Excerpt from Of the Batlle at Lexington: On the Morning of the 19th April, 1775

The town of Lexington is about twelve miles north-west of Boston, and six miles south-east of Concord. It was originally a part of Cambridge, and, previous to its separation from that town, was called the Cambridge Farms. The act of incorporation bears date March 20, 1712. The inhabitants consist principally of hardy and independent yeomanry. In 1775, the list of enrolled militia bore the names of over one hundred citizens.

The road leading from Boston divides near the centre of the village in Lexington. The part leading to Concord passes to the left, and that leading to Bedford to the right of the meeting house, and form two Sides of a triangular green or common, on the south corner of which stands the meeting-house, facing directly down the road leading to Boston. The road is perfectly straight for about one hundred rods below the meeting-house, and nearly level. The common is a pleasant, level green, containing about two acres, surrounded by trees, having, on the left, a gently rising knoll, on which stands a menu ment, of granite, erected by the town in 1799, under the patronage and at the expense of the Commonwealth, and bears the names of those who fell the first victims to the sword of British aggression, on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775. The meeting-house, which was built in 1794, stands about twenty feet north of the ground, on which the former house stood. At the right of the meeting-house, and separated from it by the road leading to Bedford, stands the tavern house, late Buckman's, now Meriam's. On the north side of the green, in the rear of the meeting-house, at about twenty rods distant, are a number of buildings, standing nearly on a line, which forms the northern boundary of the common. North of these is a tract of low, swampy ground; behind which the land becomes hilly. The other grounds in the neighbourhood of the village are hilly and broken.

At a very early period of those controversies with the mother country, which preceded the revolutionary war, the inhabitants of Lexington took a firm and decided stand in favour of the rights and liberties of the province. On all questions, which agitated the publick mind, they unanimously acted with prompt ness and energy. Earnest in their professions of attachment to the common cause, they cheerfully made every sacrifice, which the common good required. Their pastor, the late Rev. Jonas Clark, had been their minister from the year 1755. His alli ance, by marriage, to the family of John Hancock* led to an intimacy between them, which subsisted as long as Gov. Han cock lived. To this circumstance may, in some measure, be at tributed the early participation, as well as the firm and spirited patriotism manifested by Mr. Clark, on all subjects connected with the liberty and independence of the country. Few men could appeal to the hearts or understandings of their hearers with better effect; and no clergyman did more to strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of his people. To a mind well endowed with practical knowledge, Mr. Clark joined an unusual share of well directed zeal, and an ardency Of character, which would have gained him distinction in a Sphere much more ele vated than the one, in which he was destined to move. His Spirited eloquence was employed, on all proper occasions, in rousing his hearers to a sense of the dangers, which threatened their liberties, and in urging them to the adoption of measures, which might either avert, or enable them to meet without dis may the impending crisis.

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