William Diamond (1755-1828)

East Hill (Old) Cemetery

Old Street Road

In listing all soldiers of the American Revolution who ever lived in Peterborough, “perhaps the mostnoteworthy is that of William Diamond,the Lexington drummer boy. On the night of April 18, 1775, William Diamond,then nineteen years old, was ordered by John Hancock to guard the house inLexington where he was staying. That night, after Paul Revere passed through onhis horse trip to awaken ‘every Middlesex village and farm’ and the word camethat the British were approaching, Hancock instructed William Diamond to beatthe reveille, and this ‘long roll of the drum was the first overt act of theRevolution.’ William Diamond’s name might well have been linked by Longfellowwith Paul Revere, but it was one hundred and forty years before he wasrecognized and given the place in American history which he rightfullydeserves.”1

EXCERPTED FROM: 1 History of Peterborough New Hampshire (1954), Vol. I, page 481