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August 20, 2025
The Danvers Historical Society will host three events over the next two months to celebrate
the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.
Could the first shot of the war have been fired in Danvers, not at the famous battles of Lexington and
Concord? William Kossowan will discuss that theory during a presentation at Tapley Memorial Hall on Page
Street at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 20.
The bullet in question was fired at the Hooper-Collins house that once stood on Sylvan Street in Danvers on
Aug. 24, 1774, during British Governor- General Thomas Gage’s occupation of the North Shore.
Gage commanded all British troops in North America and replaced the Massachusetts governor in response
to colonists rebelling against the crown’s authority. He closed Boston’s port after colonists had dumped tea
in Boston’s harbor in December 1773, then temporarily moved the colony’s capitol to Salem in the summer
of 1775 and made Marblehead the official port of entry.
He lived in Danvers that summer, much to the chagrin of local Patriots.
“This talk is to review the mosaic of known facts significantly pertinent to the American Revolutionary War,
which occurred during those 87 days and put into perspective the overt acts of revolt which both preceded
and followed that time,” the Historical Society said.