Each year at the time of the Massachusetts Patriots’ Day holiday, the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library is proud to display the Lexington Alarm letter—one of the documents used to notify the colonies south of Massachusetts that war had begun. The letter will be on view April 7-11 and April 14-26, 2025.

Couriers delivered the news of the conflict at Lexington throughout the colonies soon after the event. This alarm letter was written by Joseph Palmer, a member of the Committee of Safety in Watertown, a town near Lexington. Recipients duplicated Palmer’s letter several times to carry the news far and wide. Daniel Tyler, Jr. of Connecticut penned the museum’s copy of Palmer’s letter, probably on April 20, 1775. The original Alarm Letter written by Palmer at Watertown is thought to be lost.

Image courtesy of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

This event explores our region’s revolutionary past! Learn about Freedom’s Way 250 and discover the many ways the Heritage Area and its partners are commemorating and celebrating our nation’s semiquincentennial anniversary.