07/14/2026
Few men played a more important role in the opening hours of the American Revolution than Dr. Martin Herrick. After meeting Paul Revere on the road from Boston during the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, Herrick rode in another direction, carrying the alarm to the communities north of Boston. As he warned the people of Lynnfield, Reading, Stoneham, and neighboring towns that British Regulars were marching toward Lexington and Concord, local militia companies quickly assembled and marched toward the fighting. Through his courage and determination, Herrick helped rally the citizen-soldiers whose response would help change the course of human history.
Martin Herrick was far more than a rider sounding the alarm. A respected physician, he devoted himself to the Revolutionary cause, serving at the Battle of Bunker Hill, with General George Washington's army at Germantown and Brandywine, and as a surgeon's mate in Colonel David Hitchcock's Continental Army regiment beginning in 1776. He later served as a surgeon aboard the Massachusetts state warship Tyrannicide. During the war, Herrick was captured by the British and imprisoned in Halifax for several months before finally returning home in a prisoner exchange.
This remarkable document, signed by Martin Herrick himself on March 5, 1818, is his sworn Revolutionary War pension declaration. In his own words, he recounts his military service, his capture by the British, and the hardships he endured after the war. To see and read a document personally written and signed by one of the men who helped ignite the American Revolution in our community is a rare privilege. It is a tangible connection to the patriot whose courage changed the course of history on April 19, 1775, and whose own handwriting allows his story to speak across more than two centuries.
Today, this Revolutionary War hero rests in Lynnfield's Old Burial Ground.
DOCUMENT TEXT:
I, Martin Herrick, of Reading in the County of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and citizen of the U.S.A., do testify and declare that I entered as a surgeon's mate in the Eleventh Regiment commanded by Col. David Hitchcock in the year's service in Gen. Grand Brigade Rhode Island Line in the month of March 1776, and served in said office in the U.S.A. service until January 1777, the term for which I engaged, and then was discharged from said service.
I then entered on board the ship Tyrannicide as a surgeon, being appointed by the Councillors of the State of Massachusetts in the year 1778, and served against the common enemy of my country in said office until the year 1780, when I was taken a prisoner and carried into Halifax, and kept as a prisoner about three months, and was then exchanged and came home, which rendered me infirm, and I have been in part supported by my family and stand in great need of support from my country, by reason of reduced circumstances.
Reading, March 5th, 1818.
Martin Herrick
