Jonathan Harrington Jr.: Born March 6, 1744-5, killed on the Green on April 19, 1775
In honor of the upcoming Parker’s Prelude celebrations, the Lex250 Commission would like to shed light on the eight brave men who fought for American independence and died on April 19, 1775, at the Battle of Lexington.
Jonathan Harrington Jr. was a descendant of Robert Harrington, who settled in Watertown in 1642, almost one hundred years before Jonathan Harrington Jr. was born. His parents were Henry Harrington and Sarah Laughton, who married in Lexington on June 4, 1735. Jonathan Jr. had 10 other siblings, and he was the fourth-oldest. He was born in Bedford on March 6, and was named “Jr.” to distinguish himself from his older second cousin, also named Jonathan Harrington. He was a farmer and was around 31 years old at the time of his death.
On Feb. 13, 1766, at about 20 years old, he married Ruth Fiske, who was 18 at the time. They had two children, a son, also named Jonathan, who was born on October 25, 1776, and Peter, who was baptized on July 26, 1772, and died in September of 1774. His son Jonathan died about a year after his father, a few days shy of his 10th birthday.
Jonathan Jr. and his brothers, Thomas, Moses and John rallied on April 19, 1775. Within the first few minutes of fire, Jonathan Jr. was struck by fire within sight of his home on the northern end of the Battle Green.
In a deposition given by John Munroe in 1824, it was recorded that Jonathan Jr. was found dead “near the place where our line was formed.” Levi Harrington, an eyewitness to the events, claimed in 1846 that, “Jonathan Harrington [Jr.]… took his wife and child by the hand and was leaving the house by the back way, when he was discovered by the British, who fired and killed him.”
During the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington in 1835, orator Edward Everett claims that Jonathan Harrington Jr. crawled to his doorstep after being shot and died at his wife’s feet.
Over the years, the story of Jonathan Jr.’s early death has been retold and embellished to highlight the tragedy of the morning of April 19, 1775. Perhaps only Ruth and Jonathan Jr. himself will ever know what his last minutes were like.
His home, called ‘The Jonathan Harrington House’ still stands in Lexington on Harrington Road.
References:
- Woods, H. E. (1903). Bedford Births. In Vital records of Bedford, Massachusetts, to the year 1850 (p. 27).New England Historic Genealogical Society. https://archive.org/details/vitalrecordsofbe00bedfor/page/n3/mode/2up?q=%22harrington%22.
- Bell, J. L. (2014, April 23). Where Did Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Die?. Boston 1775. https://boston1775.blogspot.com/search?q=jonathan%2Bharrington
- Jonathan Harrington (1745-1775). WikiTree. (2013, September 2). https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Harrington-2350
- Poole, B. (n.d.). Jonathan Harrington Jr., A Brief Biography. The Lexington Minutemen. https://www.lexingtonminutemen.com/uploads/1/6/2/4/16242256/jonathan_harrington_jr._biography.pdf