Prince Estabrook

Prince Estabrook was an enslaved African-American man and Minutemen Private[1] who fought and was wounded at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the initial engagements of the American Revolutionary War.

[2] An undated broadside from the time identified him as "a Negro Man", spelled his name Easterbrooks, and listed him among the wounded from Lexington, Massachusetts.

If Prince was brought in from outside Lexington to live with the Estabrook family, his arrival should have been registered with the town selectmen.

While the lack of registration is not definitive, it makes it more likely that he was born into the Estabrook home as the son of another enslaved man, Tony.

[8] Shortly after the riders left to continue to Concord, Captain John Parker sounded the alarm to assemble the Lexington militia on the common sometime after 1 a.m. With no British troops in sight, the militia was told to disperse and stay in the area where they could hear the drums if called to reassemble.

During the Battle of Bunker Hill on the 17th and 18 June 1775, the men of Lexington Company were assigned to guard the headquarters of the newly formed Continental Army in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Estabrook joined Colonel Jonathan Reed's regiment at that time, making its way to Fort Ticonderoga.

Although the American fleet was defeated on Lake Champlain in the Battle of Valcour Island, the British never attacked the troops stationed at Fort Ticonderoga.

Estabrook was a member of the Massachusetts Third Regiment and likely spent his time building forts in the New York area.

His son, Nathan, moved to land that belonged to Benjamin in Ashby, Massachusetts in 1805 after selling the house in Lexington.

[18] The town of Ashby once held ceremonies to commemorate Black History Month at his gravesite, but the site goes virtually unrecognized today.

At dawn on April 19, 1775, he was one of the Lexington Minute Men awaiting the arrival of the British Regulars at the Buckman Tavern.

-- This monument is dedicated to the memory of Prince Estabrook and the thousands of other courageous black patriots long denied the recognition they deserve.