In this week’s show, we are talking about all things Joseph Warren. Author Christopher di Spigna joins us to discuss his book Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero, a new biography of our favorite patriot. We’ll start with his boyhood in a Roxbury filled with farms and apple orchards, then cover his education at Harvard, his rise in politics, his untimely death at the start of the revolution, and the recent discovery of living descendants.
Founding Martyr
- Follow Christian Di Spigna on Twitter, check out his website, and hear him speak at the Massachusetts Historical Society on November 7.
- Read Joseph Warren’s 1772 oration commemorating the Boston Massacre and the Suffolk Resolves.
- See Joseph Warren’s birthplace decorated for the centennial in 1876.
- Visit Warren’s final resting place at Forest Hills using this map.
- Learn more about why Warren’s body had to be interred four times in episode 33, and hear about his revolutionary activities in episode 76.
- The portraits below of Dr Joseph Warren and Mrs Elizabeth Hooton Warren are both held by the MFA.
Some more related reading:
Featured Historic Site
In 1848, the Roxbury city council authorized the purchase of two farms totaling up to 71 acres, and purchases in later years brought the parcel to 275 acres. Inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Henry A. S. Dearborn designed a park-like setting to bury and remember family and friends. Today, Forest Hills Cemetery is the final resting place of ee cummings, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone, and William Dawes – who not-so-famously journeyed to Lexington and Concord via the land route as Paul Revere rowed across the Charles and departed from Charlestown. And, of course, our Joseph Warren.
Forest Hills is just a short walk from the Orange Line station of the same name.
Upcoming Event
On November 1 at 6pm, author Stephanie Schorow will speak at the Charlestown branch of the BPL about her latest book Inside the Combat Zone: The Stripped Down Story of Boston’s Most Notorious Neighborhood. Here’s the description from the BPL website:
The Friends of the Charlestown Branch of the Boston Public Library hosts a book presentation on Inside the Combat Zone: The Stripped Down Story of Boston’s Most Notorious Neighborhood by author and reporter Stephanie Schorow. In her provocative new book, Schorow recounts the stories that made the zone infamous and introduces the players and tragedies behind this audacious social experiment, heralded across the nation as the solution to the pornography epidemic. Free and open to all, including a book signing and reception.