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[Jan Hardenbergh serves as the Sudbury Town Historian]
On September 12th, 1774, Town Meeting meeting voted to gunpowder and “to purchase Six hundred Weight & 300 French Flynts or 500 English Flynts, to purchase a Chest of Arms to the Number of 30 with Bayonets to be under the Care of the Select Men, to be delivered out as there shall be Occasion”
Buying arms was not on the warrant that was posted more than three months before, on May 30th, 1774. The meeting first met on June 20th and then was adjourned three times, the first adjournment was to July 4th. It met and was adjourned again to July 18th, and then to Sept. 12th when it was dissolved.
The decision to purchase the weapons was likely spurred by The Powder Alarm [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_Alarm], in which many militia forces were mobilized, partially based on misinformation. On September 1st, the Redcoats had marched to Somerville to bring the powder back to Boston. A contingent then marched to Cambridge and took two cannon back to Boston. As the news spread, it was embellished to include people being killed and that war had started.
The Sudbury vote 10 days later was a significant step to prepare for the eventual conflict and those arms were used by the Sudbury militia and minute men on April 19th, 1775. More on that later! There is a long except in the Sudbury Militia from Hudsons’s History of Sudbury [https://sudbury.minlib.net/Record/.b11962549] in a well reformatted and spell corrected version here [https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/lexington-and-concord-sudbury-militia/]
Throughout the four meetings, the Town worked on a response for the Sudbury Committee of Correspondence [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committees_of_correspondence], which was responsible for communicating with Boston’s committee to coordinate opposition to British. See Earlier Letters from Sudbury to Boston. [https://jch.com/history/250/SCoC/] The Town also voted to build a new powder house and buy powder and arms and to ask each minister “to appoint a Contribution to Collect a Sum of Money” for Congress. Images of the meeting minutes and transcriptions are here [https://jch.com/history/250/TownMeetingJuly4th1774.html].