Editing Boxborough, Massachusetts (section)

=== Revolutionary War ===

On April 19, 1775, 21 men from Boxborough met at the Boaz Brown house on Hill road before marching with the companies of Littleton and Acton to the [[Battles of Lexington and Concord]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=http://www.boxboroughminutemen.org/|title=Boxborough Minutemen Company|website=www.boxboroughminutemen.org|access-date=May 10, 2016}}</ref> Most of these men, previously farmers, would go on to serve the colonial militia for the remainder of the war.<ref name=":1" />

Sons of Simon Blanchard, descendant of some of the earliest settlers of Boxborough (and killed during the [[Battle of the Plains of Abraham]] in 1759 during the Seven Years' War), Calvin and Luther Blanchard, are two prominent revolutionary veterans. Luther marched with Captain [[Isaac Davis (soldier)|Isaac Davis's]] company of Acton to the Battle of Concord, serving as a fifer. At the North Bridge, several minute-men companies engaged with the British troops in a conflict remembered as the [[shot heard round the world]], eventually forcing the redcoats to retreat. Blanchard is remembered by some historians as the first man wounded, but it is hard to confirm considering the nature of the battle. He received a musket-shot to the chest.<ref name=":1" /> Historian [[Lucie Caroline Hager|Lucie Hager]] documents Luther's witty interaction with a Concord woman who was tending his wound:

<blockquote>''Nurse:'' "A little more and you've been killed."<br />
''Luther:'' Yes, and a little more and it would not have touched me."<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>

Luther died three days later, ostensibly of the wounds he received in these battles. He is buried at the Old Burial Ground in [[Littleton, Massachusetts]]. A picture of Luther is featured on the Boxborough seal. Calvin survived the war and went on to be involved in early Boxborough politics. It is after descendants of this same Blanchard family that Blanchard Memorial School was named.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Petitions, Remonstrances and Acts relating to Littleton and Boxborough, 1782 to 1869|url=https://archive.org/details/petitionsremonst00sand|last=Sanderson|first=G. A.|publisher=George E. Crosby & co.|year=1890|location=Boston}}</ref>