April 19, 1775, marked the first battle of the American Revolution. On that day, 700 British soldiers marched from Boston to Concord to seize a stockpile of military arms and supplies. The expedition caused patriot leaders to raise the alarm and muster the militia. The scale of the response is truly staggering and hints at a surprising amount of organization.
When did the American Revolution begin? At the North Bridge on April 19, 1775, with “the shot heard round the world”? In Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, with the Declaration of Independence? John Adams thought the Revolution was over by the time the first guns were fired. It “was effected in the minds and hearts of the people.”
Arguably, that crucial turning-point occurred in Concord two hundred fifty years ago, when on October 11, 1774, delegates from all over Massachusetts, roughly 243 representatives from close to 200 towns, including the District of Maine, gathered in the Congregational meetinghouse (now First Parish) to deal with “the dangerous and alarming situation of public affairs” touched off by Britain’s harsh reaction to the Boston Tea Party.
Isabel Bliss hurried her three children, aged four through seven, off to bed on the night of March 20, 1775. The two men who had come to her door looked like local farmers seeking counsel from her husband, lawyer Daniel Bliss. They wore the homespun coats of plain country folk, but the muskets they carried told a different story.
As the men huddled with Daniel in the parlor, talking in whispers, Isabel was startled by another knock at the door. She opened it cautiously and was relieved to see the familiar face of a neighbor. The woman was out of breath, and tears stained her cheeks. She begged Isabel to forgive her, because she had given the two strangers directions to the Bliss home without knowing who they were.
On Monday, September 2, 2024 (Labor Day), Lafayette reenactor Benjamin J. Goldman will come to First Parish in Concord, commemorating the day and site where the town gave the French general a hero’s welcome two hundred years ago. The public is warmly invited to assemble on the lawn of First Parish to watch a reenactment of Lafayette’s visit to Concord at 3:00 this Labor Day.
As hostilities grew between Massachusetts and the English government in the 1770s, popular opinion was divided. Concord’s “patriot preacher,” Rev. William Emerson, spoke out for liberty and served as chaplain for Concord’s Minutemen. Meanwhile, his brother-in-law, lawyer Daniel Bliss, remained loyal to the King, and would be forced to flee for his life to Canada when war erupted in 1775.
With the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Great Britain was now in control of North America: the 13 British colonies along the seaboard were safe and sound from their enemies, while all French territory east of the Mississippi, as well as Spanish Florida, now belonged to King George III. For the first time since 1701, Great Britain was at peace. But the empire was also broke.
Each year in April, scores of marchers, many dressed in colonial garb, make their way on foot from several towns in central Massachusetts to the Old North Bridge in Concord. These men, women, and children walk in the footsteps of the American colonists who made this journey on the same morning in April over two centuries ago.
Each year in Concord, Lexington, and other nearby towns, thousands of people
from around the world gather to commemorate the events that led to the American Revolution.
Here are a few of the highlights of this year’s events.
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