Contact: Dave Gilliard

AUBURN, CA – – It’s a state holiday in Massachusetts and Maine and is widely celebrated in many other states and cities in the eastern United States, but Patriots’ Day goes unnoticed in California.  That will change on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 when the local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution will mark Patriots’ Day at Central Square in downtown Auburn.

Patriots’ Day commemorates the first battles of the American Revolution, which took place in Lexington and Concord, MA on April 19, 1775. The “shot heard round the world” on Lexington Green that day, and subsequent battles at Concord Bridge and on “Battle Road” leading back to Boston, took place 15 months prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“Without Lexington and Concord the United States as we know it today might not exist,” said Dave Gilliard, President of the Gold Country Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.  “The American patriots who battled the British Army on April 19, 1775 changed the world forever and their heroic actions deserve to be recognized.”

Gold Country SAR members and associates, in historically accurate uniforms and costumes, will display a collection of Revolutionary War flags and answer questions from the public between 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM on Tuesday, April 19.  The event will be held at the new flag pole in Central Square, corner of Lincoln Way and High Street in Auburn.

The Sons of the American Revolution are lineal descendants of an ancestor who rendered active service in the cause of American Independence, either as an office, soldier, seaman, marine, militiaman or minuteman, in the armed forces of the Continental Congress, of any one of the several Colonies or States, as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, as a member of a Committee of Safety or Correspondence, as a member of any Continental, Provincial, or Colonial Congress or Legislature or as a recognized patriot.  The Gold Country Chapter of the SAR was founded in 1924 in Auburn, CA.   For more information, please visit www.GoldCountrySAR.com.