Abel Benson: Patriot of the American Revolution tells the dramatic story of Abel Benson, young African American boy from Framingham, Massachusetts who, on the night of April 18, 1775, was one of the relay riders, like Paul Revere, who helped launch the American Revolution. With a narrative written in rhyming verse, by Margaret Denise Dennis, and beautifully illustrated by Eric Battle, the book tells the true story of Abel Benson who was also a talented musician, as he rides on horseback and sounds the alarm with his trumpet, to alert the American colonists in Middlesex County that the British King’s Regulars are coming to confiscate the weapons stored at Concord.

Born in 1766, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to an African American father, William Benson, and Sarah Perry a white American mother from Sudbury, MA, Abel Benson was also the grandson of Nero Benson who had been a trumpeter in the Framingham Militia, in 1825. In 1781, when Abel was 14 years old, he enlisted in the Continental Army and served to the end of the Revolutionary War. After the war, he received a pension and a land grant, married, and had twelve children. Abel Benson is buried at the Old Burying Ground on Main Street in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, where one can view his headstone.

Abel Benson was the first cousin of Hannah Benson Dennis, who was born and married in Concord, MA and moved to Pennsylvania with her husband James Dennis, in 1818. Margaret “Denise” Dennis, the author of this book, is the 3x-great-granddaughter of Hannah Benson Dennis and Founding Chair & CEO of the Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust, which is preserving the Dennis Farm as a cultural heritage and educational site.