Everyone knows the story of the Boston Tea Party yet few have heard of Sarah Bradlee Fulton (1740-1835) from Medford, Massachusetts. Credited with the idea of disguising the men who participated as “Indians,” Fulton dressed them in Native American clothing and later disposed of their disguises.

Her valor did not end there. During the Battle of Bunker Hill, Fulton organized women to nurse and tend to wounded soldiers. A year later she traveled alone across enemy lines to deliver an urgent message to General George Washington. When a shipment of wood was confiscated, she went in pursuit, reportedly grabbing a pair of oxen by the horns and leading them away, even as the British prepared to shoot her. Defiant, Fulton told them to “shootaway” and astonished, they surrendered without resistance.

Never afraid of man or beast, Fulton told her grandson that she “never turned her back on anything.” A hero of the American Revolution, she is buried in Medford’s Salem Street Burying Ground.