With J.L. Bell, Historian.
Beyond Paul Revere and his companions, Americans have passed along stories of other notable riders on April 19, 1775. Historian J. L. Bell investigates the facts and fiction behind such figures as Hezekiah Wyman, the dreaded “White Horseman”; Abel Benson and Abigail Smith, children said to have helped raise the alarm in Middlesex County; and Israel Bissell, the post rider credited with carrying news of the fight all the way to Philadelphia.
J. L. Bell is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and many articles about Massachusetts in the 1760s and 1770s. He maintains the Boston 1775 blog, offering daily updates of history, analysis, and unabashed gossip about Revolutionary New England.
