William Diamond was the drummer who, at Captain John Parker’s order, sounded the alarm to muster the Lexington Militia Company to the town common at the approach of the British expeditionary force. The drum upon which he beat the call to arms is now the property of and exhibited at the Lexington Historical Society. It no longer looks like the simple instrument upon which he tapped out the warning, however. Originally, the drum upon which he tapped out the warning was plain brown in color and unvarnished. After the Commonwealth of Massachusetts acquired it, however, the drum was embellished for the 1875 Centennial Celebration, and the decorations remain to this day.

For years, the drum apparently languished in the Massachusetts State House in Boston until Lexington State Representative Edward C. Stone was authorized by Lexington town officials to present a petition to the State Legislature for its return. On April 19, 1903 on the 128th anniversary of the day William had sounded the alarm, his drum was welcomed back to Lexington by town officials, representatives of the Lexington Historical Society, and an enthusiastic crowd of Lexingtonians.

Sources:
1. Charles Hudson, History of the Town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts from Its First Settlement to 1868, Revised and continued to 1912, Two volumes, Lexington Historical Society, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York and Boston, 1913, Volume I, Genealogies, p. 170.
2. See inscription on the gravestone upon which his age is given as 73 when he died on July 29, 1828.
3. City of Boston, A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing Boston, Births from A.D. 1700 to A.D. 1800, Boston, Rockwell and Church, City Printers, 1914; New England Historic Genealogical Society, and Ancestry.com, Massachusetts Town and Vital records, 1620 – 1988; Some genealogical sites identify William’s mother as Elizabeth Smith, born in Boston in 1715.

Image credits: Lexington Historical Society

This story was submitted by Carla Fortmann, volunteer on the Lexington Historical Society‘s Interpretation Committee, as part of the program, Revolutionary Stories: The Enduring Legacies of the American Revolution in the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area.