I visited my friend Wei in Lexington, MA, and we visited some of the historic sites in Lexington and Concord.
In 1775, Britain considered Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and on the night of 1775 April 18, British troops marched out of Boston to seize a reported colonial arsenal in Concord. As they passed through Lexington around sunrise on the 19th, they found American militiamen assembled on Lexington Green, led by Captain John Parker. The British tried to disarm them, and in the rush and confusion, each side fired - the first shots of the American Revolution.
We visited Buckman Tavern, where Parker’s militia was before the British arrived, and Lexington Green nearby. The pictures are Captain Parker’s statue on the Green, and a monument marking one end of Captain Parker’s line.
Parker’s militia fell back, and the British continued to Concord. When the British arrived, Concord’s militia was assembled on a ridge outside of town, but marched toward town when they saw smoke rising from it. The encountered British forces holding the North Bridge and drove them off, killing several. The picture shows the reconstructed North Bridge.
Afterwards the British marched back toward Boston, harried by colonial fire the whole way. The American Siege of Boston, the "opening phase of the American Revolutionary War," started the same day.
We also visited Walden Pond, near Concord, where Henry David Thoreau famously spent two years living alone on a "voyage of spiritual discovery." The pictures show the lake, the site of Thoreau’s cabin, and a model of the cabin nearby.
We also visited Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott’s graves at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery nearby.
