Before muskets and rifles fired or drums beat across colonial fields - plans, presses, and quills were making ready for the storm that was brewing in Colonial America. When we consider patriots we look to Colonels, Generals, politicians, and midnight messengers. They certainly played their parts and those parts were important. But aside from the Divine Providence the Nation's founders rightly credited - it was the everyday efforts of thousands of people.
For generations, colonists solved their own problems at the local level. They built assemblies, held town meetings, and organized militias—not out of rebellion, but necessity. Yet as time passed, the halls of their government lay increasingly in a Parliament building 3,600 miles away. This meant bureaucratic decisions were further delayed by a five-month round trip. To the colonists, this wasn’t just inefficient. It was intolerable.
Despite the increase in royal regulations, the colonist continued to make their own decisions - particularly at local levels. In today's blog I'm going to look at some of my ancestors that are considered by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) or Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) to be Patriots, but as far as we know they never fired a shot against the British.
What they most certainly did, though, was participate in or support self-rule.
The first and easiest way to participate in self-rule was to submit to the colony or local taxes that supported the militias. In an era when there was no effective or standard enforcement of taxes - avoiding them would have been easy for many. Loyalist often chose to avoid the taxes. A patriot may even give a little extra or provide supplies at a particular time as militia might be in need of it.
I have identified three of my ancestors who paid taxes that supported the colonial cause. The first, on my mother's side, was John Dodson. John lived in Pennsylvania but is listed as having paid a supply tax in 1778 for Connecticut. The circumstances of him paying a supply tax for a different colony is unclear. His Wikitree profile says he was also an "honorable Revolutionary War veteran" - but this is unverified. He would have been 55 years old. He was in Chester County (Valley Forge is there) so maybe that’s why a Pennsylvania man is credited with paying a Connecticut supply tax.
The second, also on my mother's side, was Robert Goad. Robert paid a supply tax in 1783 in Bedford County, Virginia. Nothing much is known about Robert and what transpired in his life other than that he moved to Maury County, TN in the late 18th or early 19th Century.
The third, on my father's side, was Francis Summers. Francis also paid the 1783 supply tax in Virginia. He is also credited with being an Overseer of the Poor in Fairfax County, VA from 1777 to 1783 by SAR. This duty upheld the fragile civic fabric of a nation in a time of turmoil.
I also have three ancestors that held positions in local governments in a time when local governments were discouraged and even forbidden at times by the British authorities. These three were in the thick of the extended planning for defending the local population. They were there collecting, storing, and securing arms. They were executing local justice.
All of these ancestors are through my father's side. The first, William Reed, was a Justice of the Peace in Lexington, MA. Captain Reed had been involved in the politics of Lexington for many years. He was already in his eighties when the Lexington alarm was heard. Several of his grandchildren gathered on the Lexington Green to defend their freedoms that day.
The second ancestor, Benjamin Brown, was William's son-in-law. Benjamin was on the Committee of Correspondence in Lexington. When Paul Revere rode into town, Benjamin saw both the substantiation of his fears and the fruit of his labor come to bear. The alarm system and the assembly of the militia had been enabled by his actions. (The image of the letter at the top includes his name along with John Parker and Edmund Monro as Town Selectmen. The letter is on display at Buckman Tavern in Lexington.)
Like Benjamin, another ancestor through my father's side, Edward Richardson, served on the Committee of Correspondence in Watertown, MA.
There are many ways to participate in a cause. Some are heralded. Some are overlooked. But all the efforts came together to establish this nation. It happened, like all other events of notable human achievement, because the people, by and large, agreed on a common idea. In this case the idea — we can and we will create and enforce the rules and liberties for our own communities. We won’t accept the rules of a government that is distant from us in time, place, or values. We know best!
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