Lexington
Lexington (Massachusetts), town, Middlesex County, eastern Massachusetts; incorporated 1713. It is primarily a residential suburb, located northwest of Boston. Of interest are the American Revolution battle site and monument (1799) on the town green; numerous historical buildings, including several dating from the 1690s; the Museum of Our National Heritage, with library and archive; and Minute Man National Historical Park (which also includes areas in Concord and Lincoln).
statue at the bridge in Concord
Minute Man National Historical Park
The community was settled about 1640. The first skirmish of the American Revolution took place at Lexington, on April 19, 1775. A British force of about 800, marching from Boston to seize colonial arms at Concord, was met here by about 70 minutemen, who had been alerted to their approach by the American patriot Paul Revere. Shooting broke out, and eight minutemen were killed, including the commander, Captain John Parker.
marker at the grave of an English soldier
In 1839 the first public normal (teacher training) school in the U.S. was opened in Lexington; it later became Framingham State College (located in Framingham, Massachusetts). The town is named for Lexington (since renamed Laxton) in England. Population 29,479 (1980); 28,974 (1990); 28,974 (1996 estimate).
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Concord
Alcott home
Concord (Massachusetts), town, Middlesex County, eastern Massachusetts, on the Concord River, near Boston; incorporated 1635. It is a residential and industrial center; manufactures include electronic equipment and metal products. Among the points of interest are Minute Man National Historical Park, site of the first military encounter of the American Revolution; The Wayside, home of the writers Amos Bronson Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne; and The Old Manse, built in 1770, the boyhood home of the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Located nearby is Walden Pond, where essayist Henry David Thoreau lived in solitude from 1845 to 1847.
Orchard House
Settled in 1635, the community was named Concord because of the peaceable manner in which the site was acquired from the Native Americans. In 1774 aspects of British colonial rule were protested here at the first county convention of Massachusetts and at the first Massachusetts Provincial Congress, which was presided over by the American statesman John Hancock.
as seen from the rear
On April 19, 1775, the Battle of Concord, a skirmish between British troops and minutemen, began the military phase of the revolutionary era.
back building
(used as study and meeting room)
During the 19th century the town was a noted literary and cultural center; besides Emerson and Hawthorne, the writer Henry David Thoreau, the sculptor Daniel Chester French, and the novelist Louisa May Alcott (daughter of A. B. Alcott) lived and worked in Concord. In about 1850 Ephraim W. Bull developed here the Concord grape, which became a leading U.S. commercial table grape.
Population 16,293 (1980); 17,076 (1990).
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the 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Cambridge (Massachusetts), city and a seat (with Lowell) of Middlesex County, northeastern Massachusetts, on the Charles River, opposite Boston. Cambridge is a noted educational and research center; it is the seat of Harvard University (1636), the first college in North America, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1861), Radcliffe College (1879), and Lesley College (1909). Its printing and publishing industry dates from 1638, when the first printing press in America was established here. Rubber goods, electronic equipment, scientific instruments, candy, and meat products also are manufactured.
home of the 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The city's historic structures include the house George Washington used as headquarters after assuming command of the Continental Army here in 1775; it later became the home of the 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Among the many other notable 19th-century people who lived in Cambridge were the author-physician Oliver Wendell Holmes and the poet-diplomat James Russell Lowell.
another view of the Longfellow home
Other points of interest are Harvard Square; the eight museums administered by Harvard University, housing one of the finest university art collections in the world; the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, specializing in American women's history, and housing papers of Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Earhart, and others; Christ Church and the Old Burying Ground; and Harvard's Widener Library, which displays a Gutenberg Bible.
Longfellow home from the rear
Founded as New Towne in 1630, the city was the
capital of Massachusetts Bay Colony until 1634. It was renamed in 1638 for
Cambridge, England, and incorporated as a city in 1846. Completion in 1912 of a
subway connection to Boston facilitated industrial growth. Population 95,322
(1980); 95,802 (1990); 93,352 (1998 estimate).
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Longfellow's Study
Monument to him in the park across the street along the Charles river
Other stately homes in Cambridge
