Preston Garvey Preston Garvey is a senior officer of the Commonwealth Minutemen , a volunteer defense militia operating in the Commonwealth in 2287 . He is also available as a companion of the Sole Survivor . Background . Early life . Preston Garvey originally enrolled with the Minutemen under Colonel Hollis at the age of seventeen . An avid believer in the espoused justice of the Minutemen cause , Preston joined the Minutemen under the direct command of Hollis himself . Things began to change for the worse when settlements under the protection of the Minutemen grew complacent . Freed from the greater concerns of the erstwhile dangers of the Commonwealth , settlements increasingly neglected their obligations to the collective in favor of petty self - interests . Quincy Massacre . In 2287 , Sturges , an inhabitant of the influential trading hub at Quincy - requested the aid of the Minutemen after having heard one of Mama Murphy ’ s visions , which foresaw the town being surrounded and massacred . Although the majority saw Murphy as a burned - out chem addict , Sturges went behind his fellow citizens to invoke the protection of the Minutemen . Preston joined Hollis on a mission to rescue Quincy , where they found the Gunners besieging the town . The Minutemen dispersed the Gunner lines and were welcomed by the citizens of Quincy while the Gunners temporarily retreated . An ex - Minutemen officer named Clint had revealed himself to Colonel Hollis as the leader of the invading force . Hollis felt extreme anger at this betrayal . The citizens expressed confusion and frustration . Clint sought to establish terms of surrender for Quincy and its defenders ; these terms were summarily rejected by Hollis . While the subsequent events are not explicitly recorded in text , the outcome for the Minutemen is broadly established by dialogue with Preston and various other wastelanders : the Minutemen requested support , which did not arrive ; the Gunners overwhelmed the defenders and murdered nearly all of the civilians ; Col . Hollis , the linchpin of the long - dwindling Minutemen cause , died fighting . The event is known as the Quincy Massacre and it catalyzed the disintegration of the remaining settlements under Minutemen protection . Post - Quincy . Consequently , Preston gathered the few remaining Quincy civilians and loyal members of the Minutemen and fled . Several of the refugees lost their lives at the hands of the Gunners before the group shook their pursuit at Jamaica Plain . The refugees next moved to Lexington . Regrettably , as Preston testifies , Lexington was filled with feral ghouls ; the hardships of the town gradually whittled the group ' s numbers down to just over ten . Eventually the group moved to Concord where they took shelter in the Museum of Freedom , only to find themselves under the constant predation of raiders , who unbeknownst to the group are under orders from their leader , Jared , to acquire Mama Murphy By the time the Sole Survivor arrives to help Preston , he is leading the last pocket of people under the protection of the Minutemen . His group numbers only five - a mere fraction of the original twenty who escaped Quincy under his guidance . Appearances . Preston Garvey appears in " Fallout 4 " and " Fallout Shelter " .