Online Event Guide

When: 4/20/2026 @ 7:30 pm

Exactly 250 years to the day, a Lexingtong Rider reached Isreal Putnam to raise the call to arms. Putnam was plowing his fields on the farm in Pomfret with his son Daniel when the rider brought the news. Dropping the plow in the field, Putnam hastily wrote messages to the Sons of Liberty in the region setting the alarm in motion for the call to arms. Join author and historian Dayne Rugh to learn about how news of the outbreak of the American Revolution was delivered from Massachusetts to Connecticut. Rugh will trace the steps of the valiant riders who raised the alarm through the Connecticut countryside in the days following the first battle on the Lexington Green. The presentation is the second in a series of educational programs in collaboration with the Pomfret America 250 Commission and was generously funded by an America 250 grant from The Last Green Valley.

The program is open to the public and doors will open at 7:00 after a brief annual meeting for historical society members. The audience is invited for refreshments,  and the art exhibition Afterlife: Re-Imagining 18^th Century Gravestone Carvings by Laura Tedeschi. The art is for sale by check or Venmo. The program will begin at 7:30.

Dayne Rugh is the Director of Slater Memorial Museum where he oversees all museum operations, programming, and exhibitions, and is also past President of the Society of the Founders of Norwich, in Norwich, CT, the owners and operators of the Leffingwell House Museum and the Joseph Carpenter Silversmith Shop. He has published content for the Connecticut History Review, Connecticut Explored, connecticuthistory.org, Norwich Magazine, The Bulletin newspaper, Mystic Seaport Museum, and the Journal of the American Revolution.

For more information about the program and art exhibit, contact Donna Dufresne, Pomfret Historical Society Program Director: pomfret250commission@gmail.com  860-465-7228

Phone: 860-465-7228