Prince Estabrook (c. 1740-c. 1830) was an enslaved Black man who lived in Lexington, Massachusetts. At dawn on April 19, 1775, he was one of more than eighty other men in Captain John Parker’s Lexington militia awaiting the arrival of the British Regulars on Lexington Green. Estabrook was wounded in the battle that followed and thus became the first Black soldier to be wounded in the American Revolution.

Estabrook recovered from his injuries and went on to serve in the Continental Army through 1783. Upon returning home from the war, Estabrook was a free man as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recognized the supremacy of the Massachusetts Constitution and its incompatibility with slavery, thereby abolishing the institution that year. He continued to live with the Estabrook family, eventually moving to Ashby, Massachusetts around the turn of the century, where he spent the remainder of his life. Estabrook is buried in the town’s Old Burial Yard, his grave site marked by a government stone.

A memorial, located near Buckman Tavern in Lexington, was dedicated in 2008 to Prince Estabrook and the thousands of other courageous soldiers of color long denied the recognition they deserve.