Revolutionary War dead should be honored in Monument Square
Their names are nowhere to be found within the town’s precincts, and it is hardly enough to say that correcting this oversight is merely overdue.
I read the following letter at the June 16 meeting of the 250th Permanent Subcommittee. It was prompted by the committee’s reluctance to honor Acton’s 21 fallen Revolutionary War soldiers with a permanent memorial on parcel 1693, Monument Square.
A 75-foot granite obelisk stands on the Acton Common commemorating Revolutionary hero Capt. Isaac Davis, the first to fall at the Acton fight, together with two fellow militiamen. Citizens of Acton voted to erect this towering landmark in their honor, where the three men are now interred.
I have been re-reading Emerson’s “Acton Hymn.” Stanza No. 3 caught my eye and is quoted herewith:
“On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.”
In Monument Square, a half-mile or so hence, stand memorials to all of Acton’s fallen war dead, with the exception of the 21 Acton soldiers who died in the Revolutionary War. Their names are nowhere to be found within the town’s precincts, and it is hardly enough to say that correcting this oversight is merely overdue. And where in Acton can we find a better plot than Monument Square’s parcel 1693 to set a votive stone, that memory may their deed redeem?
Pierce B. Browne
Newbury Court
