{"id":13023,"date":"2022-03-23T19:07:01","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T19:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freedomsway.org\/staging\/6553\/?post_type=place&p=13023"},"modified":"2024-07-08T13:46:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T13:46:11","slug":"lexington-revolutionary-war-monument","status":"publish","type":"place","link":"https:\/\/freedomsway.org\/staging\/6553\/place\/lexington-revolutionary-war-monument\/","title":{"rendered":"Lexington Revolutionary War Monument"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erected on July 4, 1799, Lexington<\/a>‘s<\/span> Revolutionary <\/span><\/span>War Monument is the oldest war memorial in the United States. Featuring <\/span>a granite obelisk set on a simple pedestal, it marks the approximate location of the line of the Lexington militia that stretched across the Green<\/a> to confront the British Regulars on April 19, 1775.<\/p>\n

Funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts following a petition to the General Court in 1797 by Joseph Simonds \u201cto preserve to posterity a record of the first effort made by the people of America for the establishment of their freedom and independence,\u201d [1]<\/sup><\/a> it was designed by Thomas Park, a highly skilled stone cutter at a cost of $400.00.<\/p>\n

Jonas Clarke, minister to Lexington from 1752 to 1805, composed the monument\u2019s inscription honoring the eight men who died on Lexington Green. \u00a0On April 20, 1835, the 60th anniversary of the Battles of Concord and Lexington, seven of the eight men honored on the monument were exhumed from Lexington\u2019s Old Burying Ground<\/a> and reinterred in a tomb beneath the monument in an elaborate ceremony with full military honors.<\/p>\n

As reported in the Boston Daily Advertiser<\/em> on the that same day, the ceremony began at 3AM, the time when British troops fired on the Lexington militia with an eight-gun salute, honoring the eight men who \u201cfirst fell as martyrs in the cause of civil liberty.\u201d At sunrise a thirteen-gun salute honored the Thirteen Colonies (later States) followed at eleven with a procession, accompanied with military escort to the burying ground to receive the remains of those killed on April 19, 1775.<\/p>\n

A service took place at the meeting house, then another procession made its way to the monument. In what the Advertiser<\/em> described as an \u2018interesting circumstance\u2019 connected with the rededication service, ten of the eleven survivors of the battle were in attendance. Despite inclement weather, the ceremony attracted a crowd of nearly one thousand people\u00a0who listened to a two-hour address, by the Honorable Edward Everett, in \u201cbreathless silence.\u201d At the time a new marble tablet was installed in the face of the monument as well as an iron fence which surrounds it to this day.<\/p>\n

The inscription reads:<\/p>\n

Sacred to Liberty & the Rights of mankind!!!<\/em>
\nThe Freedom & Independence of America,<\/em>
\nSealed & defended with the blood of her sons.<\/em><\/p>\n

This Monument is erected<\/em>
\nBy the inhabitants of Lexington,<\/em>
\nUnder the patronage & at the expence [sic] of<\/em>
\nThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts,<\/em>
\nTo the memory of their Fellow Citizens,<\/em>
\nEnsign <\/em>Robert Munroe, Mess. <\/em>Jonas Parker,
\nSamuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington Jun.
\nIsaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington and <\/em>John Brown
\nOf Lexington & <\/em>Asahel Porter of Woburn,<\/em>
\nWho fell on this field, the first Victims to the<\/em>
\nSword of British Tyranny & Oppression,<\/em>
\nOn the morning of the ever memorable<\/em>
\nNineteenth of April, An. Dom. 1775.<\/em>
\nThe Die was east!!!<\/em>
\nThe Blood of these Martyrs,<\/em>
\nIn the cause of God & their Country,<\/em>
\nWas the Cement of the Union of these States, then<\/em>
\nColonies; & gave the spring to the spirit. Firmness<\/em>
\nAnd resolution of their Fellow Citizens.<\/em>
\nThey rose as one man to revenge their brethren’s<\/em>
\nBlood and at the point of the sword to assert &<\/em>
\nDefend their native Rights.<\/em>
\nThey nobly dar’d to be free!!<\/em>
\nThe contest was long, blood & affecting<\/em>
\nRighteous Heaven approved the solemn appeal;<\/em>
\nVictory crowned their arms; and<\/em>
\nThe Peace, Liberty & Independence of the United<\/em>
\nStates of America, was their glorious Reward.
\n<\/em>Built in the year 1799.<\/em><\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington from its first settlement to 1868 \u00a0<\/em>(Revised and Continued to 1912 by the Lexington Historical Society). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913, vol. 1.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div> \n\t\t
\n\t\t\tThis story is featured in <\/em>How<\/span> We<\/span> Remember<\/span>: Monuments, Memorials & Markers in the Freedom\u2019s Way National Heritage Area<\/strong>, part of our semiquincentennial initiative, Freedom’s Way 250<\/a>, made possible with support from the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati and the National Park Service.<\/em>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erected on July 4, 1799, Lexington‘s Revolutionary War Monument is the oldest war memorial in the United States. 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