The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: MA
Qualifying Service: Major / Patriotic Service
Find-A-Grave shows two Memorial and Cemetery ID numbers. William Dawes Jr. was originally buried in Kings Chapel Burial Ground in Boston, Suffolk County, MA. Memorial ID 1870, Cemetery ID 91147. He was subsequently reburied in Forest Hills Cemetery and Crematory in Jamaica Plain, Suffolk County, MA, Memorial ID 39370673, Cemetery ID 1607685
Directions to Cemetery / Gravesite:
Photo: 1 of 2
Photo: 2 of 2
Author: James Edward Mitchell
Dawes’ parents were William & Lydia Dawes nee, Boone. They baptized him after his birth, Apr 6, 1745 at Boston’s Old South [Meeting House (1729)] Church along Milk Street. Congregational members included Samuel Adams, William Dawes, Benj. Franklin, Samuel Sewell and Phillis Wheatley. (Samuel Adams gave the ‘all-clear’ signals from the Old South Meeting House for the “war whoops” that began the Boston Tea Party!) Dawes married Mehitable May, a daughter of Samuel and Catherine May nee, Mears on May 3, 1768. The Boston Gazette featured a wedding note that William Dawes wore a suit entirely made in North America, and probably included a tricorne (cover) quite unfashionable for the time except when signifying a Whig boycott of British products to press the British Parliament into repealing the Townshend Duties.
Writer Samuel A. Forman in his copyright 2012 book entitled: Dr. Joseph Warren (M.D.) – The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and Birth of American Liberty wrote on pg. 100 that Warren was a practicing Boston physician to the humble…, including a 12 year old protesting activist –Christopher Seider who was shot and treated by Warren but died from his wounds, as a demonstrator against a Royal Customs official in the weeks preceding the Boston Massacre of March 1770. Also, William Dawes, a North End Boston tanner and an associate of Paul Revere, was treated (1774) for a less severe injury under unusual circumstances according to a Dawes family recollection…, during the height of tensions with the occupying British army.
A prelude to war followed for Boston and its Mechanics, a Patriot spy ring characterized as America’s first intelligence organization by writer, Kenneth A. Daigler. He identified Paul Revere as a Mechanics leader who reported directly to Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and physicians -Joseph Warren and Benjamin Church. Daigler’s publication, Spies, Patriots, and Traitors – American Intelligence In the Revolutionary War, copyright 2014, publ. by Georgetown Univ. Press., pgs. 39; [infiltration of (Benjamin Church, M.D.) 48 – 53] identified the story of Revere’s and his fellow patriot William Dawes’s famous rides across the countryside on Apr 15, 1775 to alarm followers at Concord and Lexington of an eminent British army raid, … represented the final phase of AN INTELLIGENCE OPERATION. This operation regrettably, historically included Paul Revere, William Dawes, Samuel Prescott, M.D. from Concord, Benjamin Church, M.D., who eventually became the 1st American double agent reporting to the British for payment!
William Dawes, Jr. was recorded commissioned Sep 9, 1776 as a 2nd Maj. for the Boston militia regt. and, later during the war he was made a quartermaster in central Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War, Vol 4 (Images Online) pg 559 documents Dawes, William, Jr., Adjutant; return of (commissioned Brig.) Gen. (William) Heath’s (Suffolk County militia) regt. dated May 20, 1775. This chronological reference to William Dawes, Jr. is made one month following Gen. Heath’s command of the Massachusetts forces during the last stage of the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. It records William Dawes, Jr’s. official identity within the Massachusetts State militia.
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.
