Lexington, Massachusetts

“ The leading industries are farming and dairying, and the manufacture of leather binding. Population, in 1890, 3197; in 1900, 3831. Settled in 1640, Lexington was a part of Cambridge and was known as ‘Cambridge Farms’ until 1691, when it was made into a separate precinct, and given its present name from Lord Lexington. ”

“ It is traversed by the Boston & Maine railroad and by the Lowell & Boston electric railway. Its area is about 17 sq. m., and it contains three villages—Lexington, East Lexington and North Lexington. Agriculture is virtually the only industry. ”

“ It has no manufactures of any sort, neither shoes nor cotton, nor boxes, nor barrels, nor watches, nor furniture; it is still a farming-town, such as you find in the Massachusetts or New Hampshire hills, and is not yet a market-gardening town like those which lie nearer the city. ”

“ She must efface Lexington and Bunker Hill from her memory, and tear the old rock of Plymouth out from her bosom. These are prejudices which Massachusetts will not conquer, till the ocean ceases to wash her shore, and granite to harden her hills. Massachusetts has conquered a good many things, as Mr. Webster tells us. I think there are several other things we shall try our hand upon, before we conquer our prejudice in favor of the unalienable rights of man. ”

“ Massachusetts Bay was thronged with troop-ships and frigates, and the colonies were writhing under a series of unjust and oppressive laws.
It was at this time that the four boys who play the leading parts in the story began their experiences. Historical events that led up to the war for independence are met with in every chapter; the great personages of the time figure upon almost every page. From the meeting of the first Congress at Carpenter’s Hall to the stand of the minutemen at Lexington and Concord Bridge, every important step in the movement for national life is touched on. ”

“ To the people of Massachusetts there came an instant demand, imperative as the question of life or death, to fight out the issue, even if alone and single-handed, against the oppressor. Without waiting for reports from distant colonies as to the effect of the skirmish at Lexington and the more instructive and stimulating experience at Breed's Hill, the penned the British in Boston and determined to drive them from the land. ”

“ He was made governor of Montreal, and promoted major-general in 1761, and in 1763 succeeded Amherst in the command of the British forces in America; in 1770 he was made a lieutenant-general. In 1774 he was appointed governor of Massachusetts, and in that capacity was entrusted with carrying into effect the Boston Port Act. The difficulties which surrounded him in the execution of his office at this time of the gravest unrest culminated in 1775, and the action of the 19th of April at Lexington initiated the American War of Independence. ”

“ When the advance of the British column reached Lexington in the early morning it was opposed by about 70 militiamen, who had formed on the town common, under command of Capt. John Parker. The British were commanded by Major Pitcairn, who, on observing the preparations made to resist his progress, halted his men to load, and then advanced at double-quick, he himself riding in front and ordering the Americans to lay down their arms and retire. As the militia held their ground. ”

“ In October, 1774, the General Court resolved itself into a Provincial Congress and proceeded to erect an independent State government. The organization of a militia and the storing of supplies led to Lexington and Concord. (For military operations during the Revolution, see United States.) In the war Massachusetts took the leading part, though her population was by no means united in the cause of the Revolution. Among the Loyalists who were banished or who voluntarily abandoned their homes were many of the most prominent and wealthy families. ”

“ President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain for ever. ”

“ Next month the people of Massachusetts formed a provisional government, and began organizing a militia and collecting military stores at Concord and other inland towns.
Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775.
General Gage's position at this time was a trying one for a man of his temperament. In an unguarded moment he had assured the king that four regiments ought to be enough to bring Massachusetts into an attitude of penitence. Now Massachusetts was in an attitude of rebellion, and he realized that he had not troops enough to command the situation. ”

“ Would to God that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt [Pg 144] his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation, and distrust are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.
THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON From an engraving. By permission of Mr. O. G. Seeley
Defence of Massachusetts. ”

“ The Congress of this country ordered its preparation, at immense expense, that you and people like you might be able to study, in detail, the early history in the original documents, which are reprinted there. In that book you will find the original accounts of the battle as they were published in the next issues of the Massachusetts newspapers. You will find the official reports written home by the English officers. You will find the accounts published by order of the Provincial Congress. When you have read these, you begin to know something about the battle of Lexington. ”

“ The Freedom and Independence of America—sealed and defended with the blood of her sons—This Monument is erected by the Inhabitants of Lexington, under the patronage and at the expense of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to the memory of their Fellow-citizens, Ensign Robert Monroe, Messrs. Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Junr., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, of Lexington, and Asahel Porter, of Woburn, who fell on this Field, the first victims of the Sword of British Tyranny and Oppression, on the morning of the ever-memorable Nineteenth of April, An. ”

“ Lexington is commercially important as the market for the ‘blue grass’ district, and is well known also for the manufacture of Bourbon whisky. The manufactures include also flour, saddlery and harness, carriages and wagons, canned goods, and planing-mill, foundry, and machine-shop products. The government is administered under a charter of 1894, by a mayor, elected every four years, a bicameral council, and subordinate officials, the majority of whom are chosen by the people. ”

“ Holmes has remarked, American cities and villages all like to think of themselves as the “good old” this and that; but at Lexington more than anywhere else out of Italy I felt that the village was to its people the patria. With us the great Republic is repeated and multiplied in several smaller and diminishing republican governments, each subordinate to the larger, all over the land; and ever since its separation from Cambridge, Lexington has, like other New England towns, had its little autonomy. Twice a year the citizens convene and legislate in town meetings ”

“ THE citizens of Lexington, the Birthplace of American Liberty, realizing they are custodians of America’s greatest shrine, extend a welcome to EVERYONE, not only on the 19th of April and Pageant Week, June 15th to 20th, 1925, BUT EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, to visit our battlefield, the historic buildings, and at all times to feel at home. This historic spot belongs to the Nation, and we want all Americans to feel they are part owners so that on leaving the town they may have a better realization of the struggles made by our forefathers and become better and more patriotic citizens. ”

“ House rent is certainly less, but the railroad fares and the expressman's charges go far to equalize that with the city rate; about Boston the suburban taxes are sometimes greater than the city taxes; provisions and service are a little costlier, and unless one conforms quite strictly to the local standard of simplicity, one is apt to live quite as expensively as in town. It would cost as much to live with the same ease in Lexington as in Boston ”

“ Nature has done much to make it a paradise; art very little. The farm-houses are in the Kentucky style,—piazzas, great chimneys outside, negro cabins,—presenting at one view and in close contrast the extremes of wealth and poverty, power and weakness, civilization and barbarism, freedom and slavery.
The city of Lexington is a place of the past. Before railroads were projected, when Henry Clay was in the prime of manhood there, it was a place of enterprise and activity. The streets were alive with men. It was the great political and social centre of Central Kentucky. ”

“ At the last, she stands above the Chronicler’s throne and, on either side of her, two youths kneel, who have followed her down from the Choir. When she has come to the bottom of the slope and when the darkness has taken all else but her figure, she turns her back upon the audience and her hands go out as though she evoked one further image out of the past. We see it, as light scatters the darkness above her—the Common of Lexington in the cold dawn of the Glorious Morning and the line of Minute Men drawn up across it. ”

“ Lexington is really nothing more than a great big country town, but we love it. I reached the suburbs in half an hour, then took the pike, and walked briskly. The day had been like one huge bloom of some tropical orchid. Contrasted with the biting winter only a few weeks back, it was something to exult the heart and uplift the soul. Rain had fallen the night before. Day came with a world-wide flare of yellow sunshine; her dress a tempered breeze. By noon a coat was uncomfortable, and the air was full of music; the droning, charming, ceaseless litany of the bees. ”

“ It is worst, of course, on the shore, and delicate people who cannot live in it there are sent to Lexington, and thrive. The air is very dry and pure, and that is perhaps the reason why even the east wind is tolerable. Lexington Common, they say, is as high as the top of Bunker Hill Monument in Boston; and the locomotive pants with difficulty up the heavy grade of the road near the village. Perhaps there is something in the grouping of the low hills — in the embrace of which the village lies on an ample plain — that gives it peculiar shelter ”

“ This alone is enough to keep the men of her family busy, and to prevent the commonwealth from lapsing into decay; the civic virtues fall naturally to the care of the trained patriots who are “inside politics” . . .
I perceive too late that by an infrangible chain of reasoning I have been proving that we too are governed and refined by a leisure class, and that there is only the trifling difference of sex between the American and the European aristocracies. At the same time I have got rather far away from Lexington, where life seemed to be still very unambitious and old-fashioned. ”

“ I was very glad that the Lexington people gave the singing and playing family a good house, and I fancy that they do not refuse any fit occasions for amusing themselves. The young men seem not to go away from home so generally as they do from most country towns in New England; it is perhaps because their pleasant village is so near the city; at any rate they remain at home even after being graduated at Harvard. They have sleigh-rides, and dances at the Town Hall during the winter; I was told that the Lexington “germans” are not despised by the undergraduates of Cambridge ”

“ Born of an old and distinguished Philadelphia family, so proud of its name that in his instance they had doubled it, the usual bluntness and roughness of the sea were tempered by this gentle birth and breeding, and by frequent attrition with men and women of the politest society of the largest and most important city of the colonies. Offering his services as soon as the news of Lexington precipitated the conflict with the mother country, he had already made his name known among that gallant band of seamen among whom Jones, Biddle, Dale, and Conyngham were pre-eminent. ”

“ The ladies used to bring out their sewing or knitting, and chat round the fire; the men had their newspapers and cigars; as the evening wore on there was whist or euchre at the tables; sometimes people from the outside world dropped in; and if you went down late (as hours go with us in the country) , you were likely to find the landlord and his brother smoking before the fire and telling stories of Lexington as they remembered it when boys. ”

“ The Michler Bros., two very enterprising young men, whom I met at a later day, are likewise successful in both their nursery and florist business.
Lexington, unlike many other Southern cities of its size, shows a remarkable growth and commercial development since my first visit in the Autumn of 1889. Among other things, Lexington is famous for its swift horses and beautiful women; and any traveling man who, like myself, has visited Lexington time and again, can well attest to the deservedness of its fame. ”

“ Take our own little city of Lexington where some 17,000 of them are congregated, living in discomfort and poverty in most cases; yet their nature is to depend in some fashion upon their white neighbors and employers. ”