Sarah Bradlee Fulton (December 24, 1740, Dorchester - November 9, 1835, Medford) was an active participant of the Revolutionary War on the American side. A tablet stone was dedicated to her memory at the

Salem Street Burying Ground Salem Street Burying Ground is a cemetery located at the intersection of Salem Street and Riverside Avenue in Medford, Massachusetts. The Salem Street Burying Ground was used exclusively from the late 17th century to the late 19th century for th ...

Medford, Massachusetts Medford is a city northwest of downtown Boston on the Mystic River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 59,659. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus alo ...

in 1900. She was born in 1740 as Sarah Bradlee in Boston, Massachusetts, married John Fulton in 1762 and moved to Medford, Massachusetts. She was an active member of

Daughters of Liberty The Daughters of Liberty was the formal female association that was formed in 1765 to protest the Stamp Act, and later the Townshend Acts, and was a general term for women who identified themselves as fighting for liberty during the American Rev ...

and is sometimes referred to as the "Mother of the

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea ...

". Her brother, Nathaniel Bradlee, a carpenter, lived in Boston on the corner of Tremont and Hollis streets. Friends and neighbors, who were Boston's most devoted patriots, regularly gathered to enjoy his codfish suppers on Saturday nights. It was in Bradlee's carpenter shop, that a detachment of "Mohawks" who "turned Boston Harbor into a teapot" gathered on the night of the Boston Tea Party. Sarah Fulton and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Bradlee, are credited with disguising Nathanial Bradlee and his compatriots as Mohawks and, later, as transforming them back into "respectable Bostonians." A spy, hoping to catch Nathaniel Bradlee "in the act," peered into the window, saw the women going about their business, and thought nothing of it. She was involved with the Revolutionary War on several occasions. In June 1775, after the

Battle of Bunker Hill The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in ...

, the wounded were brought into town, and the large open space by Wade's Tavern was turned into a field hospital. Because few surgeons were available, the women did their best as nurses. Among them, Sarah Fulton became a leader. She tended to one poor fellow who had a bullet in his cheek. With steady nerves, she removed the bullet and almost forgot about it until years afterwards, when the patriot came to thank her for her service. In March 1776, Major John Brooks came to the house of John Fulton, knowing his patriotism and his intimate knowledge of Boston, and asked him to deliver dispatches by General Washington which must be delivered inside the enemy's lines. When her husband was unable to do the job, she accepted. She dispatched an important message from John Brooks, the mayor of Medford, to

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

to the Charleston war front. She managed to cross the enemy lines and return home safe. Still later, during the

Siege of Boston The siege of Boston (April 19, 1775 – March 17, 1776) was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army, which was garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town ...

, she and her husband used their own ship to provide the American troops in Medford with wood and fuel. A play ''Sarah Bradlee Fulton, Patriot: A Colonial Drama in Three Acts'' was written about her by Grace Jewett Austin in 1919.

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Sarah Bradlee Fulton, patriot: a colonial drama in three acts
online at archive.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Fulton, Sarah Breedlove Female wartime spies Women in the American Revolution 1740 births 1835 deaths People of Massachusetts in the American Revolution

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