Poor William Dawes Jr. All guts, no glory.

While every schoolchild knows of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Dawes made an even more daring gallop out of Boston that same April night in 1775. Unlike his silversmith counterpart, he managed to evade capture by the British. Yet it’s Revere’s immortal name that has graced a famous ode, a line of copper cookware and even a kitschy 1960s rock band. Dawes, meanwhile, is the Rodney Dangerfield of the American Revolution, getting no respect at all.

On April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren learned through Boston’s revolutionary underground that British troops were preparing to cross the Charles River and march to Lexington, presumably to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Fearing an intercept by the British, Warren had devised a redundancyplan to warn Hancock and Adams. He would send one rider by land and one by sea.

Boston in 1775 was nearly an island, only connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land guarded by British sentries. Warren knew that the rider who had to take the longer land route and pass through the British checkpoint had the riskier mission, but he had the perfect man for the job: Dawes. The 30-year-old was a militiaman and a loyal patriot. Unlike Revere, however, Dawes wasn’t a known rabble-rouser, and his work as a tanner frequently took him out of Boston, so his would be a familiar face to the British manning the checkpoint.

Dawes set off around 9 p.m., about an hour before Warren dispatched Revere on his mission.