The Battle of Lexington and Concord took form before dawn on April 19, 1775. Having received word that the regular army had left Boston in force to seize and destroy military supplies in Concord, several dozen militiamen gathered on the town common, and then eventually went to the tavern to await the arrival of the British troops. Definite word reached them just before sunrise, and Captain Parker's company of militia left the tavern to assemble in two ranks on the common. Following the arrival of the army, a single shot was fired; by whom, it is still unknown. With this shot, the American Revolutionary War began.[5][6]
Although best known as the headquarters of the militia, Buckman Tavern is also noteworthy as perhaps the busiest of Lexington's 18th-century taverns. It housed the first village store in Lexington, and later, in 1813, the first town post office.
A large force of British troops arrived at Lexington before dawn the next morning, and shots were exchanged on the town common, beginning the Battles of Lexington and Concord. That afternoon the tavern served as the headquarters for Col. Hugh, Earl Percy, and his one thousand reinforcements. The British occupied the tavern for one and one-half hours, during which time the dining room was converted into a field hospital for the wounded, while exhausted British troops consumed liberal quantities of food and drink, compelling John Raymond, a lame private in Parker's company of minutemen who had fought against the soldiers earlier, to serve as their bartender. When Raymond attempted to escape through the door, the drunken soldiers shot and killed him.
President George Washington dined at the Munroe Tavern when he visited the Lexington battlefield in 1789. An upstairs room now contains the table and chair at which he sat and documents relating to his trip.
On April 19, 1775, the house and its surrounding yard was the site of the bloodiest conflict of the first battle in the Revolutionary War, resulting in more colonial troop deaths than anywhere else along the battle road. As British troops marched back towards Boston, heavy fighting occurred along their route through Arlington (then Menotomy). Brigadier-General Hugh Percy gave orders to clear every dwelling to eliminate snipers, and houses along the way were ransacked and set afire by the retreating British. The running battle continued to Jason Russell's house, where Russell was joined by men from Beverly, Danvers, Lynn, Salem, Dedham, and Needham at his house.
The battle at the Jason Russell House occurred late in the day, around five PM. Light infantry and grenadiers from the detachment which engaged earlier at Lexington and Concord marched toward Boston along the Concord Road. They had been met earlier in Lexington by a brigade led by Lord Percy that brought up the rear and provided strong flanking parties. The Americans kept up incessant fire from behind stone walls and other places of shelter as the British retreated.
These skirmishes erupted into a full-fledged battle at the Jason Russell House. A company of minute-men under the command of Gen. Gideon Foster, along with several other companies of minute-men and militia, had left Danvers earlier. All reached Menotomy before the British. Many of them went into a walled enclosure near the Jason Russell House where they planned to intercept the retreating soldiers.Despite being warned to watch for a flank-guard, by Israel Hutchinson, one of their company captains, they focused on the main body of British as it passed. When the party flanking the Concord Road to the south surprised them, the Americans fled to the Jason Russell House.
Russell was outside his house and joined his fellow minute-men as they fled toward it. Being old and slow, he was in the rear and was shot twice as he reached his own doorway and then stabbed eleven times with bayonets. The British then rushed into the house and engaged its occupants, prompting the minutemen to find shelter. Eight minute-men made it to the basement and fire up the stairs. When Jason's wife returned, she found her husband and all of the dead laid side by side in the kitchen. The house itself was riddled with bullet holes, many of them still visible. The blood stains on the floor were still visible when it was replaced in 1863.
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