A Spring Morning in Concord, Massachusetts

From the archives:

The stalwart sons of Jacobus, each in his far flung acres, busied the day at river landing, furrowed field, and turning mill. Daughters too, in their stone house comfort, bustled from daybreak ’till dark to provide family sustenance.

It was some weeks later by river sloop the news came to Stoutenburgh. The family gathered to hear the word of the battle of Concord bridge and talked ’till the night was late.

So now, who did they cheer and who did they curse and where did their loyalties lay?

Let us take down then, from the topmost shelves, the dusty leather-bound annals wherein are written the records.

Listen now, good Stoutenburgh. Listen now, as we call the muster rolls of two hundred years ago. Listen now, as we read your family names. These are the liberty loving ones that put down the plough and picked up the musket in defense of freedom for all.

• Tobias Stoutenburgh, Colonel
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia
• William Stoutenburgh
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia
• Jacobus Stoutenburgh, Jr.
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia
• John Stoutenburgh, Lieutenant
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia
• Peter Stoutenburgh, Captain
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia
• Luke Stoutenburgh, Captain
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia
• Abraham T. Stoutenburgh
  Second Regiment, Albany County Militia
• James W. Stoutenburgh
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia
• William W. Stoutenburgh
  Fourth Regiment, Dutchess County Militia

From time to time in the history of man there comes a happening, an action takes place, a die is cast and the actual tide of events is changed, never again to be quite the same.

So it was on that morning in Massachusetts — on that spring morning in Concord, Massachusetts — on that April morning on the Concord village green.

You remember how they said it was, how deep in the slumbering stillness of the spring night came the distant sound of hurrying hoofs, muffled at first on the uneven country road, then of a sudden, pounding and persistent, a hurried pause at farmyard doorway, a cry of alarm, and rider is off in his pounding pace?

It was well into an April day when an untidy line of buckskin minute militia faced trim scarlet jacketed British regulars.

It was then that it happened. No one quite knows whether accidental or ordered. The silence that hung between the opposing lines was rent by a single musket shot. There followed a ragged confusion of fire felling both patriot and red coat on the village green.

You remember how the poet spoke of it:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Some miles to the west, in York state, atop the low fluff of the Hudson’s east shore, lies the hamlet, Stoutenburgh. Forty years it has been since Jacobus Stoutenburgh and his good wife Margaret Teller, with their family, sailed up river from Phillipsburgh to homestead and develop these fertile acres.

Now, on this Concord morning, spring lay over Stoutenburgh in peaceful promise.

Reading this has placed me back in time.

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Hope you enjoyed the reading.

Gail M. Hotaling
Chairwoman Stoutenburgh-Teller Family Association