The British are Coming! - Minute Man National Historical Park, Concord, MA

 

Day three in Massachusetts with Part 2 of 3 blogs for the day and more history from the place where the Revolutionary War began!

(Click on Picture to enlarge)

 Minute Man National Historical Park has many historic homes and sites in multiple sections along a very busy road in Concord, Massachusetts.

One of my stops was at the house site of Ebenezer Fiske. The House site is right off the road.

 

Above it was Fiske Hill which of course I wanted to go to the top. However, I did not see the trailhead and ended up taking the “Battle Road” for a short distance.

I ended up back at the road, crossed the road and found another trail on the other side. I started back toward the home site and began to think there was no trail to the top when almost out I came across the path that lead me to the top.

There were no views; however an open field near the top did give me a look at this guy!

I returned to my wife at the car and headed back the way we came in. Right off the road is another landmark - the Paul Revere capture site.

There was another section of Minuteman to explore but I wanted to take a short detour to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery down the road.

We did not have a lot of time so I was pleased to see that they made it easy on me to find the main graves I had wanted to visit.

It was a short climb up to Authors Ridge where I found my first author:

Henry David Thoreau

12 Jul 1817 – 6 May 1862

I wished that I had know of this tradition of placing pens at the gravesite. I was sadly unprepared! Next up:

Nathaniel Hawthorne

4 Jul 1804 – 19 May 1864

The next author my wife was more familiar with:

Louisa M. Alcott

4 Nov 1832 - 6 Mar 1888

And finally, the man who’s land I had tread on earlier in the day:

Ralph Waldo Emerson

25 May 1803 – 27 Apr 1882

We ended our day with a return to Minuteman National Historical Park and the place where it all began - “The Shot Heard Round The World”

Across this bridge, was where the first shot of the Revolutionary War began.

To stand in this place and imagine... this was not a well trained army; no, this was mostly farmers that at the time were defending their land and country. There was no thought of making history, no thought of fame, and certainly no social media spotlight! Thus began a bloody war that birthed a country. It was fought by immigrants, white, black, Hispanic, native peoples and people that came here from many countries. What an honor to stand in this place!

Speaking of places, from here we drove to Salem, Massachusetts to spend a couple nights at this lovely AIRBNB