Following up the Charles River, about ten miles west of Boston is
Waltham, with twenty-two thousand people, noted for the works of the
American Waltham Watch Company, the largest in the world, producing
nearly six hundred thousand watches and movements in a year. The
extensive factory buildings spread along the river, and there are also
large cotton mills. General Nathaniel P. Banks was a native of
Waltham. To the northward and about twelve miles from Boston is the
quiet village of Lexington, chiefly built on one long tree-shaded
street, which terminates at its western end in a broad Green of about
two acres, whereon a plain monument recalls the eight Revolutionary
patriots killed there April 19, 1775. A handsome Memorial Hall of
brick is built on the Green to commemorate the Lexington soldiers who
fell in the Civil War. It also contains statues of John Hancock and
Samuel Adams, and of the "Minute Man of 1775" and the "Volunteer of
1861."
The British commander in Boston, having learnt that the Massachusetts
patriots had collected arms and military stores at Concord, about
twenty miles northwest of Boston, on the night of April 18, 1775,
despatched a force to destroy them, and incidentally to capture
Hancock and Adams, who were at Lexington. The roads leading westward
out of Boston were picketed to prevent news being carried of the
expedition, but the signals from the old Christ Church on Copp's Hill
enabled Paul Revere to start from Charlestown through Cambridge, and
he made his rapid horseback ride, arriving by midnight at Lexington.
The bells of the village churches rang out the alarm, signal-guns were
fired, and messengers were sent in every direction to arouse the
people. About five o'clock in the morning Major Pitcairn with six
British companies arrived at Lexington, where the patriots, numbering
about seventy, were drawn up in line on the Green. Pitcairn rode
forward and shouted "Disperse, ye rebels; throw down your arms and
disperse!" They held their ground, and a volley was fired over their
heads, when, not dispersing, a second volley was fired, killing eight
and wounding ten men, the first blood shed in the American Revolution.
The American commander, seeing resistance was useless, withdrew and
dispersed his little band, some, as they retired, discharging their
muskets at the British, three of the latter being wounded and
Pitcairn's horse struck. Then the British made a rapid movement to
Concord, and some of the military stores which had not been removed
were found and destroyed. Meanwhile about four hundred Minute Men
gathered near the North Bridge over Concord River, about a mile from
the Common, and under orders they attacked and drove away the British
infantry, who had been placed on guard there. As the morning advanced,
the whole country became aroused, and armed patriots assembled from
every direction, those of Lexington having rallied and placed
themselves along the Concord road. The British commander was greatly
alarmed and ordered a retreat. They marched back to Boston under a
rattling fire, every house, barn and stone wall being picketed by
patriot sharpshooters, so that the road was strewn with dead and dying
British. Passing through Lexington, the British met reinforcements,
but they were still pursued to Cambridge and Charlestown, the
slaughter only ceasing when they had got under protection of the guns
of the fleet. The British loss was about two hundred and seventy, and
the Americans lost one hundred. In Concord the British graves and the
battle monuments are on one side of the historic bridge, and on the
other is a fine bronze statue of the "Minute Man." This Concord fight
was the first organized attack made by the Americans upon the British
in the Revolution, thus beginning the patriot rebellion against
British rule, as the Minute Men were acting under authority of the
Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, assembled in Concord, and
protecting their military stores.
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world."
Concord has about six thousand people, and is also famous for its
literary history and associations. It is near the tranquil Concord
River and the junction of the little Assabet and Sudbury Rivers, a
pleasant tree-embowered quiet place of rural residence. Peter Bulkley,
an English rector, who was oppressed by Archbishop Laud, fled to New
England, and in 1636 buying of the Indians their domain of
Musketaquid, founded the town and church of Concord, thus naming it
because of its peaceful acquisition. In the nineteenth century it
became noted as the home of some of the greatest men of letters in
America. Near Concord bridge is an ancient gambrel-roofed house built
for Parson William Emerson in 1765, and from its windows he watched
the fight. This is the "Old Manse" in which Ralph Waldo Emerson,
himself once a clergyman, and descended from seven generations of
clergymen, was born in 1803. Emerson was known as the "Sage of
Concord," or, as Fredrika Bremer the novelist, who visited him there,
described him, the "Sphinx in Concord," and was the head of the modern
school of transcendental philosophy. He died in 1882. Nathaniel
Hawthorne lived for awhile in the "Old Manse" at Concord, and there
wrote his "Mosses from an Old Manse." The house was afterwards burnt.
Hawthorne died in 1864. Both Emerson and Hawthorne are buried in the
attractive little Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Emerson's grave being marked
by a large block of pink quartz. Henry D. Thoreau, the eccentric but
profound scholar and naturalist, in 1845 built himself a hut on the
shores of the sequestered Walden Pond near Concord, leading the life
of a recluse, raising a few vegetables, and now and then, to get a
little money, doing some work as carpenter or surveyor. He was
profoundly skilled in Oriental and classic literature, and was an
ardent naturalist, delighting in making long pedestrian excursions to
the forests, lakes and ocean shores of New England. He never voted,
nor paid a tax, nor entered a church for worship, and of himself he
said, "I am as unfit for any practical purpose as gossamer is for
ship-timber." Emerson tells us that "Thoreau dedicated his genius
with such entire love to the fields, hills and waters of his native
town, that he made them known and interesting to all; he grew to be
revered and admired by his townsmen, who had at first known him only
as an oddity." Dying in 1862, he, too, is buried in Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery. In the Orchard House in Concord lived the Alcotts, of whom
Louisa M. Alcott, author of _Little Women_, is so widely known.
Adjacent is the building used by the "Concord School of Philosophy,"
established in 1879 by A. Bronson Alcott. They also rest in the little
Cemetery. Thus is Concord famed, and it has well been said of this
historic old place that "it is dangerous to turn a corner suddenly for
fear of running over some first-class saint, philosopher or sage."