Lexington Historical Society

Lexington Depot, or Lexington station, is a former train station in Lexington, Massachusetts on the Lexington Branch.

Lexington Centre (often spelled Center since the 1980s), often simply called the Centre by locals, is both the geographic and retail center of Lexington, Massachusetts on Massachusetts Avenue. It is home to numerous restaurants, banks, retail shops, beauty parlors, a small cinema, a museum, the Cary Memorial Library, and many historic landmarks, including Lexington Common.

The Cary Memorial Library (est.1869) is the main branch of the public library in Lexington, Massachusetts. It is located at 1874 Massachusetts Avenue in the town center.

Buckman Tavern is a historic American Revolutionary War site associated with the revolution's very first battle, the 1775 Battle of Lexington and Concord. It is located on the Battle Green in Lexington, Massachusetts and operated as a museum by the Lexington Historical Society.

The towns of Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts, are the site of Minute Man National Historical Park, a park governed by the National Park Service. The most highly attended event in the park is the annual reenactment of the first shots of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, performed by the Lexington Minute Men Company and His Majesty's Tenth Regiment of Foot.

The Gen. Samuel Chandler House is a historic house at 8 Goodwin Road in Lexington, Massachusetts. The two story wood-frame house was built in 1846 to a design by architect Isaac Melvin. The Italianate style house features a bracketed shallow-pitch roof, and a three-story campanile-style tower with a steeply pitched pyramidal roof and three-part round-arch windows with balconies at its top level. A hip-roof porch with arch-forming brackets extends along one side.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

The US Post Office-Lexington Main is a historic post office at 1661 Massachusetts Avenue in Lexington, Massachusetts. The single story brick Georgian Revival building was built in 1937 as part of a Depression era works program. The building has fairly modest styling: it has a belfry and cupola, and its entry is flanked by fluted engaged columns, and topped by a simple entablature, and an eagle set in a carved recess. The interior has marble terrazzo flooring, and marble wainscoting below otherwise plaster walls.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

The Old Belfry is a historic structure on Clarke Street in Lexington, Massachusetts, United States. It stands on Belfry Hill.The belfry was erected at its current location in 1762, but it was moved a few yards away to Lexington Common in 1768, after Jonas Monroe, on whose land it originally stood, wanted the town to pay him taxes for keeping it there. (Its former location on the Common is now marked by a boulder and a plaque.) The bell that hung in it summoned locals to worship, reminded them at 9:00 pm to "rake up the fires and go to bed", warned them of danger, tolled on their deaths, and rang out the initial alarm of what became the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Today it rings in the beginning of Patriots' Day annually at 5:30 am.The third incarnation of the structure was built, this time with a steeple to house the bell, in 1794. Three years later, the belfry was moved to the Parker Homestead in the southern part of town and used as a wheelwright's shop by the son of John Parker. In 1891, after it had fallen into a much-dilapidated state, it was refurbished and returned to its original location by the Lexington Historical Society after it was gifted to them by James S. Monroe. It was destroyed in a gale on June 20, 1909, and was rebuilt by March the following year. It was moved from the back end of Belfry Hill to its present site in 1913, with an iron fence erected around it.In 1971, the Katharine Harrington House at the corner of Clarke Street and Massachusetts Avenue was torn down to make way for Belfry Hill Park.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord were some of the leading military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Patriot militias from America's thirteen colonies. In late 1774, Colonial leaders adopted the Suffolk Resolves in resistance to the alterations made to the Massachusetts colonial government by the British parliament following the Boston Tea Party. The colonial assembly responded by forming a Patriot provisional government known as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and calling for local militias to train for possible hostilities. The Colonial government effectively controlled the colony outside of British-controlled Boston. In response, the British government in February 1775 declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. About 700 British Army regulars in Boston, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy Colonial military supplies reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord. Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot leaders had received word weeks before the expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. On the night before the battle, warning of the British expedition had been rapidly sent from Boston to militias in the area by several riders, including Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott, with information about British plans. The initial mode of the Army's arrival by water was signaled from the Old North Church in Boston to Charlestown using lanterns to communicate "one if by land, two if by sea". The first shots were fired just as the sun was rising at Lexington. Eight militiamen were killed, including Ensign Robert Munroe, their third in command. The British suffered only one casualty. The militia was outnumbered and fell back, and the regulars proceeded on to Concord, where they broke apart into companies to search for the supplies. At the North Bridge in Concord, approximately 400 militiamen engaged 100 regulars from three companies of the King's troops at about 11:00 am, resulting in casualties on both sides. The outnumbered regulars fell back from the bridge and rejoined the main body of British forces in Concord. The British forces began their return march to Boston after completing their search for military supplies, and more militiamen continued to arrive from the neighboring towns. Gunfire erupted again between the two sides and continued throughout the day as the regulars marched back towards Boston. Upon returning to Lexington, Lt. Col. Smith's expedition was rescued by reinforcements under Brigadier General Hugh Percy, a future Duke of Northumberland styled at this time by the courtesy title Earl Percy. The combined force of about 1,700 men marched back to Boston under heavy fire in a tactical withdrawal and eventually reached the safety of Charlestown. The accumulated militias then blockaded the narrow land accesses to Charlestown and Boston, starting the siege of Boston. Ralph Waldo Emerson describes the first shot fired by the Patriots at the North Bridge in his "Concord Hymn" as the "shot heard round the world".

Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, located 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was first settled by Europeans in 1641 as a farming community. Lexington is well known as the site of the first shots of the American Revolutionary War, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775, where the "Shot heard 'round the world" took place. It is home to Minute Man National Historical Park.

The Lexington Battle Green, also known as Lexington Common, is the historic town common of Lexington, Massachusetts, United States. It was at this site that the opening shots of the Battles of Lexington and Concord were fired on April 19, 1775, starting the American Revolutionary War. Now a public park, the common is a National Historic Landmark.

Hancock School is a historic former school building on 33 Forest Street in Lexington, Massachusetts. It is a 2+1⁄2-story brick Romanesque Revival structure, with a tall hip roof pierced by hip-roofed dormers. It was designed by the architectural firm of Hartwell and Richardson, and is the only commission of that firm in Lexington. The school was built in 1891 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.For the past 30 years it has housed residential condominium units. A major fire occurred on Halloween Day 2008. The building's roof and interior have been rebuilt and restored.