Helen F. Moore

'Tis all very well for the children to hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere;
But why should my name be quite forgot?

From her 1896 poem, "The Midnight Ride of William Dawes."

Paul Revere wasn't the only midnight rider who helped alert colonial minutemen that British troops were on the march to Lexington and Concord.  William Dawes, a local tanner, also helped to spread the alarm.  But Longfellow's famous poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," mentioned only Revere.

I remembered reading a parody of Longfellow's poem as a child -- "Listen my children, while I pause/To tell of the ride of William Dawes."  It turns out those lines were part of a 1961 one-panel comic strip by Jimmy Hatlo -- his "They'll Do It Every Time" ran in Sunday newspapers (including the Joplin Globe) from 1929 until his death on this date in 1963.  Hatlo was also the creator of the more conventional comic strip, "Little Iodine."

William Dawes' great-great-grandson, Charles, was Calvin Coolidge's Vice President and co-recipient of the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize for his "Dawes Plan," an attempt to deal with lingering World War I-related issues.  He also wrote a piano piece that  was used as the tune for the 1958 #1 pop hit, "It's All in the Game."