Isaac Davis awakened in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775 to the calls of an alarm rider galloping through the town of Acton. The alarm warned of the British advance out of Boston to Concord, where General Thomas Gage, a British regular, had learned a stockpile of weapons, ammunition and supplies were stored. Davis, Captain of Acton’s Minute Company, rallied his men to his house with several alarm shots, and they prepared for their seven-mile march to Concord.

As Captain Davis waited for his men to arrive, his wife Hannah, while caring for their four sick children, made breakfast for the men and helped them powder their hair. When about thirty men had arrived, Capt. Davis, gathered the minute men and began the march to meet the British. After a few paces, he returned to Hannah, saying only, “Take good care of the children.” Those would be the last words Hannah would hear him say. At the North Bridge Davis would be shot and killed, becoming the first commissioned officer to die in the service of this new nation.

The Isaac Davis Trail, also known as the Acton Trail, commemorates the route taken by Captain Isaac Davis and the Acton Minute Company on their march to Concord on April 19, 1775 to face the British. The Trail begins at the Isaac Davis House in Acton and ends at the western end of the North Bridge in Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord. The marchers pause for a moment of remembrance along the way at the 75-foot tall Davis Monument erected in 1851 in memory of Acton’s citizen soldiers who lost their lives on April 19, 1775. In the base of the monument lie the remains of Captain Isaac Davis, James Hayward and Abner Hosmer having been moved there from what is now Woodlawn Cemetery when the monument was erected. The inscription reads:

THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, & THE TOWN OF ACTON, COOPERATING TO PERPETUATE THE FAME OF GLORIOUS DEEDS OF PATRIOTISM, HAVE ERECTED THIS MONUMENT IN HONOR OF CAPT. ISAAC DAVIS, & PRIVATES ABNER HOSMER & JAMES HAYWARD, CITIZEN-SOLDIERS OF ACTON & PROVINCIAL MINUTEMEN, WHO FELL IN CONCORD FIGHT THE 19TH OF APRIL A.D. 1775. ON THE MORNING OF THAT EVENTFUL DAY THE PROVINCIAL OFFICERS HELD A COUNCIL OF WAR NEAR THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE IN CONCORD & AS THEY SEPARATED DAVIS EXCLAIMED, “”I HAV’NT A MAN THAT IS AFRAID TO GO.”” & IMMEDIATELY MARCHED HIS COMPANY FROM THE LEFT TO THE RIGHT OF THE LINE, & LED IN THIS FIRST ORGANIZED ATTACK UPON THE TROOPS OF GEORGE III IN THAT MEMORABLE WAR, WHICH, BY THE HELP OF GOD, MADE THE THIRTEEN COLONIES INDEPENDENT OF GREAT BRITAIN, & GAVE POLITICAL BEING TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ACTON AP. 19TH 1851.

In 1972 the trail was added to the National Register of Historic Places. While most of the trail is now paved roads, it follows the original route as closely as possible, and continues to evoke the original march.