William Dawes was regarded by George Washington as one of the most important Patriots of the Revolution. A Marlborough resident, he served as a clandestine source of information for Dr. Joseph Warren and the Sons of Liberty and, as a sergeant in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, helped steal cannon from Boston Common in September 1774, an embarrassment that added impetus for the British attack on the Colonials in April 1775. On the night ride warning of the British move toward Lexington and Concord, Dawes took the southern route over Boston Neck while Paul Revere crossed the Charles River to Charlestown, and though Dawes set out first and traveled the longer land route, both men arrived at about the same time to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams. In the first years of the Revolution, as a Quartermaster, Dawes came to Marlborough with his brother-in-law William Cogswell and likely oversaw the production of much needed saltpeter using the potash kilns of the exiled Henry Barnes. After the war, Cogswell married Dawes' sister Abigail and bought the Barnes residence and store, while Dawes bought property at the end of Main Street and ran a grocery store. When he died in 1799, townspeople ceremoniously paraded his casket from First Church by way of the old Post Road to burial in Boston.