Above: The muster roll for Charles Miles' Company of Minutemen, written in the hand of David Hartwell. The document is dated January 17th 1775 - May 6th 1775. The rare muster roll was sold in a Christies Auction in 2005 for $132,000

David Hartwell lived on a farm once located on the present day Concord/Carlisle town line. In 1775, he was a Sargent in Captain Miles Company of minutemen. On the day of the Concord Fight of April 19th, he met up mid march with the contingent of minutemen that departed from the First Parish Church in Carlisle Center. He presumably joined his Concord company at Punkatasset Hill prior to the engagement at the North Bridge. 

Later in the war, he served as a Sargent in Captain James Russell's Company in Colonel Eleazer Brook's regiment which marched to Dorchester to reinforce the army on March 4th 1776. 

In his capacity as Sergeant, Hartwell was responsible for maintaining the company's muster rolls. After the war, he also served as Clerk for the District of Carlisle.

In 1863, his descendants were cleaning out the family farmhouse and found his large collection of papers. The height of the Civil War was a time of scarcity and paper was a valuable commodity. The Hartwell family, not realizing the significance of these papers, sold them all to a Lowell based junk dealer for a couple dollars to be recycled into paper pulp. However, the junk dealer was smart enough to go through the papers and thankfully saved many documents which ended up in the collection of an antiquarian by the name of Dr. Charles E. Clark of Boston. Clark returned the priceless District record books to the Town of Carlisle where they have remained ever since. However, he kept several other rare documents including David Hartwell's muster roll from the Battle of Lexington and Concord. At the turn of the last century, the Concord Antiquarian Society (today known as the Concord Museum) attempted to purchase the rare document from Clark's estate but were unfortunately outbid. This document has since passed through several private collections and was most recently sold at auction for the staggering sum of $132,000. It is believed to be one of if not the only muster roll from the battle in private hands!