This month marks the 250th anniversary of the outbreak of the American Revolution.
On the morning of April 19, 1775, British troops marched toward Concord, Massachusetts, intending to seize colonial weapons. They were met by local militia in Lexington, where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired. The British encountered fierce resistance throughout the day and ultimately retreated back to Boston under constant attack. These skirmishes marked the beginning of open warfare between the colonies and Great Britain.
Forty-two-year-old Eliakim Garfield wrote an account of the outbreak in a small leatherbound notebook he kept between 1771 and 1797. Garfield eventually left Massachusetts and settled in Saratoga County, New York, where he died in 1813. His son Joseph, born in 1780, moved first to Pine Grove, Pennsylvania and then to Busti, New York around 1820.
The notebook ended up in the possession of John Bergstrom of Lander, Pennsylvania, who in 1955 gave it to the late Rupert Loucks, who kept it for 56 years. Loucks has donated numerous items over the years up until his passing in early 2024. In January 2012, Fenton Collections Manager Norman Carlson received this notebook as a donation from Loucks, and it became part of the Fenton’s collection. Carlson subsequently wrote a Hometown History article about it. Earlier this year, he mentioned this extraordinary piece of history–and we thought it was important to acknowledge it on the 250th anniversary of the famous event.
The text of the account in the notebook reads as follows:
This Day April ye 19th 1775 the Kings troops Come to Concord and being their maid very unwelcom Returned home with greate speade and much Loss
There are thirteen veterans of the Battle of Lexington and Concord who are buried in Chautauqua County.
