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Lexington, Massachusetts is a little town with a big history. Billed as the Birthplace of the American Revolution, it was here where the first shots were fired.
Lexington was first settled in 1642 and was later incorporated as a town and named after the British nobleman Lord Lexington in 1713. Lexington was much like any other sleepy New England town until the events of April 19th 1775 wrote the town into the history books. It was here on Lexington Common that the colonial militia faced the British Redcoats in what was to be the first engagement of the War for American Independence.
The British soldiers were on the march from their base in Boston to Concord to destroy colonial ammunition supplies stored there. But the local militia had already been forewarned by Paul Revere who rode from Boston to meet patriot leaders Hancock and Adams at the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington.
At the Buckman Tavern in Lexington 77 Minute Men under Captain John Parker were waiting to meet the British advance. At 6am on April 19th the militia filed out of the tavern and gathered on the common to challenge the British. As the troops faced each other the British officers ordered the militia to disperse. On realising his men were outnumbered and outgunned, Parker began to disband his men. But fate was to play its hand and a shot was fired followed by further volleys, which killed 8 colonists and wounded one Redcoat. The skirmish on what is known in Lexington as Battle Green, allowed the militia in neighbouring Concord time to organise their forces, enabling them to turn back the British at the Old North Bridge and securing the militia’s stores of ammunition.
To this day nobody knows who fired that first shot of the American Revolution, Ralph Waldo Emerson later wrote it was ‘the shot that rang out around the world’ as events of that day were to shape world history.
These events are re-enacted in the town on the first Monday of April, when Lexington celebrates Patriot Day. Events begin with Paul Revere’s ride through the town with the cry of ‘the regulars are out’, followed at 6am with the skirmish on Battle Green, before the Redcoats march on to Concord.
The Lexington Historical Society have played a leading role in restoring many of the town’s colonial buildings including Buckman Tavern, the Hancock-Clarke House and Munroe Tavern, which offer visitor’s an insight into the events of that fateful day in 1775.
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