Ceasar Ferrit and his son John Ferrit were Natick Praying Indians who fired on British Regulars from a home near the Lexington Meeting House on April 19th, 1775. (National Park Service rep. 2/2002) They had left Natick with Capt. Morse's Company, but proceeded to Lexington while the rest of the company was directed by senior officers to Arlington and then Cambridge. Some reports say the two men joined the Minuteman and Militia companies from Concord, Acton, Lincoln, Carlisle, and Bedford in the action against the Regulars at the North Bridge in Concord. See Gail Buckley's, "American Patriots, The Story of Blacks in the Military" for more details.
Thomas Ferrit,a Natick Praying Indian, farmhand in Dover, and son of Caesar Ferrit; fought at Menotomy in Capt. Ebeneazer Battle's Dedham Co. (ref. Colburne) Thomas Ferrit and Battle's Company collected muskets and buried dead at Battle Road on April 20, 1775. The National Park Service estimates that more than 100 African and Native Americans fought with Boston area militia and minute companies. (ref. Quintal 2002)
Colonel Hezekiah Broad met with Commander in Chief George Washington in front of Broad's home on Eliot St. in South Natick. General Washington was on his way to take command of the new Continental Army surrounding General Gage's regiments in Boston. Said General Washington upon his visit to Natick, "The roads in every part of this state are amazingly crooked. . . and the directions you get from the inhabitants are equally blind and ignorant." Col. Broad was a delegate to the 1774 Provincial Congress in Concord, MA and the 1787 Constitutional Convention. He married Lydia Bacon Broad in 1770. After Lydia's death he married 23 year old Miriam Sawin Broad when he was 67. Today Hezekiah Broad lies buried between his wives in the South Natick Burial Ground along with many other of the original Natick Minutemen.
Rev. Stephen Badger, last spiritual leader of the Natick Praying Indians, served as pastor of the Natick Church from 1753-1799. His home in Charlestown was burned by British cannonades during the Battle of Breeds Hill on June 17, 1775. His Natick home still stands on Eliot Street. He and his wife Abigail Badger had five children. Rev. Badger was a strong advocate of an Independent Indian Church in Natick. In 1781 Massachusetts Governor John Hancock signed the official order creating the Town of Natick and acknowledging Rev. Badger as the town's minister. Badger's death on August 28, 1803 marks the end of Natick's Indian period. (Samuel Drake, History of Middlesex County, 1880)
Natick and Needham Militia Officers - Natick Indian Plantation Militia Companies: Capt. Joseph Morse and Capt. Thomas Sawin. Natick Minute Company under Capt. James Mann. West Needham Militia Company under Capt. Aaron Smith. Capt. Smith owned two acres of land in Natick at Lake Waban which he purchased from Natick Praying Indians and he was a selectman in Natick and in the West Parish. Needham Minute Company under Wellesley's Capt. Caleb Kingsbury and Lt. John Bacon of Natick (also a Natick Selectman).
And finally, oxen belonging to Tory Captain William Farris of Walnut St. in Natick were taken by Artilleryman Henry Knox to drag captured cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights in Boston. These same oxen returned to the area the following January when Knox dragged his cannon along the northern shore of frozen Lake Cochituate on his way to Washington's army in Cambridge.
Fort Ticonderoga Reenactment - Sept. 2002 - Click on photo for more
Saratoga, NY - Oct. 2002
Below - Natick and Needham West Contingent (center below flags)
The Lexington Alarm
On April 19, 1775 Wellesley was awakened by a rider from South Natick. At about 4 AM on April 19, 1775 the alarm in Natick had been sounded by Capt. Dudley of Sudbury, who had in turn gotten the alarm from Samuel Prescott's brother Abel. A black trumpeter, Abel (Nero) Benson sounded the Alarm in North Natick/Needham Leg. Capt. Dudley continued on to warn Dover Farms. Dover Farms (the Springvale Parish of Dedham in 1775) fielded Ebeneazer Battle's Dedham Company which fought at Menotomy, and was just south of Natick's Indian Parish. Residents north of Claybrook Rd. fought with Natick, and those south on the road fought with Dedham.
Wellesley and North Natick fielded Aaron Smith's Militia Company and Caleb Kingsbury's Minuteman Company which fought at Menotomy. This rider is rumored to have been Abigail Smith, niece of Lieut. John Bacon (of Caleb Kingsbury's Needham company) and Abigail Bacon, who had arrived at the Thomas Sawin III house in Natick on the night of April 18th, 1775. The two women had come with news of the Regulars' march out of Boston, but without word of their target.
Miltiamen gathered at Bullard's Tavern, now the East Lodge at Wellesley College on Washington Street. In a prearranged signal, Ephraim Bullard fired three rounds from his musket to allert the Minutemen and Militia. Women and children gathered to make ammunition. Men from Natick and North Natick passed thruogh on their way to Lexington and Menotomy as well. After the militia embarked around 9 AM, the company's line of march took them 13 miles through Watertown to Menotomy and North Cambridge. At Watertown, Militiaman Joseph Coolidge joined up as their guide to Menotomy. That afternoon Coolidge was killed along with Amos Mills and John Bacon at Menotomy.
West Needham Companies of Capt. Aaron Smith Militia) and Capt. Caleb Kingsbury (Minute)
In total 186 Natick men served in its militia or in the Continental Army, including no fewer than 15 African Americans and all its able-bodied male Natick Praying Indians. For a more detailed account see Natick in the Lexington Alarm.
Monthly Company Muster
The company meets on the first Tuesday of the month, 7:30 PM at the home of Ken and Stephanie Smith at 15 Water St. in South Natick. Please call 508 653 6312 for directions. The company will assist new members in acquiring uniforms. Events and meetings are open to all members of the public. Period firearms are recommended but completely optional. Safety training and firing practice is strongly urged. You can find out how to become a Natick Minuteman.
Upcoming Events - 2005
- Dec. 10, 2004 - Friday - Steven Bacon House in Natick - Colonial Interpreters night
- January 20, 2005 - Salem, Boston Massacre filming - invitation only
- March 2005 - Boston Massacre Reenactment
- April 2005 - Jason Russell House and Menotomy Parade
- May 2005 Spring Encampment at the Bacon Free Library grounds in South Natick - approved event
- May 2005 - Natick Memorial Day parade
More Colonial Era History
Crispus Attucks - The first man to lose his life in the name of the American cause was Crispus Attucks, an African American escaped slave whose mother was a Natick Praying Indian. He was shot by British Regulars at the Boston Massacre in 1770. Crispus Attucks was 47 when he died. He was the first to fall in the massacre, and was one of the crowd's leaders. More info.
Capt. Thomas Tray - Native Praying Indian Capt. Tom Tray was a local Captain of Militia. Capt. Tray was unjustly hanged on false charges of attacking white settlers, shortly after the rest of Natick's Praying Indians had been exiled to Deer Island. Many of Natick's Christian Indians, along with others from the Bay Colony's many Christian Indian Towns, perished during the harsh winter of 1675 - 1676 on barren Deer Island. Rev. John Eliot of Natick and Rev. Daniel Gookin of neighboring Sherborn's First Parish protested these harsh measures. When released from their exile, hundreds of Nipmucs nevertheless served with distinction in the Massachusetts Bay Colony's small army.
The Resolve of Natick - On June 20, 1776 Natick's Town meeting declared its commitment to independence from England and the rule of George III, resolving to denounce, "the glaring impropriety, incapacity, and fatal tendency, of any State whatever, at the distance of three thousand miles, to legislate for these Colonies, which at the same time are so numerous, so knowing, and capable of legislating, or to have a negative upon those laws which they . . . want and establish for themselves. . . . We, the inhabitants of Natick, in town meeting assembled, do hereby declare, . . . we will, with our lives and fortunes, join with the other inhabitants of this Colony, in supporting them . . . and the grand objects of peace, liberty, and safety, will be more likely speedily to be restored and established in our once happy land."
The Resolve of Natick, like similar resolves from Pittsfield, Northampton, South Carolina, Maryland, and others; is one of the many significant documents which provided the popular source of political authority underpinning the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. It is considered remarkable for its determination to reject even benign government from overseas. (Massachusetts Archives, Lib. 156: fols. 101, 103, 113; and American Scripture by Pauline Maier, 1997 pp. 232-233) Years later, Natick voted to reject the Constitution of the United States of America because the practice of slavery was continued.
