Dashing up to the Green in Lexington, we met up with the 11 am tour of the Battle of Lexington. The morning escaped from us. By the time we made it to Lexington the tour had already left with one couple and someone shadowing the costumed narrator. Mary had already begun her spiel, had warned the couple that her 45 minute tours often go over an hour. I expressed my apologies and explained I was really excited to take the tour because I recently discovered at the age of 76 my ancestor, Noah Wiswall, fought in the battle.
Mary gave us a brief history of the Revolutionary War up until that point. It was still the early days. For decades Lexington and Concord had a rivalry over where the Revolutionary War started. The British soldiers were walking through Lexington on their way to Concord when the first shots were fired.
The history of the war starts more than a decade before the April 19, 1775 battle to the French and Indian War of 1763 when the British defeated the French and acquired more land than they had the resources to properly tend. They decided to levy taxes on the colonists to help pay for their new expenses, after all the British citizens back in England had to pay taxes. Thus became the background to the war cry: No Taxation without Representation.
Prior to 1763 there was a strong relationship on the two sides of the Atlantic. Good trading. Positive feelings overall in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was made up of Pilgrims and Puritans who moved across the ocean to get away from the King. They had no great affection for England, but was still amicable.
Church was mandatory. The religion was Congregationalist, which is worship led by the congregation (vs. led by a pastor). It is very grassroots. The congregation meets as a whole to discuss issues pertaining to the town.
When Britain imposed tariffs on the colonists they were offended. These mostly impacted the merchant class, including wealthy John Hancock and poor merchant Samuel Adams who formed a strange alliance over the taxes.
Due to the riots and protests of 1768, Britain brough troops to Massachusetts to maintain peace. Two years later, in 1770, the Boston Massacre, a riot that got out of control, took place. Five people were killed. The men who killed them were acquitted due to self-defense. Sam Adams created propaganda that it was larger than that to rile up colonists in other parts, "they were victims of cruel soldiers." The Customs House was renamed Butchers Hall.
In December 1773 the Boston Tea Party took place.
In January 1774 word reaches Britain. The Boston Harbor is closed, which creates hardships. A military governor is installed. More troops are sent in. Town Hall Meetings are abolished.
All that happens in Boston. Here, in the middle of the countryside, life is moving normally. Thirty percent of the people are anti-British. Thirty percent are loyal to the king. And forty percent are just getting on with life.
Editorializing here: many parallels can be drawn to today.
Barracks are formed. Locals start to stash supplies pilfered from the British. British General Gage learned of this collection and planned to march 700 troops from Boston to Lexington under the cloak of darkness. They would leave Boston at 10 pm on April 18, 1775, march 17 to 18 miles miles, and arrive in Concord at 2 am. That's coordinating hundreds of men to walk at a four and a half-mile an hour pace over barely existing roads carrying everything they need without pausing to eat or go to the bathroom, and to do so quietly so no one notices along the way.
Fear not, the Colonists had spies and spread the word. Paul Revere and William Dawes rode from Boston spreading the word. In those days, Boston was barely connected to the mainland at a place called "Boston Neck," a designation that no longer exists because Boston has been built up and there are many ways to get to Lexington from Beantown. Suddenly the words "one if by land, two if by sea" to describe the hanging of the lanterns in the window of the North Church made sense -- there was only way way the troops could arrive either by land or by sea.
Two lanterns are hung, signally the troops will row across Boston Harbor and not take the Boston Neck route.
Dawes pretends to be drunk as he rides his horse through the British guards. They let him through. Revere takes the shorter route. They meet up in Lexington at midnight ahead of the British troops.
At no point would Paul Revere have shouted "The British Are Coming," because they were all British.
Revere knocked on the doors of those he knew to be on the side of the Patriots and warned them to send the militia to Concord because a thousand or two thousand British troops were on their way.
Hancock and Adams were hiding in Lexington. Revere roused them and warned of the incoming troops. As they were the face of the conflict, their lives were in danger. Captain Parker is waken up and told to send troops to the Green to make a statement: We are the militia. We have a right to be here. We knew you were coming!
At 1 am, Captain Parker and his men stand at the ready. He is not completely convinced they are coming.
A note about the differences between the terms: Militia and Minutemen. The militia are all able-bodied men, they are volunteers. Minutemen are the elite fighting force, younger, with better weapons, training, and are paid. At the time, Lexington did not have any minutemen because they were too cheap to pay them.
Mary judges her sources on whether or not they refer to the soldiers as minutemen or militia. President US Grant in 1875 referred to the Lexington militia as minutemen, from that point on they were misrepresented.
The Green today is a wide open space in the middle of town. There is a giant
flagpole in the center with a flag that is allowed to fly 24 hours a day (with a light on it), one of only seven major sites nationwide to have this designation. By the way, Concord is not one of the other sites. There are also a few monuments.
Back in 1775 the town's meetinghouse would have stood in the center. It was expanded over the years from the original 1692 meetinghouse in 1713, and 1794. In 1846 the meetinghouse burned to the ground and was replaced across the street. The meetinghouse had to be large enough to fit everyone in it since participation was mandatory.
The belfry was also in the square. It used to be on top of the hill, but was moved when the farmer started charging the town to rent his space. After the Revolutionary War, it was moved back up the hill. The belfry was too heavy to be on top of the original meetinghouse.
Back to Captain Parker and the militia. At 4:30 am the scout says 800 British soldiers are on their way. He lines up his 60-80 men (the original muster book is lost to history). It is purely a symbolic act. All of the men are exhausted. It is starting to get light out (so much for being through there and onto Concord by 2 am). Townspeople along the route participate in some trash talking. The militia hide on the other side of the Green, behind then then-standing meetinghouse. British Maj. John Pitcairn brings 250 men onto the Green. Both he and Patriot Captain Parker try to figure out how they can get out of this mess. After ten or fifteen minutes Captain Parker tells the militia to go home.
Suddenly a short is fired. Historians still cannot agree on where the shot came from. People are watching. It is unlikely that the highly trained British army would fire without an order to do so. In the end, there are eight dead colonists, ten wounded, and one British soldier grazed with a bullet.
Mary shows us a monument with Cap. Parker's purported words: Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.
She finds the last part unlikely.
Sam Adams declares: What a glorious day for America! The poor merchant was looking for a spark to start the war.
The dead were hastily buried so the British would not take them when they returned to Boston. Women and children hid in the woods. There was a general fear that the soldiers would set fire to Lexington upon their return.
There was a bigger battle in Concord. The soldiers did not find the ammunition that they were told was buried there, so they headed back to Boston.
During their retread a battle referred to as Parker's Revenge took place on what is now the border of Lincoln and Lexington. by this point more men arrived from neighboring towns, including my relative, Noah Wiswall, who walked alone 28 miles from the farm in Newton, MA to "see what the boys were doing," the boys being his sons. The group grew in size and exacted revenge for the eight lives lost earlier in the day.
In 1799 this monument was erected. It is the oldest War Memorial in the United States.
Seven local men were killed on the morning of April 19, 1775. An eighth man, Ashaal Porter, of Woburn, MA was a merchant in the wrong place at the wrong time. His descendants believe the shot that killed him was the one that started the war.
We walked over to Ye Olde Burial Ground. The tour of the burial ground alone could take over an hour. The oldest identifiable grave dates to 1690, of a person from obvious wealth. The impoverished did not have burial stones. Most of the stones are made from slate, which does not wear away. On the way out Mary pointed out ones with upgrades to gravel that wore out to the extent you can't see who is buried there.
The tombstones from the late 1600s to mid-1700s have creepy sketches on them. Afterwards they contain more consoling images of willow trees.
In the mid-1800s they dug up the area to install pipes. The did not note who was buried where, so when they replaced the stones they organized them by family -- which is not how they would have been buried originally, leaving space for people to picnic. I've heard from other old burial grounds that people used to do that in the 19th century.
The seven "minutemen" who had been put in unmarked graves were relocated to this cemetery.
The tour finished by a statue with the names of all of the militia who fought in the Battle of Lexington. Noah's name is not on the list.
We finished in time for the other couple to take the trolley tour to Concord. Since we had a car, were hungry, and limited time, we opted to drive. We caught the start of the next group tour.
Lexington Green is also called Lexington Commons, and is now called Lexington Battle Green. Every town used to have a Green, common area in the center of town. Most lost theirs because it was prime real estate. Lexington kept theirs because of the significance of the battle. The space was owned in common by all and used as a pasture for farm animals.
There were five major buildings surrounding the Green in 1775, three still stand. They are called "witness buildings."
I love that term.
We left the next group and had lunch before heading to Minute Man National Park, the site of Parker's Revenge.
