
"It has served my purpose," said the youth coolly.
The records of the college show that he held respectable rank as a student; and as soon as he had graduated, he received an appointment which proves that he was held in high estimation in his native village. We find him at nineteen master of the Roxbury Grammar School, at a salary of forty-four pounds and sixteen shillings per annum, payable to his mother. A receipt for part of this amount, signed by his mother and in her handwriting, is now among the archives of that ancient and famous institution. He taught one year, at the end of which he entered the office of a Boston physician, under whom he pursued the usual medical studies and