For Bunker Hill descendants, the battle never fades

Boston Globe

12-06-2025

Dearborn 'had heard of the Lexington and Concord battles, and he just started walking south,' the elder Woodfin said. 'He made his bones here, and it took over his life.'
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This weekend, the Woodfins and about 50 other descendants of Bunker Hill veterans will arrive in Charlestown to commemorate the bravery and sacrifices of their ancestors in the first such gathering since the monument's cornerstone was laid in 1825, organizers said.
By bringing descendants together, the event's organizers hope that closely held stories of Bunker Hill will be shared among the families and later circulated to a wider audience who might know little of the battle beyond its famous name.
'Who were these men and these boys?' said Julie Hall, president of the Charlestown Historical Society, which began planning the gathering in 2023. 'I find it fascinating that many of these oral stories have been shared generation to generation, but not publicly.'
From the
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The rebels lost the battle, but won the galvanizing knowledge that they could stand and fight a trained, imperial army.
'These guys just dropped what they were doing and said to their families, we'll be back, or we might not be back,' said Rich Woodfin, 61, of Concord, N.H. 'Some were gone for years.'
Woodfin's ancestor, Henry Dearborn, was one of them.
After serving as a 23-year-old company commander at Bunker Hill, Dearborn accompanied Colonel Benedict Arnold later that year on his perilous march through the Maine wilderness to the gates of Quebec. Dearborn also fought as a lieutenant colonel in the victory at Saratoga, N.Y.
'You had men and boys who put down their shovels and marched to Charlestown to fight what was then the most powerful army in the world,' Hall said.
The descendants include Vera Martin, a biotech and pharmaceutical consultant who can see Bunker Hill from her West End balcony in Boston. Three of her ancestors, including father and son Samuel and Ichabod Farrington of Dedham, fought on that slope, as well as Benjamin Sumner, a militia captain from Medfield.
Linda Russell of Shrewsbury, a former corporate controller, also will be there. Her fifth great-grandfather, Jason Russell Jr., stood in the rebels' hilltop redoubt until he and other surviving Colonials left to fight another day.
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Two months earlier, Jason's father had been shot dead on his doorstep in Arlington, then called Menotomy, when the fiercest fighting of the British retreat from Concord raged around his home, which still exists on Massachusetts Avenue.
'One gave his life, and the other gave up his life' to serve three years in the Continental Army, Russell said. 'They must have had such a deep belief in what they were doing. It gives me goosebumps.'
It's a feeling shared by James Philbrick III of Willow Grove, Pa., whose fifth great-grandfather David How, a native of Methuen, fought at Bunker Hill with the Essex County militia. He also saw action in the Battle of Long Island, crossed the Delaware River with General George Washington, and witnessed the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga.
How, whose great-grandmother was hanged in Salem as a witch, grabbed a fallen comrade's musket as he turned to leave. Before retreating, however, the 18-year-old private stopped to shoot an advancing British soldier, according to family legend.
'For him being the age he was, it must have been exciting as well as terrifying,' said Philbrick, who will attend the commemoration. 'We've known about David How ever since I can remember.'
For many of the descendants, discovering the details of their ancestors' Revolutionary service has been a painstaking, years-long effort. Others have come upon the stories only recently.
'My family never had anything documented, and my dad knew nothing about it,' Russell said.
A timeline showing where the fighting took place between the Continental Army and the British Army during the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Lily Cowper/Lily Cowper for The Boston Globe
Russell's journey of discovery began decades ago when a relative from Maine sent her a family tree. The notation that one of her ancestors had died on April 19, 1775 -- the original Patriots Day -- caught Russell's eye, but she didn't pursue it further.
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Only when a fellow church member, years later, mentioned that she and Russell were related did the stories of their Revolutionary ancestors begin to unspool.
'I schlepped the whole family to Arlington and visited the house' where Jason Russell Sr. died, she said. 'I feel an obligation to them. Look at what these people did.'
For many 21st-century Americans, the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Revolutionary War, in general, can seem too mythologized and distant to be real.
'I don't think people know how it relates to their lives,' Russell said. 'They have to go to work, and do all this stuff, and they'll say, isn't that nice?'
The Americans at Bunker Hill were 'fathers, brothers, nephews, and cousins, all from the same place. They knew everybody who was in their company,' said Timothy Riordan, a historical archeologist and vice president of the Charlestown Historical Society. 'These guys were cabinetmakers, shoemakers. For many of them, it was the highlight of their lives.'
The average age of Colonial privates at Bunker Hill was 27. The oldest was 62, Riordan said. Although Bunker Hill technically was an American defeat, the British suffered 1,054 dead and wounded, compared with 450 for the rebels.
The descendants who gather in Charlestown this weekend will be connected with resources to deepen their genealogical work, including a visit with staff at American Ancestors, a Boston-based nonprofit center for family history, heritage, and culture that was founded in 1845.
The group also will tour the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Commonwealth Archives, each of which has ongoing exhibits on the role of Massachusetts in the Revolution.
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Martin, one of the descendants, said recently she had never been to the battlefield. And when she moved from North Carolina to Boston in 2016, Martin added, she had not been aware of her Bunker Hill connections.
All that has changed, and the time-consuming work of tracing her deep American roots has become a passion.
'My daughter's an only child, and to give her and my grandson the gift of who they are and where they came from, there's no amount of money you can put on that,' Martin said.
The story of Bunker Hill is now the story of her 21st-century family and of her Colonial ancestors.
'Their blood,' she said, 'runs through mine.'
Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at