from Chronicles of Danvers: Old Salem Village by Harriet Sylvester Tapley (A copy of this book is available through the Cullen Library.  Refer to the book to compile a citation.)

British Repulsed at North Bridge, Salem, (p.68-69)

Richard Skidmore was a wheelwright at New Mills and had recently made some gun carriages.  He served in all the wars, a drummer at the siege of Louisburg, a soldier and privateersman in the Revolution, and a member of the alarm list of 1814.

"A patriot, too, is drum he beat
In three wars at his country's call;
Beating the onset, not retreat,
He came victorious out of all."

The guns themselves were concealed somewhere in North Salem, it is supposed.  A repot to this effect had reached Boston and Colonel Leslie was sent with a detachment of British regulars to find and destroy them.  He landed from a transport at Marblehead on February 26, 1775, and marched overland to Salem.   News of the approach of the soldiers flew like lightning.  The alarm spread or 40 miles, and in a few hours, it is said, 40,000 men would have been on the spot.  By the time Leslie had reached the North Bridge in Salem, the draw was raised, and the opposite side of the river defended by men from Danvers and Salem, armed with muskets, pitchforks, clubs and other rude weapons, who dared them to proceed at peril of their lives.  Among them was Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth, pastor of the First Church, who shouldered his musket and hastened to the scene. There were three British regulars to every one American.  The British Colonel was greatly enraged when he saw that the draw had been raised and his plans thwarted, but deciding that discretion was the better part of valor he finally agreed to return to Marblehead if he could be allowed to cross the bridge and so obey orders.  This he did, and then the regulars marched back to the transport.  Just as the retreat was made, Captain Eppes' company of militia arrived from Danvers, armed and ready for battle.  This was the first armed resistance to the encroachment of the British in this country.  Here, nearly two months before the Battle of Lexington, the people of Danvers and Salem repulsed the foe, and but for the discretion of Leslie, the War of Revolution would have commenced at the North Bridge.