Pilgrimage to Lexington and Concord Aug 14th-18th 2025

[Mechanic]

  I have been involved with Appleseed for several years, and despite what others have told me, I always felt history was my weakest point.  This fall I'd like to actually go to Middlesex county, visit the museums, walk battle road and stand on the North Bridge.  Upacreek has generously agreed to be my tour guide since she is originally from that part of the world.  She has mentioned a few times the culture is slightly different.  I have scheduled vacation from work around the August 16-17th shoot in Leyden, MA and I'd like to spend 5-6 days in the area to get a better feel of how this whole thing got started.  We are going to have two extra car seats if any other instructors from the south would be interested in joining us.  We could get a whole caravan together if there is enough interest.  Both of us have some flexibility on the exact departure and return dates.

  I'm also going to need a dog sitter for an extremely kind, well behaved German Shepard, if anyone could recommend someone in the Atlanta area.

[BluegrassColonel]

Please put me on your list for possibly joining your trip.  My e-mail address is appleseedtn@gmail.com.

I hope you don't mind if I share what I have learned visiting the Boston area a couple times.

I highly recommend a trip to Battle Road and Independence Trail for AS volunteers.  I think that 2 days is probably the minimum amount of time to tour Battle Road, especially if you want to tour buildings.  Additional days would be better.

Independence Trail can be done in a day if one starts early and does not linger long at any of the attractions along the way.  I personally would recommend 2 days to absorb all of the information along the trail.  There is tour information and a map available at the visitor's center on Boston Common.

Boston's Freedom Trail:
Boston Common
Massachusetts State House
Park Street Church
Granary Burying Ground  (graves of John Hancock, Paul Revere, James Otis, Samuel Adams, a grave marker for the victims of the Boston Massacre, and Elizabeth "Mother" Goose.)
King's Chapel
King's Chapel Burying Ground  (graves of John Winthrop, Massachusetts' first Governor, and Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off the Mayflower, William Dawes, Jr., and several participants in the Boston Tea Party)
Boston Latin School
Old Corner Bookstore
Old South Meeting House (where the Boston Tea Party started and several events of the War of Independence. It is now a museum and has a lot of information including a diorama of Boston in the  1770's.)
Old State House  (It is a museum with a lot of items.)
Boston Massacre site  (Just outside the Old State House)
Faneuil Hall  (Site of America's first town meeting, and protests against the Stamp Act & Sugar Act)
Paul Revere House  (Fascinating place.  Across the street is a huge plaque that states that Major John Pitcairn lived in the neighborhood)
Old North Church
Copp's Hill Burying Ground  (Graves of several patriots including Old North Church sexton Robert Newman.  It was one place where the British placed cannon to shell Charlestown during Bunker Hill.)
USS Constitution
Bunker Hill Monument

Some of the sites along Battle Road are listed below.  There is a combination admission ticket for Lexington which includes Buckman Tavern (where the Lexington Training Band waited for the Regulars), Munroe Tavern (where General Lord Hugh Percy waited for the Regulars returning from Concord), and Hancock-Clarke House (where Samuel Adams and John Hancock stayed in Lexington and Paul Revere and William Dawes went to warn them).  That ticket can be bought at any of those locations and probably online as well.

(Lexington)
Buckman Tavern
Hancock-Clarke House
Lexington Visitors Center
Munroe Tavern
National Heritage Museum

(Between Lexington & Concord)

Fiske Hill / Fisk Well
Paul Revere Capture Site
Minute Man Visitors Center
Parker's Revenge

(Concord)
North Bridge Visitors Center
North Bridge
Old Manse
Concord Visitor Center
Concord Museum
A number of markers

(Menotomy - Arlington)
Jason Russell House
Samuel Whittemore monument
Benjamin Locke House
Wagon Capture marker
The Foot of the Rocks battle marker
Black Horse Tavern marker
Cooper's Tavern marker
Old Burying Ground (Jason Russell and other Patriots' graves; mass grave of British Regulars; Arlington Revolutionary War Monument)

If there is time, Marblehead, north of Boston is packed full of historic homes.  A very large number of them were built in the 1700's.  A few were built in the 1600's.  Marblehead is where the first members of the American Navy lived.  They rowed Washington across the Delaware for the raid on Trenton.  The painting "Spirit of '76" is at Abbot Hall and when I visited a sword used during the Battle of Bunker Hill was on display along with many other items.  The powder magazine is worth visiting.

If time allows, I recommend visiting the Quincy area to see the Adams homes and the Abigail Adams Cairn monument marking where Abigail Adams and John Quincy Adams watched the Battle of Bunker Hill. The National Park visitor's center there has a good film and very knowledgeable park rangers.  One even took my address and mailed me information about April 19, 1775.

I found that the tour guides and volunteers at the historical sites are very friendly and become very enthusiastic if they know the visitor is even a little knowledgeable and interested in the history.  The guides at the Jason Russel house were very interested in my Samuel Whittemore hoodie.  They were surprised that I knew who Whittemore was and asked where they could buy the hoodie.

In Liberty,
Greg Seneff
615-496-7405
appleseedtn@gmail.com