Yearly Events

Annual Meeting

Our annual meeting at the Harvard Club brings together an exceptional set of events addressing the aspects of our state society. It also allow the members to set direction for the organization by adopting policies, electing their state officers, and responding to outstanding work of the year.

Each year we are pleased to have an exceptional speaker. Speakers often address important moments in the history of early America to look inside the head of some of America’s most important leaders at one of the most important periods of American politics.

Attendees also have the opportunity to choose among a range of activities that day, including a meeting of the Color Guard. The Annual Meeting also provides an opportunity for members from across the state to meet each other and to see what is happening throughout the organization.

Typically the meeting includes over one hundred participants including applicants-in-progress, members, representatives from affiliated societies, and guests. Details on the event are sent to members each year as the day approaches.

The Annual Meeting reflects tremendous efforts from the all parts of our organization. We extend personal thanks particularly to the members of the society that reviewed and assembled the many presentations and publications of the program.

Patriots Day

Patriots' Day is a public holiday celebrated on the third Monday in April, to commemorate the battles fought at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, which marked the start of the American Revolution. Patriots' Day was enacted as a legal holiday in 1894 and is observed in both Massachusetts and Maine, which was formerly a part of Massachusetts. Prior to 1969, Patriots' Day was observed every year on April 19. Patriot's Day Observances

Various observances are held the weekend of Patriots' Day. Parades and historical reenactments are very popular, particularly in Lexington and Concord, Mass. Reenactments include Paul Revere's ride, historic trail marches, and two battles, which are held at Lexington Green in Lexington and Minute Man National Historic Park in Concord on Patriots' Day morning. Details and schedules for these events are available from the Battle Road Committee, a group that plans and puts on American Revolution battle reenactments in the area.

The Boston Marathon also is run on this day every year, to the result that most Bostonians know the holiday as "Marathon Monday."

The Boston Red Sox have been traditionally scheduled to play at home in Fenway Park on Patriots Day every year since 1959. They were postponed due to bad weather in 1959, 1961, 1965, 1967, and 1984 and did not play in 1995 during the players strike. In recent years the games have started early at 11:00 in the morning, and even 10:00am in 2007, this creates an effect of the game ending just as the marathon is heading through Kenmore Square.

Ironically, Tax Day occasionally falls on this day or the preceding weekend, causing the tax deadline to be extended by a day for the residents of Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. (This is because the IRS processing center for these areas is in Andover, Massachusetts.) In 2007, this extension was granted to the entire country because the District of Columbia's holiday -- Emancipation Day -- coincidentally fell on Patriot's Day. Also, in 2007, a nor'easter forced the first-ever cancellation of the annual 6 a.m. battle re-enactment on Lexington Green.

Bunker Hill Day

The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775 mostly on and around Breed's Hill, during the Siege of Boston early in the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after the adjacent Bunker Hill, which was peripherally involved in the battle and was the original objective of both colonial and British troops, but is occasionally referred to as the "Battle of Breed's Hill."

On June 13, the leaders of the colonial forces besieging Boston learned that the British generals were planning to send troops out from the city to occupy the unoccupied hills surrounding the city. In response to this intelligence, 1,200 colonial troops under the command of William Prescott stealthily occupied Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill, constructed an earthen redoubt on Breed's Hill, and built lightly fortified lines across most of the Charlestown Peninsula.

When the British were alerted to the presence of the new position the next day, they mounted an attack against them. After two assaults on the Colonial lines were repulsed with significant British casualties, the British finally captured the positions on the third assault, after the defenders in the redoubt ran out of ammunition. The Colonial forces retreated to Cambridge over Bunker Hill, suffering their most significant losses on Bunker Hill.

The famous order "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" was popularized in stories about the battle of Bunker Hill. However, it is uncertain as to who said it, since various histories attribute it to Putnam, Stark, Prescott or Gridley. It was also not an original statement. The earliest similar quote came from the Battle of Dettingen on 27 June 1743, where Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw warned his Regiment, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, not to fire until they could "see the white's of their e'en."

While the result was a victory for the British, they suffered their greatest losses of the entire war: over 800 wounded and 226 killed, including a notably large number of officers. Their immediate objective (the capture of Bunker Hill) was achieved, but did not significantly alter the state of siege. It did, however, demonstrate that relatively inexperienced Colonial forces were willing and able to stand up to government troops in a pitched battle.

Bunker Hill Day, observed every June 17, is a legal holiday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts (which includes the city of Boston), as well as Somerville in Middlesex County (where Prospect Hill, site of colonial fortifications overlooking the Charlestown neck, is now located). State institutions in Massachusetts (such as public institutions of higher education) located in Boston also celebrate the holiday.

Battle of Yorktown

The Battle of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by General Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by General Lord Cornwallis. It proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War, as the surrender of Cornwallis’s army (the second major surrender of the war, the other being Burgoyne's surrender at the Battle of Saratoga) prompted the British government to eventually negotiate an end to the conflict.

In 1780, 5,500 French soldiers landed in Rhode Island to help their American allies in assaulting British-occupied New York City. The two armies met North of New York City in 1781. The French Commander, the Comte de Rochambeau, convinced the American Commander, George Washington, that an attack on New York City would be hard pressed to succeed and it would be easier for the French Fleet under the command of the Comte de Grasse to assist in the attack further south, because he was to bring the French Fleet into the Caribbean in October. Thus, they agreed to attack Lord Cornwallis and his smaller army of 9,000 men which was stationed in the port town of Yorktown, Virginia.

In Yorktown, Cornwallis held out hope that a promised relief force of 5,000 men would arrive from New York. Outnumbered more than 2-to-1, he ordered his men to abandon the outer works around the town and fall back to the main line of fortifications. This was later criticized as it would have taken the allies several weeks to reduce these positions by regular siege methods. On the night of October 5/6, the French and Americans began construction of the first siege line. By dawn, a 2,000-yard long trench opposed the southeast side of the British works. Two days later, Washington personally fired the first gun.

The fighting at Yorktown cost the allies 72 killed and 180 wounded. British losses were higher and included 156 killed, 326 wounded. In addition, Cornwallis' remaining 7,018 men were taken prisoner. Meeting at the nearby Moore House, Cornwallis attempted to obtain the same favorable terms of surrender that Major General John Burgoyne had received at Saratoga. This was refused by Washington who imposed the same harsh conditions that the British had demanded of Major General Benjamin Lincoln the year before at Charleston.

With the surrender complete, Cornwallis' army was taken into custody rather than paroled. Shortly thereafter, Cornwallis was exchanged for Henry Laurens, the former President of the Continental Congress. The victory at Yorktown was the last major engagement of the American Revolution and effectively ended the conflict in the American's favor.