More on Lexington

After we'd taken our initial tour and had some lunch in Lexington, we decided to visit the Lexington Green, where the initial confrontation happened to start the Revolutionary War, and where British troops fell back after their failed trip to Concord.

In a nutshell, the British were coming to Concord to take a cache of weapons from the citizens, and no one was going to let that happen. By the time the British showed up in Lexington, everyone knew they were coming, and the militia was waiting for them. After a brief standoff, a shot was fired, and the British killed 8 Colonials. They proceeded to march on Concord, but didn't even get there before more militia confronted them and killed 2 soldiers. Knowing this wasn't going their way, the British marched back to Lexington, with militia taking potshots the whole way back. They met up with reinforcements in Lexington, talked it over, and figured Boston was a better place to be.

This was a marker commemorating where the first Colonials fell on the morning of April 19, 1775




This is a minuteman statue also commemorating what happened here. I had to giggle at his rather nicely carved backside.



We toured the Buckman Tavern, a gathering place leading up to the war. It was an amazing building, including a kitchen I would have killed for if I had been around then. You name it, they had it.



We also visited the Munroe Tavern, which is the only place in town that gives the British side of things. This tavern was used by British officers when they were figuring out what to do next.



They had a lovely native flower garden planted next to the tavern. This wasn't the prettiest flower, but it was the first one I found in my stack of photos.

The shot heard 'round the world

For the 2 or so of you who actually follow this blog, you may remember this post about our January visit to Concord, MA. We decided it would be really nice to go back when the weather was warmer and less snowy. This was our weekend. It didn't hurt that work has been outrageously busy, and I desperately needed a break.

We got a lot of history over the weekend. I'll admit, I'm much more of a Civil War fan than a Revolutionary War fan, likely having to do with growing up on the west coast and having a mother from the South. But we got to learn much more about our fight for independence this trip. We did a lot of our touring out of order, but I've tried to put it together in some chronology of what happened lo those many years ago.

Below is the Hancock-Clark House. This is where Paul Revere was heading to in order to warn Sam Adams and John Hancock that the British military were on their way to confiscate weapons from the Colonials. Much of the furniture is original, and we learned a lot of details about that night, when the area seemed to be crawling with horsemen warning the countryside about the 700 or so British troops on their way.




We visited Lexington Green, where the first shots were fired in the American Revolution, but more on that later. After that fiasco, the next big action happened on the road leading from Lexington to Concord. Our able tour guide told us the story of how the Colonials held off the British troops at a key bridge on the way to Concord, forcing them to head back to Lexington and abandon their original plans.



A monument was placed on the spot, with this poem, the source for "the shot heard round the world".



A soon-to-be famous sculptor cast his first official statue commemorating the moment. He later went on to create the Lincoln Memorial. This one isn't bad for a first try, is it?



It was a gorgeous day, and it was hard to imagine any fighting going on in such a beautiful setting.