18-04-2025
How the Concord Museum commemorates the Revolutionary War's start
Dozens of relics survived the Battles of Lexington and Concord and tell the stories of the militia who fought that day.
Why it matters: Greater Boston residents and history buffs visiting the area will have a chance to hear and read the often underrepresented stories that shaped April 19, 1775.
Driving the news: The Concord Museum set up an installation to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the battles.
The installation will be up throughout the week, and the museum will be free on Saturday.
Among the artifacts is a powder horn that belonged to Abner Hosmer, an Acton minuteman who was killed in the first firing at North Bridge.
What they're saying: People often assume that the start of the American Revolution was an affair involving just Lexington and Concord, says David Wood, the museum curator.
"It involves 23 communities on April 19 itself," Wood says. "Within a few days, there were thousands more provincial soldiers surrounding Boston and they came from as far away as Connecticut and New Hampshire, as well as Western Mass."
Zoom in: Of course, the museum will display Paul Revere's lantern and pay homage to his midnight ride, in which he warned people that the British troops were headed their way to steal military supplies.
The lantern's been in the custody of the museum's founding collection since the mid-1800s.
There's also needlework by Mary Jones of Weston, whose family supported the British Empire. Decades later, her grandson Henry David Thoreau would pen the essay "Civil Disobedience."
