Do a Dawes today. Oh wait what’s a Dawes?

Hi history nerds! If you know me, then you know I love rowing. We all know who Paul Revere is, but there was also a rower that night. His name was William Dawes, who did the same thing as Revere, yet doesn’t get the credit because of Henry Longfellow’s poem about Revere. The hypocritical part is that only it’s only because Revere rhymes better than Dawes! For more information on Dawes, check here.

The night of April 18th, 1775, Revere and Dawes traveled about 10 miles to get to Lexington from Boston. In rowing, everything is measured in the metric system, so 10 miles is about 16 kilometers.

We challenge you to “do a Dawes”. Find a rowing machine, do 16 kilometers. If you’re really going for historical accuracy, you can do it in the later part of the evening like they did. This is something I’ve been doing for a couple years now. You are also welcome to run, bike, or even pogo stick!

Once you’re done with doing a Dawes, post a picture of you and/or your screen and tag us on Instagram (@lexington250) or Facebook! We’d love to see how you did. We hope to hold a real Dawes competition next year and other years to come, so try it out!