General Gage, commander of the British forces in Boston and vicinity, despatched, on the night of April 18, 1775, a body of troops to seize stores said to be concealed at Concord. According to the story, Paul Revere spread the warning throughout the surrounding country, and when the British arrived at Lexington they found a small body of militia lined up to oppose them. A skirmish ensued in which the first blood of the war was spilled, several being killed and others wounded. [308] 2. =Paul Revere= (1735-1818) was a goldsmith and engraver who became one of the most active of the colonial patriots. [309] 9. =North Church.= There is some dispute as to what church is referred to here. A tablet on the front of Christ Church, Salem Street, Boston, points that out as the church from which the lanterns were hung. Other good authorities, however, support the claims of the North Church, formerly standing in North Square, but now torn down. [310] 88. =Medford= is on the Mystic River about five miles northwest of Boston. [311] 102. =Concord= is about nineteen miles northwest of Boston. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807, and died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892. Whittier's ancestors for several generations had been New England farmers on the same farm where the original Whittier immigrant had settled. The family was too poor to give Whittier an education, so that two terms at Haverhill Academy, the tuition for which he paid by shoemaking and school teaching, completed his school training. He early became interested in journalism, and was employed in editorial work in Boston and in Hartford. When abolition became an agitation, Whittier became one of the leaders. He was instrumental in bringing the English Abolitionist, George Thompson, to America; and, while on a tour with him, was stoned and shot at by a mob in Concord, New Hampshire. Later, when he was editor of the _Philadelphia Freeman_, his office was burned by a mob. During this period he wrote many anti-slavery poems, such as the _Ballads_, _Anti-Slavery Poems_, etc., of 1838 and the _Voices of Freedom_ of 1841. In spite of his interest in politics, for he was twice elected to the Massachusetts legislature, Whittier led a very simple life in accordance with his Quaker beliefs. He never married, partly, it seems, because he had the care of his mother and sister Elizabeth, until the latter's death in 1864. The latter part of his life he lived at Amesbury and Danvers, Massachusetts. Whittier's poetry is of three kinds. He is at times more thoroughly than any other writer the poet of New England country life; again he is essentially an anti-slavery poet; and, finally, he has written many religious poems. His best-known poem is _Snow-Bound_, which gives an admirable picture of a farmer's life in the hard storms of a New England winter. SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE (Page 219)