About
Famous as one of the people sent on a midnight horseback mission at the start of the American Revolutionary War to alert the colonial militia that the British were approaching, he went on to serve in the war as a member of a Boston regiment.
Before Fame
In the late 1760s, he joined a military regiment known as the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.
Trivia
Dawes' specific task during his late night ride was to let Samuel Adams and John Hancock know that they were in danger of being apprehended by the English.
Family Life
The son of William Dawes and Lydia Boone, he spent his youth in Boston, Massachusetts. His first marriage to Mehitable May produced six children. He later married Lydia Gendall; they had one child together.
Associated With
Dawes' fellow "midnight rider" Paul Revere was immortalized in a famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
