Presenters

Program Director J. L. Bell

J. L. Bell is the program director for this and other Pursuit of History Weekends inspired by the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. He is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and shares daily articles on his Boston 1775 website. Bell will review what led up to April 19 and show us important sites like Lexington Common and Concord’s North Bridge. He will also reveal how the two sides vied to gather, conceal, and spread information through spies, scouts, couriers, and propaganda both before and after April 19.

Jayne Triber

Paul Revere is famous as an alarm rider, but he was far more. Triber, author of A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere, will lay out the many roles Revere played in the years leading up to the first shots fired at Lexington.

Don N. Hagist

Author of Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution and editor of The Journal of the American Revolution, Hagist will provided a detailed picture of the ordinary men sent to maintain order in the Colonies.

Alexander Cain

As author of We Stood Our Ground: Lexington in the First Year of the American Revolution and I See Nothing but the Horrors of a Civil War, Cain will illuminate the experiences of militia men and civilians during the fight.

Joel Bohy

An expert in historic arms and military equipment who appears regularly on Antiques Roadshow, Bohy will discuss what we have learned about Lexington & Concord in recent years through studying battlefield archeology and musket-ball strikes.

Recommended Reading

This book is included in the Registration and can be added when you register.

The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War by J. L. Bell.

Schedule + Sites

Thursday

Friday

We will meet in the Wright Tavern in the center of Concord to hear from our historical experts. Massachusetts Provincial Congress delegates met in committee in this building in the spring of 1775, and on April 19 the British commanders used it as their headquarters.

We will also visit Concord’s Old Hill Burying Ground and North Bridge, site of “the shot heard round the world.”

Dinner will be at the Colonial Inn in Concord. The inn dates to 1716, and one of its original buildings was used to store arms and provisions during the Revolutionary War.

Saturday

We will visit Lexington Common, viewing the historic buildings and monuments and, weather permitting, watching the rehearsal for the 250th-anniversary reenactment of the first shots of the Revolutionary War. Even in normal years, watching this reenactment means arriving in the middle of the night and jostling with crowds. In this anniversary year, the town anticipates a huge crush of people. By viewing the afternoon rehearsal, we will gain a better view of the action and have a chance to meet the people who portray Patriots and Regulars.

If bad weather postpones the rehearsal to Sunday, we will add the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington to the historic sites we visit.

Along the way on this day, we will also visit . . .

• Hartwell Tavern (c. 1732) in Lincoln, maintained by the National Park Service to preserve the landscape of the “Battle Road.”
• The Parker’s Revenge site, where the Lexington militia company, having taken casualties on the morning of April 19, gathered to return fire at the redcoats as they marched back in from the west.
• Buckman Tavern, located beside Lexington Common, where the local militia company gathered.
• The Jason Russell House in Arlington, site of the bloodiest skirmish of the day, where twelve provincials lost their lives as they tried to set up an ambush too close to the line of march and were outflanked by British soldiers.

Sunday—Optional tour (can be added when registering)

We will spend a day in the colonial seaport of Marblehead to learn about its out-sized role in the American Revolution. In 1775 this was a thriving and prosperous town of just under 5,000 people, the sixth most populous settlement in British North America. It was boisterous, gritty, and zealously Patriotic—only about twelve heads of households can be identified as Loyalists. Marblehead sent an estimated 1,500 men and boys to serve on land and sea during the Revolutionary War. As a result, the war that won independence for a new nation left more than 400 poverty-stricken widows and hundreds more fatherless children in this one town.

The war-ravaged men who returned to Marblehead struggled to rebuild its maritime industry. Because of that extended economic downturn, more than 300 Marblehead houses built before 1775 remain. We will take a walking tour with noted architectural historian Judy Anderson and see the interiors of two historic homes. The “King” Hooper Mansion (1728, with three-story Georgian façade added c. 1745) was owned by Marblehead’s leading merchant, a Loyalist. The Col. Jeremiah Lee Mansion (1768), one of the finest Late Georgian houses in the United States, was owned by a Patriot organizer who died as a result of April 19.

Registration

Updated March 31: SOLD OUT

There are no plans to repeat The Pursuit of History: Outbreak of War.

The cost is $995. for Thursday night through Saturday. Other than dinner Saturday, which will be on your own, all meals are covered, as are all admissions. Lodging is not included.

The tour of Marblehead on Sunday is $125 and can be added when you register.

If you decided to cancel at least 60 days before either Pursuit of History Weekend, you’ll receive a full refund. After that, refunds, if any, will depend on our ability to fill the spot. Please contact Mary Adams if this situation arises. Consider the coverage from the company Purchase Protection, which is available when you register.