Peter Salem (c. 1750–1816) was born to an enslaved woman in Framingham, Massachusetts. Slaveholder Captain Jeremiah Belknap later sold him to Lawson Buckminster who became a Major in the Continental Army. Major Buckminster promised Salem his freedom if he enlisted, which he did in 1775.

Serving as a minute man in Captain Simon Edgell’s Framingham company, Salem marched ‘to Concord and Cambridge,’ entering the fight on the Battle Road near Brooks Hill in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775. Several days later, Salem enlisted into eight months’ service and fought at Bunker Hill. A traditional story of the time claims Peter Salem to be responsible for firing the shot that killed Major John Pitcairn, leader of the British attack.

In January 1777, Salem enlisted in the Continental Army for a three-year term. Serving in the 6th Massachusetts regiment, he fought in the Battles of Saratoga, at Valley Forge, in the Battle of Monmouth, and stormed the fortress at Stony Point. He was discharged in 1790.

At war’s end Peter Salem was a free man. He married Katy Benson in 1783 and built a small home in Leicester, Massachusetts, working as a cane weaver. As his health began to fail and his resources grew smaller, he returned to Framingham, where he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Old Burying Ground Cemetery upon his death on August 16th, 1816. In 1882, the Town of Framingham erected a monument  near the site of his grave to honor his service in the American Revolution.

Peter Salem’s story is told at Minute Man National Historical Park, where a near-life-size figure of him stands next to British and Colonial figures in an exhibit, adding to the park’s interpretation of the story of Patriots of Color who fought along the Battle Road.

Both free and enslaved men comprised the Soldiers of Color who served on April 19th, 1775. While records document eleven men of color in minute companies and at least twenty-three in colonial militia companies, evidence suggests the number of enslaved men are underrepresented.

Sources: Minute Man National Historical Park, Patriots of Color