THE REVOLUTIONARY SHORE: From Dorchester Heights to the Eastern Shore, Boston’s Liberation and Its Local Impact

Pictured: Boston Globe, March 28, 1897

Celebrate the Semiquincentennial 1776 – 2026

By Kellee Blake

March 4, 1776  

On this very day, 250 years ago . . .

Nineteen year old Patriot Lucy Flucker Knox hoped she could finally return to Boston. This daughter of wealthy Loyalist leaders had already sacrificed much: disowned for marrying a bookseller, snubbed by Loyalist friends when her husband joined the Patriot forces, and now with child and exiled in the countryside while ten thousand British soldiers held her town. Lucy knew George Washington’s forces readied a new plan to eject the British.  She also knew her young husband, Colonel Henry Knox, was already a hero of the day. 

In December 1775, Knox and troops had traveled some three hundred miles northward to retrieve an estimated sixty tons of desperately needed cannon and other artillery captured during the battle of Fort Ticonderoga in uppermost New York.  Knox’s incredible return trip, known as the “Noble Train of Artillery,” was a stunning feat of logistics using sleds, animals, and locals to transport the enormous load through the deep snow and ice, against fierce winds, and across frozen rivers to a waiting General Washington in Cambridge. This infusion of firepower meant Washington could strike. 

On March 4, some two thousand men were ordered not to speak above a whisper as they moved heavy timber and massive cannon through the streets of Roxbury and upward to the strategic hills of Dorchester Heights. Locals gathered and carried bundles of wood to erect defenses.  If they managed without British notice, they would be positioned to rain fire on posts around Boston and vessels in the waterways.  It was a brilliant gamble.  

And it paid.  British officers awoke on March 5 to find the Patriots controlling Dorchester Heights and a Providential snowstorm thwarted British counterattack.  Washington allowed the enemy to peacefully evacuate if they did not burn Boston. Thousands of Loyalist residents and British soldiers snaked up to Nova Scotia—for the moment.  

Though many of the displaced Boston Patriots returned to the city, Lucy Knox quickly realized this war would keep the Knoxes far from home and often from each other. She joined Henry when possible in camp and joined Martha Washington and Catherine Greene in supporting soldiers of all ranks. The war’s long absences forced Lucy to establish her own sphere of independence and responsibility.  As Henry’s star continued to rise, she wrote him: “I hope you will not consider yourself as commander in chief of your own house.”  The Knoxes stayed happily married for thirty-two years. 

The opening of Boston promised renewed trade for Shore farmers and merchants if only Lord Dunmore’s fleet stopped interfering in local waters. They only grew bolder and sparked the first major fireworks between Shore Patriots and British forces.  Learn where, how, and why in a special March 19, 1776, installment of The Revolutionary Shore. 

Join WESR on the 4th of each month to learn more about Virginia and the Shore’s role in the War for Independence.  America’s 250th Anniversary is here!