The Hero of Bunker Hill

June 11, 1899. "Gen. Joseph Warren, born on Warren St., Roxbury, June 11, 1741. Graduating from Harvard, he became master of the Roxbury grammar school. Then he studied medicine. On the anniversary of the Boston massacre in 1775, when British officers threatened whoever addressed the people on the occasion, Warren pleaded for the dangerous honor. The people surged about the Old South so densely that Warren, securing a ladder, entered by a window. Ignoring the presence of more than 40 British officers, he delivered a stirring address on the baleful influence of standing armies in times of peace, and was unmolested. As chairman of the committee of safety he despatched Paul Revere to warn the inhabitants of Middlesex of the British movements. He was later the president of the provisional congress, and the second major general of the provisional forces. On June 17, 1775, he rode to Bunker Hill, and although both Putnam and Prescott offered to serve under him, he refused, saying he desired to take a lesson in warfare under such well trained officers. While rallying the militia for the final struggle he was shot in the head and instantly killed." Many thanks to General Joseph Warren, a true American hero.