Letter about Battle of Bunker Hill

The Battle of Bunker Hill happened on June 17, 1775.

While reading some resources about family genealogy in winter 2023, I encountered a remarkable quote from a letter written by husband Edward to his wife Mary telling her of the happenings.  

* During the revolutionary war, Edward sent Mary and the children off to Nantucket, an island inhabited by peace-loving Quakers who, he presumed, were neutral in the conflict.

* Letter about Battle of Bunker Hill Edward sent to Mary:

Well, my dear, I am heartily glad you are not here just at this time; you would, I know, be most terribly alarmed. We had an appearance yesterday of a most prodigious smoke, which I found was exactly in the direction of Charlestown and as we knew our men were entrenching on Bunker Hill there, we supposed the Town was on fire, and so in fact it proved, for in the evening (that is last evening) we were told the Regulars had landed at Charlestown under cover of the smoke from ye buildings they had set fire to, and forced the Entrenchments on the Hill and had beat our men off with loss, & this morning our intelligence was that 400 of our men were killed & the Regulars had pursued our men as far as Winter Hill; (tho' we just now learned that the Regulars still keep possession of Bunkers Hill, & that our men are entrenched upon Winter Hill) & that there is a probability of further action soon, and that our loss amounts only to about 150 killed. … The commotion here was so considerable, though none of our men went to ye Battle (as the northwest part of the Province and not the sea coast were called upon the occasion) that we had but one meeting house open in ye morning. --and this afternoon while some were at meeting and others talking over ye action of yesterday, we were alarmed with an appearance of smoke at Marblehead, which broke up ye meeting. & the people with their engines & buckets went over to extinguish the fire, and I among the rest, tho' I should have been glad to have been excused on account of the prodigious heat of the weather, but as I thought that under Providence I owed the preservation of my House to the assistance from Marblehead, when we were in the utmost hazard, I could not dispense with going; but we were stopped when about half way there, with an account that ye smoke arose from a field of grass on fire, and that no building was hurt, so I returned home, and am now set down to rest and cool myself, and to give you this account.

[quoted from a website accessed on 2/21/2024: 
https://theholyokes.com/ps01/ps01_152.html ]

Who were Edward and Mary?  Edward was a doctor in Salem named Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728-1829). Mary was his second wife, Mary Vial Holyoke (1737-1802). They had married in 1759, after the death of his first wife. 

In February 2024 I had received an unexpected email from a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Dr. Holyoke. He was contacting me because of an email correspondence his mother Susanne (a descendant of Dr. Holyoke and the first wife, Judith) had had with me in 2015!  I'd forgotten about that, but was glad to be reminded, and to re-read the family information we had then shared.  Susanne's son Peter wrote to inform me that his mother had died in summer 2023; he and his sister are now my link to that branch of the family tree.