1735–1805
0
recorded events
Connected towns:
Arlington, MABiography
Born in 1735, Moses Richardson came of age in the farming communities northwest of Boston, where the rhythms of planting and harvest governed daily life far more than politics or imperial policy. He settled into the routines typical of a Massachusetts farmer in the mid-eighteenth century, working the land in and around the Woburn area, raising a family, and participating in the civic obligations expected of men in New England towns. Yet like thousands of his neighbors, Richardson lived through the escalating tensions of the 1760s and 1770s — the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts — each crisis pulling ordinary farmers closer toward a confrontation few had originally sought. By the time the Provincial Congress began organizing militia companies and stockpiling arms, men like Richardson understood that their service might soon be required for something far more dangerous than a muster-day drill. He was already forty years old in the spring of 1775, no longer a young man by the standards of his era, but his membership in the Woburn militia company placed him squarely on the front lines of a revolution that was about to erupt with shocking speed along the roads between Concord and Boston.
On the morning of April 19, 1775, riders carried the alarm across the countryside, and Moses Richardson mustered with his Woburn company to confront the column of British regulars retreating from Concord. The Woburn men marched toward the fighting and converged on the village of Menotomy — present-day Arlington — where some of the day's most ferocious combat took place. Unlike the relatively open skirmishing at Lexington Green or the North Bridge, the fighting at Menotomy was close, chaotic, and brutal, with militia and regulars clashing at near point-blank range along the narrow road and in and around houses. Richardson and his fellow Woburn militiamen joined a patchwork force drawn from multiple towns, pouring fire into the battered British column as it fought its way toward the safety of Charlestown. He survived the engagement — no small thing, given that Menotomy produced more casualties than any other single location on April 19. In the days that followed, Richardson did not simply return to his farm. He remained under arms as thousands of militia from across New England encircled Boston, beginning the long and unglamorous siege that would last until March 1776.
The stakes Richardson faced were intensely personal. By taking up arms against the King's troops, he risked everything — his property, his freedom, and his life. Had the rebellion failed, men like Richardson could have been tried for treason, their lands confiscated, their families left destitute. At forty, he had more to lose than a younger man with no dependents or established holdings. His decision to muster, march, fight, and then remain for the tedious months of siege duty speaks to something deeper than momentary rage or battlefield excitement. The siege of Boston was grueling work: weeks of digging fortifications, standing watch, enduring shortages of supplies and pay, and waiting in uncertainty while political leaders debated the future of the colonies. Richardson endured all of this alongside men from across Massachusetts, forming the impromptu army that would eventually force the British evacuation. He was fighting not for abstract ideals alone but for the tangible world he knew — his town, his neighbors, the community that depended on men like him showing up when the alarm sounded and staying until the crisis passed.
Moses Richardson returned to civilian life after his service and lived until 1805, reaching the age of seventy in a new nation whose existence he had helped make possible. His name does not appear in the grand narratives of the Revolution alongside Washington, Adams, or Lafayette, and no monument bears his likeness. Yet Richardson's story represents the indispensable foundation on which American independence was built: the willingness of ordinary men to leave their farms, stand in the path of professional soldiers, and endure months of hardship without glory or adequate compensation. His experience at Menotomy and during the siege of Boston was shared by thousands of militiamen whose individual contributions are easily overlooked but collectively decisive. To study the Revolution honestly is to grapple with men like Richardson — not generals or statesmen, but farmers and tradesmen who made a dangerous choice and lived with its consequences. His long life after the war is itself a quiet testament; he witnessed the Constitution, the first presidential administrations, and the early growth of the republic he had fought to create.
Moses Richardson's story matters because it anchors the Revolution in a specific, violent place — the road through Menotomy, now Arlington, where more men died on April 19, 1775, than at Lexington and Concord combined. Students and visitors walking Arlington's streets today are tracing the same ground where Richardson and his Woburn comrades fought in desperate, close-quarters combat against British regulars. His experience teaches us that the Revolution was not launched by generals issuing orders from headquarters but by middle-aged farmers who grabbed their muskets and marched toward danger. Richardson reminds us that the militia system worked because real people honored its demands, and that the communities in this network of historic towns were bound together by the men who crossed town lines to fight and die alongside neighbors they had never met.