April 19, 2025 – Patriots Day and the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution
Hi all – its been a hot minute since I posted here. Nothing much super interesting has happened since my last post prior today (outside of my niece’s wedding – but that is her news to share 🙂
Every year in Massachusetts, the people of the Commonwealth and in particular Lexington and Concord commemorate the battles on Lexington Green and the Old North Bridge in Concord which kicked off what became the American Revolution (in the greater Colonial sense of Concord which was very large and incorporated many of the current towns, including where I grew up – Carlisle). The battles were on April 19th, 1775 and this year was the 250th anniversary and the towns really pulled out the stops for it.
https://www.carlisle250.org/tales-of-april-19th.html
This year, one of my university roommates (Eric Moeller) flew out from California to take part. Eric is a teacher in California and his son Lars and future daughter-in-law, Vik live locally in Arlington. Professional history teachers and enthusiasts.
We went to Lexington Green on Friday to visit Buckman tavern (which in typical local fashion, I had never visited before). We took the tour and heard the wonderful story that was new to me – apparently John Adams and John Hancock were staying at a house on the green owned by a relative of John Hancock. They were woken around 2 am by Paul Revere coming through and rousing the local militia under Captain John Parker – they were advised to leave Lexington. Several hours later Paul Revere had been captured and let loose without his horse to walk back to Boston. He arrived shortly before the British in Lexington and was dismayed to find that Adams and Hancock had not managed to get the act in gear and leave when he told them the first time. To make matters worse, they were in the carriage and about to leave with the British Regulars in sight when they remembered that they had left a chest of papers and notes about the Sons of Liberty inside Buckman Tavern (where it was close and useful for various planning sessions over dinner apparently). Revere and others were recruited and managed to run across the green to the carriage in full sight of the Regulars – who presumably were instead focused on the Militia gathered against them on the green. Whew!
Saturday we got up early at 4:15am local time, had a quick breakfast and drove up to the Carlisle middle school, parked the car and went to observe the mustering of the Carlisle Minutemen (ably led by Captain Scott Evans), the raising of the colors, the volley salute and some history lessons. Then the Minutemen and the rest of us (several, several hundreds towns people) marched up School street, through Estabrook Woods and finally to the Buttrick Mansion which is now a visitor center at the Old North Bridge in Concord. There we watched the various Militia and Minutemen Companies and other marchers attending, including the Concord-Carlisle high school band and the U-Mass Amherst University marching band. Some good speeches were presented by the Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy and others – they were 99% free of partisanship and were a good length – not too short and not too long. The raising of the flag at bridge was accompanied by a 21 gun artillery salute courtesy of the US Army and the Concord Independent Battery
We then followed the parade into Concord proper, got treated to the U-Mass Amherst Band really entertaining the whole town at the reviewing stand and made our way over to the Concord Museum for a shuttle ride to Minute Man Historic Park headquarters for a skirmish re-enactment of Parker’s Revenge. Parker’s Revenge is a little documented in literature re-engagement and clash between the Lexington Militia and the British Regulars. The US Park Service has been doing a lot of archeologic research this clash along the Battle Road is much better understood now (and it is right next to the Headquarters – fascinating tour if you happen to visit!). The skirmish re-enactment was huge, well done and very exciting. It was very hot on Saturday the 19th and we and the re-enactors were suffering at that point from the heat. The skirmish was supposed to go off at 1pm but didn’t kick off till around 2:30pm – I don’t know it but I suspect the heat was wearing on them. It was super fun. Unfortunately I had used up my battery on my camcorder at this point so was only able to capture about 1/4 of the skirmish on my iPhone. There were several, several (maybe a thousand) total participants and it was tremendous.
After the skirmish, we called it a day, waited in line for the shuttle back to Concord center and from there walked back to Carlisle via Estabrook Woods. We were so late at this point that we were literally the only people on the trail back and we remarked, that we 4 were 25% of the Carlisle Minutemen who were present that day in 1775. Sixteen Carlisle Minutemen answered the drum and horn call on the Carlisle common that day. I thought it was interesting and I hope it gave the Moeller’s a taste maybe of what it was like that day in a far less populated town.
Arriving foot sore and tired, we made it over to Kimball’s for a quick ice cream and said our goodbyes.
Below are some interesting links to websites, some photos and some video that I posted on Youtube. The video is the full raw footage – so you can get the true feeling of what it is like to participate in the walk.
Enjoy!
https://www.nps.gov/places/parker-s-revenge.htm
https://www.concordbattery.org/
https://carlisle.org/minutemen/index.htm
https://www.lexingtonhistory.org/buckman-tavern
https://www.youtube.com/@nickfohl6110