Joseph Warren Biography

Dromo's Den

WARREN, Joseph (1741-75). An American patriot, born at Roxbury, Mass., June 11, 1741. He graduated at Harvard in 1759, and became a physician in Boston in 1764. In the early disputes between the colonists and the British government he associated himself with Samuel Adams and other ardent Whigs, and was the orator at the second anniversary of the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1772. In 1772 he became a member of the Committee of Correspondence, and throughout the years immediately preceding the Revolution he was a frequent contributor to the patriot press. He drafted the extreme but influential Suffolk Resolves, adopted in September, 1774, by a convention of Suffolk County, and forming the most radical statement of the American position which had up to that time been made. He was a member of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, and in April, 1775, was elected president pro tem of that body. In March of that year he was again the orator at the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, refusing to be intimidated by the threats of British officers. He had much to do with the success at Lexington on April 19, and in June was commissioned major general. He opposed the occupation of Charlestown Heights, advocated by Putnam and Prescott, thinking the American supply of. ammunition too small. Overruled by a majority of the council, which resolved to fortify Bunker Hill, he went there as a volunteer, refusing to take the chief command, offered him by both Prescott and Putnam. During the battle of June 17 he was instantly killed. A monument to his memory by Paul W. Bartlett was erected in Boston in 1904. Consult Richard Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren (Boston, 1865). For his brother, see WARREN, JOHN.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 333.