In 1772, Shays did purchase sixty-eight acres of farmland in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.
Minute Men Respond at Lexington
By 1773, as a man of about twenty-six, Shays was active in the local town militia (a group of citizen soldiers). He drilled his neighbors in marching in formation, and attained the rank of sergeant in the Minute Men. The Minute Men were American militia members who were prepared to respond to a call to arms at a minute's notice.
Shays, his father, and his brother, James, responded to such an alarm on April 19, 1775, when the British marched on Lexington, Massachusetts, to capture rebel leaders John Hancock (1737–1793) and Samuel Adams (1722–1803; see entries). The British planned to continue on to Concord to capture the rebel arsenal (stockpile of weapons). With other militia men, the Shayses faced the British soldiers at Lexington and then at Concord. These battles were the "shot heard 'round the world," and the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. Shays served as a militia man for eleven days at this time, and then responded to the call to join the newly organized American army at Boston. The state militias made up this new army.
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