{"id":6755,"date":"2025-04-29T22:44:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T02:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/?p=6755"},"modified":"2025-04-29T22:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T02:44:07","slug":"revisiting-the-lexington-alarm-for-the-250th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/revisiting-the-lexington-alarm-for-the-250th\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the Lexington Alarm\u00a0for the 250th"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Rich Gillespie, Lovettsville Historical Society<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Rich giving his Lexington Alarm Lecture 4\/13\/2025<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Doing a presentation on \u201cThe Lexington Alarm Revisited\u201d back on Sunday, April 13th<\/sup> was a thrill for me. Fifty-two attendees came that day to the Lovettsville Historical Society\u2019s Second Sunday Lecture at St. James to learn of the opening moments of the Revolutionary War.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a topic I knew well from my first employment over fifty years ago as a Guide for the Town of Lexington on the Battle Green, and later as a docent at the Lexington Historical Society\u2019s Buckman Tavern where the Minutemen waited, and the Hancock-Clarke House where Paul Revere warned key Massachusetts leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock of the imminent danger.  \u201cThe regulars are out!\u201d  It\u2019s been a long time since those years of my first work in history, but my personal deep dive into the Lexington Alarm for our local program was indeed rewarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of my personal excitement was knowing I was about to return to Massachusetts for the 250th<\/sup> Anniversary of the shots that began the Revolution there on Lexington\u2019s historic Town Common.  I\u2019d done so fifty years ago for the Bicentennial with leave from Loudoun Valley High School, and again for the 225.  It was what a Lexingtonian born in the \u201cBirthplace of American Liberty\u201d does, a sort of homing instinct.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rich beneath “Parker’s Revenge”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

My first\u00a0goal\u00a0upon arrival\u00a0April 18th\u00a0was to visit the site of \u201cParker\u2019s Revenge,\u201d\u00a0a low bluff along the road between Lexington and Concord. \u00a0Here,\u00a0Lexington\u2019s militia company regrouped under their Captain, French & Indian War veteran John Parker,\u00a0to exact revenge upon the British Light Infantry and Grenadiers\u00a0who had killed\u00a0eight and wounded\u00a0nine\u00a0of their townsmen\u00a0on the Lexington Common.\u00a0\u00a0In high school\u00a0a\u00a0girlfriend and I used to sit on this 40-foot-high outcropping\u00a0to talk and dream.\u00a0Now I realize its prime location,\u00a0where the road doglegs and an unsuspected\u00a0musketry broadside was possible,\u00a0made it the perfect location to avenge the Lexington militia\u2019s earlier fate at the hands\u00a0of\u00a0the accursed Redcoats. \u00a0It\u00a0looks little different and\u00a0is still improperly marked,\u00a0given the arc of what happened here. \u00a0The British would remember the attack that came from this bluff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday night, April 18th<\/sup> was the 250th<\/sup> anniversary of Paul Revere\u2019s Ride.  My wife Tracy and I and old Lexington friends had to follow tradition to be where Revere (and later Samuel Dawes) stopped in town\u2014at the home of Parson Jonas Clarke, a Son of Liberty.  He was housing the two most famous Massachusetts Patriot leaders\u2014Sam Adams and John Hancock\u2013recently attending the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.  When Revere arrived, clattering up the street now named for Hancock, the thousand or so attendees waiting in the darkness went wild with a roar of approval!  The Ride of Paul Revere\u2019s current relevance to our modern times was certainly not lost on them any more than it was lost on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow back in 1861:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u200b\u200b\u200bA cry of DEFIANCE and not of FEAR,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a word that shall ECHO forevermore!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through our history, to the last,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the hour of DARKNESS and PERIL and NEED,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PEOPLE will awaken and listen to hear<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the midnight MESSAGE of PAUL REVERE.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Four hours of sleep later, we walked the darkened streets with hundreds of others (who had found coveted back street parking spots) towards Lexington Green, to be there for the dawn arrival of British troops.  Of course, to get anywhere where you could see, required an early arrival and a long wait, but the palpable electric buzz in the crowd made the wait worth it.  Dispatch riders from Buckman Tavern\u2014sent by the Lexington Minuteman commander Captain Parker\u2014were hailed by the crowd.  When they come screaming back with news that the \u201cRegulars\u201d were but a scant half mile down the road, Parker ordered a modern-day William Diamond to give the long roll of the drum and the small bell tower on a nearby hill sounded.  The excitement built even more among the thousands in attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Travis Shaw and Ian MacDougall<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

And then they <\/em>appeared\u2014scowling, erect by exhausted, in the famed brilliant (and occasionally faded) red coats.  Them.  <\/em>The scourge of American Liberty, the troops sent by King George III to corral and suppress us, hundreds and hundreds of marching British troops!  In their midst\u2014played by modern-day re-enactors\u2014were two of our local public historians, Travis Shaw of Hamilton and Ian MacDougall of Taylorstown, who work for the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area and have given lectures recently to the Lovettsville Historical Society.  As Ian later told me, \u201cThe feeling marching onto Lexington Green left a tingle I\u2019ll never forget and a tear in the eye.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crowd did not make so much as a peep. \u00a0Soon you could hear the screaming British commander\u2014it was British Marine Major John Pitcairn that day with several other mounted junior officers\u2014\u201cDisperse ye damned rebels, ye scoundrels, and LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS!!\u201d \u00a0As that day, the Lexington militia company\u00a0appeared quite\u00a0perplexed as to what they should do. \u00a0They were an \u201carmy of observation,\u201d essentially, there to let the British know of their inherent dislike of what the British were up to\u00a0in\u00a0marching to Concord to steal Massachusetts military stores,\u00a0and\u00a0then after,\u00a0they\u2019d spiritedly pass on the intelligence gained by back roads,\u00a0ahead of the British. \u00a0They largely owned their own weapons, and weren\u2019t about to let the British take them. \u00a0Capt. Parker,\u00a0now as then,\u00a0ordered his men to disperse to avoid bloodshed, and some of them began to uneasily do so. \u00a0But a shot rang out\u2014a mounted British officer\u2019s pistol shot? \u00a0An arriving militiaman\u2019s warning shot?\u2014and it was followed by a number of shots by British soldiers and then a series of thundering volleys aimed at the small, dispersing company of Lexington militia. \u00a0The roar of voices, the mystery of\u00a0gun smoke\u00a0from massed weaponry,\u00a0cloaking what had just occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\u00a0then\u00a0the Lexington men were falling all over, running for cover to return a few later-coveted\u00a0scattered\u00a0shots.\u00a0The crowd was now, as the dozens of spectators that April 1775 morning,\u00a0in shock. \u00a0<\/em>\u00a0The British went after anyone they could find, shooting and bayoneting. \u00a0Truly the \u201cBloody Butchery of the British Troops!\u201d \u00a0Their officers were\u00a0now\u00a0clearly trying to regain control, but the minutes ticked by until the arrival of the expedition leader, a modern-day re-enactor portraying Lt. Col. Francis Smith. \u00a0The Regulars\u00a0regained formation, volleyed in victory followed by boisterous\u00a0victory\u00a0huzzahs, and then as the still-silent crowd watched, \u201cmarched\u00a0haughtily\u00a0on to Concord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rich at Memorial to the Battle of Lexington<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Loudspeakers around the common then shared\u2014with large screens so that all could see\u2014the roster of the dead, the cameras zeroing in on the crumpled form\u00a0of each slain man\u00a0lying on the common. \u00a0It was incredibly moving. \u00a0And then Rev. Jonas Clarke preached over the dead,\u00a0as he did in the no-longer-standing meetinghouse that then stood on the Green. \u00a0He, chaplain of Captain Parker\u2019s company, with sobbing widows and children looking on. \u00a0He who had housed Hancock and Adams. \u00a0He who would pen \u201cThey nobly\u00a0dar\u2019d\u00a0to be FREE!!\u201d on the first monument to be\u00a0erected to the American Revolution, twenty-four years later in 1799. \u00a0My wife and I then realized that as Rev. Clarke had moved that congregation, he strove now to move\u00a0us\u2014<\/em>that the\u00a0\u201c250\u201d\u00a0needed to be more than just a re-enactment. \u00a0It was a time to remember AMERICA\u00a0and just what it was about.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rich, Ian, Travis, and Tracy at Lexington Green<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

As the crowd broke up, I walked to the monument with Clarke\u2019s still-moving words and felt the catch in my throat as his parishioners must have. \u00a0On the way, a chance encounter: \u00a0two familiar looking British soldiers: \u00a0Travis and Ian from the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area,\u00a0today of the 40th<\/sup>\u00a0Regiment of Foot,\u00a0glad\u00a0in their red coasts\u00a0to see a friendly face. \u00a0We posed for pictures, jubilant in\u00a0what we all had just experienced. \u00a0Travis and Ian had more re-enacting to do on the Battle Road;\u00a0my wife, friends,\u00a0and I hiked over to\u00a0\u2018Ye Olde Burying Ground.\u2019\u00a0There, a simple slate marker still shows where the eight fallen Minutemen were hastily buried\u00a0before Capt. Parker\u2019s Company marched on for its revenge. \u00a0The grave was covered with brush lest the British discover it and bring the bodies back to Boston for exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Exhausted British solders on Battle Road near Parker’s revenge. Ian Mac Dougall is on the left.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

We\u2019d been up for hours, worked up a fierce appetite, and so adjourned for an old Lexington tradition\u2014a pancake breakfast and gallons of hot coffee.  We\u2019d learned the crucial skinny that morning\u2014”the Baptists here have the best pancakes\u2014and they <\/em>have sausages!\u201d  So there we went, conversing with new friends over breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rich and high school friend Jack McNicholas at Buckman Tavern<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

What of Concord, you may ask? \u00a0Evidently, they did some commemorating, too, especially at Old North Bridge. Passage there at this hour was impossible.\u00a0\u00a0But then, Concord?! \u00a0Did it matter?<\/em>\u00a0Lexingtonians and\u00a0Concordians have been fighting over\u00a0who had\u00a0what Ralph Waldo Emerson would later call \u201cThe Shot Heard \u2018Round the World\u201d since 1824.\u00a0\u00a0You go to one or the other on Patriot\u2019s Day.\u00a0\u00a0I\u00a0do\u00a0know this: \u00a0on old gravestones miles and miles from Lexington\u00a0Green\u00a0even if in different states,\u00a0you will see colonials who had responded to the news of what had happened\u00a0that day, and it was important to\u00a0them\u00a0<\/em>that years later their gravestone would tell their\u00a0true\u00a0legacy\u2014\u201cRESPONDED TO THE LEXINGTON ALARM, 1775.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rich at Lexington 250 sign<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I was excited to learn upon my return to Virginia that back home in Lovettsville, many had participated on the night of April 18-19, hanging \u201ctwo lights\u201d in steeples, public buildings, and homes.  We have not forgotten, not Paul Revere and his lanterns, not his warning, not the Lexington Alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rich Gillespie, Lovettsville Historical Society Doing a presentation on \u201cThe Lexington Alarm Revisited\u201d back on Sunday, April 13th was a thrill for me. Fifty-two attendees came that day to the Lovettsville Historical Society\u2019s Second Sunday…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,89],"tags":[259,255],"class_list":["post-6755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","category-revolutionary-war","tag-259","tag-lexington-alarm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6755"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6766,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755\/revisions\/6766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}