Grieving Jason Russell after his death on the first day of the American Revolution

I live in Arlington, MA, the scene of the bloodiest fighting on the day that the American Revolutionary War started, April 19, 1775.

British Redcoats had marched out from Boston intending to confiscate ammunition, guns and canons that the Rebels had been hiding in Concord, MA.   Unsuccessful, surprised and already being attacked by Patriot Militia, the Redcoats were on their long way back to Boston when they began marching through Arlington – and things got worse.

Jason Russell’s house in Arlington, specifically, was the scene of the most intense fighting.  I encourage you to come tour this historic house (https://arlingtonhistorical.org/jason-russell-house/) but the point of my blog post today is to tell you about Jason Russell’s burial.

According to historian Robert Nylander: Jason and 11 other patriots were “all drawn to the burying ground on an ox cart, and were buried in a common grave ‘with their clothes on, just as they fell.’  Captain William Adams, who lived in the ‘Old Adams House’ in the center, brought a sheet from his house to wrap Russell’s body in.  He said he could not bear to have his neighbor buried without a winding sheet.”