TRIP #5, 2014--Soldiers and More

Soldiers, Writers and Speakers

Andy crosses Old North Bridge about 9:30 a.m., the same time
the Colonists clashed with British Redcoats in 1775.

Based in Bedford, we have three days to explore Boston and the nearby towns.  "I think we'll start with Concord and Lexington today," said Andy.  He made that decision because the morning was gorgeous--bright sun, clear skies, nice temperatures in the 60's.  "We can be outside now, so we'll take advantage of that in case it rains tomorrow," he added.Parked at Minute Man National Historical Park, we walked to Old North Bridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Bridge, as an early morning fog burned off.

The statue to the Minutemen of the
American Militia honors those who sacrificed.

"Here once the embattled farmers stood..." Immediately, the words of Emerson's 1837 poem "The Concord Hymn" popped into my mind, "...Who fired the shot heard round the world."
We walked across the bridge and British Redcoat Benjamin raised his bugle to practice a call.  A historical interpreter, Benjamin performed for the tour groups to make history come alive.
Andy and I continued up the hill past the site of the Barrett Farm to the Visitor Center.  We learned lots from the eight-minute video and the interpretive signs.  We know that Old North Bridge marked the first clash of the Revolutionary War on April 19, 1775.  I didn't realize that 700 British Regulars in their red jackets met 400 Colonials that morning.  Ninety-six British had been left to guard the bridge while groups of others searched farms in the area for reported stashes of weapons.  The Colonists actually had amassed enough to outfit 15,000 men, but a spy had warned them the previous day to hide everything that was stored in Concord, the central gathering location.  At the bridge all parties were nervous and anxious, but I didn't know there were so many.

Interpretive guide and
British soldier Benjamin
stands at attention.

Most British soldiers were professional fighters who had volunteered to serve the king.  Sleepless, wet and nervous on April 19, all were far from home and few had ever been in battle.  Most were in their late 20's.  These factors and the breakdown of discipline led to the first shots at both Lexington and Concord.
At Meriam's Corner we walked through the farm fields, kept as they were in 1775, where Colonists had little protection from British soldiers returning to Boston.

From the Old Manse dock house next to the bridge, we could
see the "reflection of history" in the water below.

                                     "The British didn't take it on the chin as much as I was taught," said Andy.  I agreed.  They lost 73 soldiers in that first battle, and 174 were wounded.  But 49 Colonials were also killed and 41 wounded.  Most of the casualties came after the encounter at Concord Bridge as the British retreated in disorder back to Boston.
I had always thought there was confusion about the first shot.  Today we learned that British General Thomas Gage had ordered his soldiers to respect the property of the Colonials in their searches and do no harm to the people.  But when the British opened fire at the bridge, it was Major John Buttrick who ordered his militia men to return fire.  He shouted, "Fire, fellow soldiers, for God's sake fire!"  The British fired first, but that was an act of treason.

From the outside Hartwell Tavern offers an inviting
spot to imbibe and stay for the night.

At Hartwell Tavern historical interpreter Jess said that the tavern, the actual building that existed in 1775, was also the Hartwell's home.  A fairly comfortable middleclass family, they offered a warm and hospitable resting site outside of Boston.  The troops marched right past here on their way back to Boston.  Firing muskets, both sides stood and reloaded, easy targets en masse.  Muskets are extremely inaccurate but by firing into a mass of people, they can do a great deal of damage.  Jess said neither side used the protection of trees or stone walls.  They had not been taught to fight that way.  It was just two groups blasting away at each other.

Simple yet comfortable, the Hartwell Tavern is a resting place
and inn along Revolutionary Road during the Revolution.

The Paul Revere Memorial marked the spot where Revere was captured after he rode to warn country folk of the advance of British troops.  By April 19, 1775, more than 4,000 Colonials had gathered in Concord to protect the arms stored there and defend their homes, families and in a sense their ways of life.  Increasing taxes and fading liberties meant their children faced uncertain futures.  Revere had met William Dawes the night before about midnight in Boston when they heard about the planned British advance.  As they rode, they were joined by Dr. Samuel Prescott, who had been out courting.  All three headed different directions and met near here in the early morning hours.  Only Revere was caught but later released, when the British realized they had lost their element of surprise and all the arms had been moved.

Jess shows us the family kitchen
in the Hartwell Tavern.

The next walk took us to the home and blacksmith shop of Jacob Whittemore.  He lived in this exact house with his wife and four children right on the Revolution Road. Even though he was not involved in the battle, legend says a British soldier fell dead on his doorstep.  Whittemore's blacksmith shop was right next door.
The Longfellow House/Washington's Headquarters was a Boston challenge to find.  I missed the turn since no street sign for Harvard Avenue was visible and the cross street was posted as Franklin.  But after some unexpected sightseeing in town, we located the National Historic Site on Brattle Street in Cambridge.
Just in time for the 1:00 p.m. tour, we had only ten minutes to browse in the formal gardens, landscape architecture in the colonial revival style.  Then Ranger Rob escorted us into the house to see some of the 35,000 items of furnishing and decorative arts left by the Longfellow family.
Room by room, Ranger Rob explained the history of the mansion overlooking the Charles River.  Built in 1759 for John Vassal, the house stood empty after 1774, when the merchant and ardent loyalist and his family were forced to flee to England on the eve of the American Revolution.

Before Longfellow owns this mansion in Cambridge, George
Washington squats here for nine months to develop a functional army.

In July of 1775, General George Washington selected the Vassal house as his headquarters for the next nine months.  He met frequently with officers in the room that would later become a study for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Here on Brattle Street, Washington welcomed his wife Martha and their family to their first wartime home. They welcomed guests with a gala party in the parlor for their 17th wedding anniversary.  In March of 1776, they celebrated the evacuation of the British army from Boston.  Washington had arranged for all the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to be moved and mounted on Dorchester Heights.  Then he gave the British a choice:  Be fired upon or quietly leave.  They made a surreptitious exit.  Ironically, Washington didn't have enough cannon balls to use the cannons.
In 1791, Andrew Craigie, the nation's first Apothecary General, and his wife Elizabeth bought the house.  They increased the size, but when Craigie died, Elizabeth was forced to take in boarders to pay the debt.  One boarder who rented two rooms was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a young professor of languages and promising poet.  After graduating from Bowdoin College, he traveled in Europe, immersing himself in eight different languages. Then he taught foreign languages at Bowdoin and later at Harvard.  In 1839 he published his first collection of poetry, Voices of the Night.

Longfellow wrote all his pieces standing at the standing desk
in the back right corner. Here in the study, Ranger Rob points
out the portrait painting done by Longfellow's second son Edward.

Longfellow married Fanny Appleton in July of 1843. Fanny's father Nathan, a wealthy textile manufacturer, gave them the house as a wedding gift. In 1854, at the age of 47, Longfellow retired from teaching at Harvard and devoted his time to writing.  He had told his father at the age of 17 that he would be a poet.  He said, "My whole soul burns most ardently for it."
He never felt slighted when visitors asked to see "Washington's Headquarters," because he took pride in the legendary status of the house and he raised five children there. But Longfellow and Fanny never received a penny of inheritance from her father.  An ardent pro-slavery advocate who used Black slaves to supply the cotton for his textile mills, Nathan Appleton resented Longfellow's abolitionist leanings and anti-slavery beliefs, particularly when Longfellow became good friends with fiery abolitionist and legislator Charles Sumner.
But Longfellow's writings earned him his own fortune.  The nation's first professional poet, he gained an international reputation. He is the only American to be honored with a bust in the Westminster Abbey Poet's Corner.

Rose Kennedy decorates the nursery with the baby bassinette,
and christening gown used by all her children.

Ranger Rob graciously gave us detailed directions across town to the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site in Brookline.  Here, in this Colonial Revival house Joseph and Rose Kennedy lived for six years following their wedding in 1914, and here their first four children were born: Joseph Jr., John (called Jack), Rosemary and Kathleen.  The ranger pointed out the twin beds in the parents' second floor bedroom.  "In 1917, Jack was born in that bed," she explained.  "The doctor said 'in the bed nearest the window, so he would have proper light.'"
In the nursery at the back of the house, the children played. "That bassinette would have been used for all four of them," she said, pointing to a white bassinette on wheels. "And the christening gown. And in this house they enjoyed family sing-alongs at the parlor piano, nighttime book readings together, and lively conversations and discussions in the dining room at dinner."
A small table set for two adjoined the larger family table in the dining room. The ranger said, "Edward Kennedy told us that he always sat at that table in the next house. He was the baby of the family, and he never graduated to the big table."
One man on the tour asked, "How did they get to be such good speakers?"
Rose made them participate in conversations at meals," said the ranger.

The extra table seats the two youngest children, so Edward,
the baby of the family, never graduated to the adult table.

We learned that Rose Kennedy demanded her children appreciate loyalty to family, love of education and reading, and pride in their Irish Catholic heritage, above all. Although she had two servants in the house, she tended to the children.  For Jack, grappling with his own childhood illnesses and witnessing the frustrations experienced by his mentally retarded sister Rosemary taught him perseverance, determination and compassion for others. His competitive older brother challenged him to develop and master his own strengths and talents.  In this house on Beals Street with his attentive and highly educated mother Rose, John F. Kennedy developed a quest for knowledge, an appreciation of history and the arts and a willingness to accept the consequences of his deeds.

In the kitchen is an old fashioned coal
stove on the left and a large soapstone
sink out of sight on the right.

The Kennedys moved from Beals Street in 1920 to a larger house only two blocks away on Abbottsford Road to accommodate the growing family. Rose and Joseph had nine children in total. But in 1965 the family repurchased the house and donated it to the National Park Service as a "gift... to the American people."  Rose had helped to recreate the 1917 appearance of the Beals Street home in memory of her son John Fitzgerald.
Modest and livable, the Kennedy's first home on middleclass Beals Street linked JFK with neighbors, friends and schoolmates, a vibrant and growing community with hope and ambition and an attitude that John F. Kennedy absorbed and shared.