On April 17, 1775, British troops were dispatched by Governor General Sir Thomas Gage to seize weaponry held by suspected rebels.
Paul Revere and Richard Devens combined efforts with John Larkin, to borrow his father's large horse in order to deliver intelligence to the towns of Menotomy (now Arlington) and Lexington.
During the Battle of Bunker Hill, some British troops marched through the Boston suburb of Charlestown, Massachusetts, where the Larkin families lived.
John Larkin and his family fled, unscathed, to Cambridge, where they lived in a house once occupied by General Washington and later by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The Larkin family resided in Charlestown as early as 1634, descendants of Edward Larking, an English settler of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.