Lexington Road from East Lexington to the Centre is a succession of historic spots marked by stones and tablets.

The old home of Harrington, the last survivor of the battle of Lexington, still stands close to the roadside, shaded by a row of fine big trees.  Harrington died in 1854 at the great age of ninety-eight; he was a fifer-boy in Captain Parker’s company.  In the early morning on the day of the fight his mother rapped on his bedroom door, calling, “Jonathan, Jonathan, get up; the British are coming, and something must be done.”  He got up and did his part with the others.  Men still living recall the old man; they heard the story of that memorable day from the lips of one who participated therein.

At the corner of Maple Street there is an elm planted in 1740.  On a little knoll at the left is the Monroe Tavern.  The square, two-storied frame structure which remains is the older portion of the inn as it was in those days.  It was the head-quarters of Lord Percy; and it is said that an inoffensive old man who served the soldiers with liquor in the small bar-room was killed when he tried to get away by a rear door.  When the soldiers left they sacked the house, piled up the furniture and set fire to it.  Washington dined in the dining-room in the second story, November 5, 1789.  The house was built in 1695, and is still owned by a direct descendant of the first William Monroe.

Not far from the tavern and on the same side of the street is a house where a wounded soldier was cared for by a Mrs. Sanderson, who lived to be one hundred and four years old.

Near the intersection of Woburn Street is a crude stone cannon which marks the place where Lord Percy planted a field pine pointing in the direction of the Green to check the advancing patriots and cover the retreat of the Regulars.

On the triangular “Common,” in the very heart of the village, a flat-faced boulder marks the line where the minute-men under Captain Parker were formed to receive the Regulars.  “Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon; but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here” was Parker’s command to his men and it was there the war did begin.  The small band of patriots were not yet in line when the red-coats appeared at the east end of the meeting-house, coming on the double-quick.  Riding ahead, a British officer called out, “Disperse, you rebels!  Villains, disperse!” but the little band of rebels stood their ground until a fatal volley killed eight and wounded ten.  Only two of the British were wounded.

The victors remained in possession of the Green, fired a volley, and gave three loud cheers to celebrate a victory that in the end was to cost King George his fairest colonies.

The soldiers’ monument that stands on the Green was erected in 1799.  In 1835, in the presence of Daniel Webster, Joseph Story, Josiah Quincy, and a vast audience, Edward Everett delivered an oration, and the bodies of those who fell in the battle were removed from the old cemetery to a vault in the rear of the shaft, where they now rest.  The weather-beaten stone is over-grown with a protecting mantle of ivy, which threatens to drop like a veil over the long inscription.  Here, for more than a century, the village has received distinguished visitors,—­Lafayette in 1824, Kossuth in 1851, and famous men of later days.