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Survey of
Historic Sites and Buildings

	MINUTE MAN NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK Massachusetts	Minute Man NHP
Location: Between Lexington and Concord; address Room 1400, Post Office and Courthouse Building, Boston, Mass. 02109. Minute Man National Historical Park

At this writing, Minute Man National Historical Park has been authorized by Congress (09/21/59) and its development is in the planning stage. In broad terms, its purpose is to acquire, restore, maintain, and interpret for public benefit retrievable portions of the historic setting intimately associated with events in the towns of Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord, Mass., that marked the outbreak of the American Revolution. The park will be made up of two units. The first, covering up to 600 acres of roadsides and rural landscape from circumferential highway Mass. 128 in Lexington to Meriam's Corner in Concord, will include more than 4 miles of the historic route over which the British marched in the early morning of April 19, 1775, and where, in their retreat from Concord later in the day, they were first exposed to attacks of minutemen and provincial militia that initiated the Revolution. Here, too, earlier in the morning, a British patrol captured Paul Revere and brought a sudden end to his famous ride.

The second unit of the park will consist of up to 150 acres on both banks of the Concord River at the historic North Bridge in Concord, where a detachment from the British expeditionary force, sent from Boston to seize military stores assembled by the patriots, was assaulted by a column of minutemen and militia who fired "the shot heard round the world." Features of major interest at the North Bridge include the Concord Monument, which was dedicated on July 4, 1837, on the site of the British position in the fight; the well-known Minute Man Statue by Daniel Chester French, occupying the American position on the opposite side of the stream and erected on the centennial in 1875; the "Grave of British Soldiers" killed or mortally wounded at the bridge, marked by a slate tablet with lines composed by the poet, James Russell Lowell; and a replica of "the rude bridge that arched the flood"—the most recent version of which was built in 1956. These features are part of a small public area developed and maintained by the town of Concord. It is intended not later than 1963 to complete negotiations with the town for a cooperative agreement to provide for the permanent management of the town-owned area at North Bridge as a part of the second unit of the park. By then, it is anticipated that important private holdings, including the muster field of the minutemen and militia on the west bank of the river, will have been acquired and will thus be ready for the inception of unified maintenance and interpretation with the town-owned area at the bridge.

Acquisitions of individual properties for the first unit of the park have already taken place and, before long, are expected to reach such proportions as to make feasible a program of development. A relatively unspoiled parcel of 8 acres, containing the site of the Josiah Nelson House and adjacent farm buildings, together with pastures and stone walls used as shelter by the minutemen, was acquired in 1959. In the west pasture behind a stone wall on this parcel is the Minute Man Boulder, from the cover of which William Thorning shot and killed two grenadiers retreating with the British main body on the nearby road.

Other historic properties acquired in the first unit of the park include parts of former farms, with farmhouses and other farm buildings, or the sites thereof, that were a part of the rural setting on April 19, 1775. In Lexington, possession has been taken of 17 acres of the Fiske Farm at Fiske Hill, including the cellar hole of the family home, which was looted by the fleeing enemy. The Muzzey House has been acquired also, the home of a father and son who were members of Captain Parker's company which at sunrise faced the British in the exchange of fire. In Lincoln, title has been obtained to the Brooks-Sturm House near a stream where, during the 18th century, the numerous Brooks family practiced their trade of tanners and curriers.

Based on further historical, architectural, and archeological study, a program of development will be initiated on properties acquired and consolidated in both units of the park. Exterior restoration will be performed on all remaining historic buildings, and inside restoration also, on structures to be treated as historic house museums. By far the largest task, however, will consist of obliterating later intrusions and reviving manmade features of the historic landscape of 1775.