Last updated: June 27, 2025
Person
Dr Joseph Warren
Adams National Historical Park
Quick Facts
Significance:
Dr Joseph Warren was a well respected an American Physician, Revolutionary leader and military officer in the early days of the American Revolution
Place of Birth:
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Date of Birth:
June 11, 1741
Place of Death:
Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts
Date of Death:
June 17, 1775
Place of Burial:
Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts
Cemetery Name:
Forest Hills Cemetery
“May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed.” - Joseph Warren at his second annual Boston Massacre oration at Old South Meeting House, Boston, March 5, 1772
Joseph Warren, a prominent physician in Boston, played a significant role as a Revolutionary leader and military offical in the early days of the American Revolution. General Warren heroically fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, where he was shot and killed by British forces.
Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on June 11, 1741, Joseph Warren attended Harvard College and taught briefly at the Latin School before studying to become a physician.
In 1764, during a ravaging smallpox epidemic, Joseph Warren, at only 22 years old, stayed in Boston to care for the sick and dying. Warren operated a smallpox inoculation clinic on Castle Island in Boston Harbor—he even inoculated John Adams.
Writer and Orator
While a physician growing his medical practice, Warren also began supporting the patriot cause in 1767. Following the passage of the Townsend Acts, Warren wrote a series of articles for the Boston Gazette under the pseudonym “A True Patriot.” Angered by Warren’s articles, the Royal Governor attempted to charge him and the publishers of the Boston Gazette with libel.
As a friend of Samuel Adams, James Otis (his brother-in-law), and Paul Revere (a fellow Freemason), Warren had strong and deep connections to the radical, or patriot, cause.
Additionally, Warren witnessed firsthand the horrors of the Boston Massacre in 1770 by caring for the wounded. He delivered powerful addresses about the Massacre on anniversaries in the years following. In 1775 in the Old South Meeting House, Warren delivered a powerful but cautious Massacre address with British Regulars in attendance.
Strategist
Following the Boston Tea Party, British passed the Port Act in 1774, one of the Intolerable Acts. The Port Act closed Boston Harbor to all ships, preventing goods being brought into the town. In response, Warren served as a member of the Committee of Donations in order to support Boston’s struggling citizens. As a member of the Committee, he handled the incoming donations and their distribution to those most in need.
In that same year, Warren drafted the Suffolk Resolves, which rejected the Intolerable Acts. A section of the Intolerable Acts limited town meetings and replaced elected officials in Massachusetts with appointed ones. The Resolves inspired the creation of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
With Samuel Adams away in Philadelphia attending to the Continental Congress, in 1774, Warren took over his leadership role in Boston. He oversaw the colony’s military matters: the raising of the militia, procurement of arms and powder, and the orchestration of a spy ring. Warren also sent a militia force to Fort Ticonderoga in New York to secure that fort and its cannons for the Provincials.
A spy ring brought Warren crucial intelligence. He learned that British General Gage planned to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock on a charge of treason. Gage also planned to send British Regulars to the town of Concord to take away colonial gunpower and arms. Warren and Paul Revere made plans to warn Adams and Hancock of their impending arrest and to warn the people of Concord about the invading Regulars. The plans led to the legendary Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
The skirmishes at Lexington and Concord caused Warren to dedicate his efforts solely to the militia.
Warrior
As he directed his attention to serving as a military official, Warren left his patients in the care of his assistant, William Eustis. Warren himself fought the British on their retreat from Lexington and Concord to Boston. He joined the fighting and narrowly escaped being killed. Afterwards, for six weeks, he readied the militia. On June 14, 1775, the Provincial Congress elected him as second general in command of the Massachusetts forces.
Two days later, at around midnight on June 16, hundreds of colonial soldiers used pickaxes and shovels to construct an earthen fort, or redoubt, atop Breed's Hill, a hill southeast of Bunker Hill. Warren, however, was in nearby Cambridge. On the morning of June 17, 1775, Warren learned at a meeting with the Committee of Safety that British forces had landed in Charlestown. Around noon, he rode over from Cambridge to the fortifications on Breed’s Hill.
When British forces began attacking colonial defenses, rather than taking command, Warren entered the line as a regular volunteer. On the third and final British assault near the redoubt, Warren rallied the Provincials in an orderly retreat from the redoubt. Here, the British killed Warren. Warren received a musket ball injury to the head.
The British forces placed Warren’s body in a common mass grave. About nine months later, Paul Revere later identified his remains, able to do so by some dental work he had done for Warren.
Legacy
John Trumbull immortalized Warren’s heroic death in the painting, “The Death of General Warren.” In 1794, King Solomon’s Lodge honored their Grand Master Warren with the first monument on Bunker Hill, an 18-foot wooden column built. A small replica of that column is at the base of the present obelisk. Many colonies named towns Warren in his honor.
In 1855, the Bunker Hill Monument Association commissioned a larger-than-life marble statue of Warren. The seven-foot likeness of Warren can be viewed at the Bunker Hill Lodge adjacent to the Bunker Hill Monument.
Joseph Warren died at age 34, and in his short life he had already proven himself to be an indispensable political and military leader in Massachusetts. The people of Massachusetts had selected Warren’s Revolutionary colleagues Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock to attend the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress shaped a national response to Great Britain's attacks across the American colonies. Warren managed the Massachusetts home front so his colleagues could perform the crucial work of the Continental Congress.
Historians speculate that Warren’s skills as a writer, orator, strategist, and warrior were sorely missed as the American Revolutionary War continued. Warren was buried at a family plot in Forest Hills Cemetery near Boston.
Sources
Christian Di Spigna. Founding Martyr, the Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero. 2018 Crown Publishers, New York
Edward St Germain. “The Suffolk Resolves—Summary and Significance”. American Revolution.org. https://www.americanrevolution.org/suffolk-resolves/
“Intolerable Acts". Britannica. Intolerable Acts | 1774, Definition, Summary, Significance, & Facts | Britannica
Jacqueline Gase. “Paul Revere and Jospeh Warren: An early case of Forensic Identification” The Micrograph. July 2019. https://medicalmuseum.health.mil/micrograph/index.cfm/posts/2019/paul_revere_and_joseph_warren
Salina B Baker “Dr. Joseph Warren’s 1775 Boston Massacre Oration.” Dr. Joseph Warren’s 1775 Boston Massacre Oration – Salina B Baker