Lexington

a town of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, about twelve miles northwest of Boston. It was settled in 1642. It was noted as the scene of the first bloodshed between the colonists and the British troops at the opening of the Revolutionary War. A force sent out by General Gage to capture and destroy military stores attacked the American militia on Lexington Common April 19, 1775. Men fell on both sides. The loss of the British during the retreat that followed was considerable. Lexington is still a prosperous agricultural town of about 4,000 people. The triangular village green is still open. The old Buckman Tavern has been converted into a dwelling house. The Clark parsonage, in which Hancock and Sam Adams slept the night before the battle, has been moved from its original site, but it still stands. The bones of those who fell on the green have been reinterred in a mahogany sarcophagus and placed in a stone vault. A quaint old monument now mantled in ivy bears a long inscription written by the pastor, Jonas Clark. It is inscribed in hourglass fashion, giving the names of those who fell, and is punctuated by such sentences as, "The die was cast," "They nobly dared to be free." In Memorial Hall, as a part of the Town House is called, there is a collection of Revolutionary relics. There are statues of John Hancock and Adams. Tablets give the names of the Lexington men who fell in battle. A modern tablet gives the names of twenty Lexington men who fell in the Civil War. It bears the inscription, "The sons defended what the fathers won." There are several cases of relics. Major Pitcairn's pistols, captured during the retreat, are kept here, as well as quite a collection of old flint muskets. See Revere; Concord