The Oldest?

As a seventeen year old private in 1986 I was assigned to Company C 1st Battalion 110th Armor at the Concord, Massachusetts armory. I considered this to be quite an honor and was proud to have marched in the 1987 Patriot’s Day Parade. Like most New Englanders I never really mentioned it for almost two decades, but as I have gotten older I looked back at it with fond memories having served in the militia unit that fought in the first battle of America, or was it?

I found out that having served my last  couple hitches with Company B 2nd Battalion 172nd Armor in Westminster, Vermont I had served in the towns of  both opening engagements of the Revolution because April 19, 1775 was the Battle of Lexington and Concord, but the Westminster Massacre was a month before hand. In March of 1775 pro Torrey New Yorkers in what would become Vermont went into a Westminster court house and opened fire. The people including the wounded were rounded up and thrown in jail. The next day the Massachusetts and New Hampshire Militias intervened. This was the first militia versus loyalist action of the Revolution. This was history no one ever mentioned to me while I was there, but then again I am a flatlander.

Those were the first battles of the United States, but A Troop 1st Squadron 110th Cavalry had a more obscure history that was never fully claimed. When the 1st Battalion 110th Armor was consolidated in 1988 it was moved to the Hudson, Massachusetts Armory, which was Marlboro during the colonial period. When A Troop got there it replaced Company B 1st Battalion 110th Armor  which had been tank company 181st Infantry regiment subsequent to World War II.

The Hudson Armory housed the 181st Infantry prior to the Second World War. The 26th Cavalry Recon Troop of  Yankee Division was the only intact unit that was separated from the regiment to fight in Europe, and this was the parent organization of the 1st Battalion 110th Armor that became A Troop 110th Cavalry. The 181st Regiment is the oldest in the United States, going back to the mid 1600s. Each infantry regiment had an attached cavalry troop in those days and they were separated to combine with the Three County Troop to form the Cavalry Troop that fought in the King Philip’s War. Therefore A Troop 1st Squadron 110th Cavalry Massachusetts Army National Guard 1988-1995 was a descendant formation of that troop which fought in 1675.

That’s 100 years before the Revolution, and the first known mounted unit to go into combat in the New World. When the 110th Armor and 26th Cavalry combined in 1988 Concord could claim the same thing because Headquarters Troop in Methuen could as it claims 182nd Infantry Regiment which is a split from the same parent regiment as the 181st. This means that B Troop in Methuen as well because when King Philips War ended the original Troops were reformed.