Early Massachusetts.
The Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts is the location of the first battle of the colonialists against their British oppressors on April 19, 1775. The 700 British soldiers survived the sniping of the Minute Men – so named as these early American militiamen volunteered to be ready for service in one minute – staggering exhausted and shot up into Lexington in the afternoon where they were saved by 1,000 reinforcements under General Hugh, Earl Percy. A nominal victory for the colonialists and the start of hostilities.
Those seven hundred redcoats walked four abreast down this exact pathway, resplendent in their red outfits with white ‘shoot me here’ bands, convinced that their empire would last 1,000 years, like subsequent claimants to that crown. It was not to be.
Mary Hartwell was among the first to see the British from this, her home. She wrote:
Women have always been overly impressed by uniforms.
Hartwell’s warning got to Captain William Smith some 200 yards down the road, at his home:
Smith was the commander of the Lincoln militiamen and the brother of Abigail Adams, the wife of that magnificent patriot John Adams, the driving force behind America’s revolutionary fervor. Smith rode into Lincoln town center and rallied his minute company, which arrived in Concord that afternoon. The colonialists were nothing if not prepared for their fight with the mightiest army on earth.
The Park is located near the town of Concord, where we stopped for lunch. Boasting no fewer than three churches in the town center – Unitarian, Congregational and Catholic – and replete with memorials for our war dead, the town is everything you expect of an early New England settlement.
Main Street, Concord.
The Catholic church anchors Main Street.
The Unitarian Universalist church.
The Minutemen met on the morning of the revolution in this tavern in Concord’s Main Street.
Another view of Main Street. The profusion of flags announces that Memorial Day is just around the corner.
No one could accuse the American Indians of being good negotiators.
A beautiful day in New England, enjoying the history of how the greatest nation there has ever been came into existence.