Crowds at Coolidge Corner waited Monday morning for the first batch of marathon runners to pass through. Two blocks away, a smaller group waited instead for the arrival of a man on horseback.
They were waiting in the lawn of the colonial-era Edward Devotion House for the annual Patriots’ Day reenactment of the ride of William Dawes — the lesser-known “midnight rider” who was dispatched alongside Paul Revere the night of April 18, 1775.
A resident in a tricorn hat strapped a drum and a set of pipes to his waist, playing melodies on the fife, a shrill instrument used by colonial military musicians. People took turns passing around a 12-pound cannonball, while the president of the historical society explained that a Brookline woman had dug up the centuries-old artifact from the ravine behind her house. Another resident came dressed as the founding father Henry Knox.
“I’m not wearing my buckled shoes at the moment, because I’m going to be down at the marathon later,” said J. Archer O’Reilly III, vice chair of Revolution 250, a nonprofit coordinating events to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution.
Save for the sneakers on his feet, O’Reilly was faithful to his role. Asked for his name, he produced a card that listed Knox’s name across the top in capital letters.
Everyone stopped what they were doing when shouts were heard at the end of the street, accompanied by the clop of hooves on pavement.
A man in colonial attire rode onto the lawn, followed by a second man on horseback and a horse trailer. “Dawes” had arrived.
“I must warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the regulars are out,” he declared, referring to the Regular Professional soldiers of the British army.
“You’ve arrived early, William,” said a voice from the crowd.
The man playing Dawes dismounted from the chestnut horse and launched into rhyme.
“Poets have never sung my praise. Nobody crowned my brow with bays,” he said, his voice ringing out across the yard. “And if you ask me the fatal cause, I answer only, ‘My name is Dawes.’”
The 1896 poem he recited, “The Midnight Ride of William Dawes” by Helen F. Moore, is a parody of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the 1860 poem that gave Revere his posthumous fame . Neither man had been widely recognized before they died, and some theorize that Dawes was overshadowed by Revere simply because his name is more difficult to rhyme – even though Dawes’ ride was riskier. While Revere crossed Boston Harbor, Dawes rode across the land out of Boston, which was then still a peninsula.
Brookline is one of several stops between Boston and Lexington made by the National Lancers, a Framingham-based volunteer cavalry militia troop that has performed annual reenactments of the rides of Dawes and Revere since 1920, said troopers at the event, who were dressed in the Army uniform.
The Lancers, which served in the Civil War and World War I, now operate as a ceremonial unit as part of the Massachusetts Organized Militia.
Eric Gallant, a staff sergeant who portrayed Dawes, said in an interview that he’s had the job for 14 years, sometimes playing Dawes and other times Revere. The second man on horseback, he said, is a guard dressed in the militia’s red uniform.
“A lot of people see the red uniform and say, ‘The British are after you,’” Gallant said with a smile. “It’s the National Lancers uniform.”
Unlike the National Lancers, Dawes hadn’t stopped in Brookline but passed through the town after making his way through British checkpoints along the Boston Neck, then went on to Lexington, where he met up with Revere.
Brookline, which was originally a hamlet in Boston before becoming a separate municipality in 1705, had a front-row seat to the Revolutionary War.
In December 1772, the small farming community made a committee to talk with Boston and other towns about the British government’s infringements of their rights, according to Brookline Historical Society President Ken Liss. The following year, Brookline joined other towns in protesting the tax on tea, shortly before the Boston Tea Party. In 1774, the town sent two delegates to the provincial Congress meeting in Concord.
Goddard Avenue in Brookline is named after John Goddard, a Brookline man known as the “wagon master” for the Continental Army, Liss said. In the month leading up to the war, Goddard transported supplies from Boston to Concord, including rice, flints, barrels of linen, casts of leaden balls, and loads of canteens.
During the revolution, the British had fired at Brookline Fort, but they didn’t fire back, according to Jesus Maclean, curator and caretaker of the Edward Devotion House. Brookline men were engaged in battle, however, at North Cambridge, where they met British soldiers who were retreating from the fight at Concord. The town clerk, Isaac Gardner, was the only Brookline man to fall in battle – he was shot and bayoneted from behind, Liss said.
“So, that’s the story of Brookline’s involvement,” Liss said.
After Brookline, the Lancers would make additional stops including in Allston, Cambridge, and Arlington, before arriving in Lexington Monday.
“Prepare to mount,” called out the troopers’ brigadier general, Len Kondratiuk.
Gallant climbed on his horse. As Dawes, he addressed the small crowd a final time, before riding down the street, tailed by the guard in red and the troop’s horse trailer.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the year that Brookline became a separate municipality from Boston.