Dr. Samuel Prescott (August 19 1751 - c. 1777) was a Massachusetts Patriot during the American Revolutionary War.
Prescott was on the road at 1 A.M. on April 19 1775 after an evening with his fiancée, Lydia Mulliken, when he met Paul Revere and William Dawes on their ride from Lexington to Concord and joined them to warn of the British attempt to seize the store of arms. Although he joined the ride late, he was the only one of the three men to reach Concord and warn the town.[1] He then proceeded further west to warn Acton, Massachusetts while his brother Abel rode south to warn Sudbury and Framingham. The rapid warning of Revere, Dawes, and Prescott alerted the Minutemen of this region in time for them to engage the British Army at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
Prescott later became a surgeon in the Continental Army and joined the crew of a New England privateer. He was captured by the Royal Navy and died between November 23 1776 and December 26 (1777?) while a prisoner in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Samuel Prescott was a descendant of the nonconformist minister the Rev. Peter Bulkeley (see Odell, Bedfordshire). His sister, Lucy Prescott, married Jonathan Fay, Jr., and via their descendant Harriet Fay and her husband James Bush, through their eldest son, Samuel Prescott Bush, they became ancestors of two United States presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.[2]
Prescott's ride is re-enacted every Patriots Day eve (observed) in the Town of Acton. The re-enactment begins in East Acton, continues through Acton Center and ends at Liberty Tree Farm. The house there was owned by a minuteman, Simon Hunt, in 1775.
== Samuel Prescott August 19, 1751-1777. He had died when he was 26 while he was in prison.He belived that women had no bussness in the army. On the night of April 18, 1775, he , Paul Revere and William Dawes set out to warn the counrtyside of the Britain advanced towrd the Concord. He took place in the Revolutionary War. He is cositerd a loyalist.
References
- ↑ The Tale of Two Families Joined by Love, Shattered by War
- ↑ Gary Boyd Roberts. The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States, 1st edition. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 2004, pp. 419-20.
- Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer (ISBN 0-19-508847-6)
- American History: Midnight Riders, Charles J. Caes, December 2004.
- "An Extraordinary Town, How one of America's smallest towns shaped the world" A book on the Prescott legacy including a section Samuel Prescott's famous ride, William Prescott, and great-grandfather John Prescott.