Joseph Warren (1741-1775)
Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Joseph Warren was an unlikely revolutionary. A graduate of Harvard College, he taught school for a time and went on to become a doctor and surgeon. His career as a radical began in earnest shortly after the Boston Massacre, when he began writing essays and giving fiery speeches encouraging resistance to Parliament’s punitive laws. As a member of Boston’s Committee of Correspondence, he received word that the British were planning a sortie into the countryside on April 18, 1775, and was responsible for sending Paul Revere and William Dawes to Lexington and Concord to warn of their approach. Eventually riding after them, he helped care for the wounded in the ensuing fighting. Two months later he was actively involved in the Battle of Bunker Hill and was killed in the climactic defense of the Patriot earthworks.