Lexington by Car

Old Burying Ground

A gift of land by Lexington resident John Munroe provided the space for the establishment of this cemetery in the late seventeenth century. Two of the oldest tombstones still standing date to the year 1690.

Among those buried here are John and Ruth Buckman, the owners and operators of Buckman Tavern where the Lexington militia gathered on the morning of April 19, 1775, and Captain John Parker, leader of the Lexington militia. Parker died of tuberculosis just five months after the American Revolutionary War began in his hometown. Eight of the men who were killed that morning on the Lexington Green were originally buried in this cemetery, but they were reinterred underneath the 1799 Revolutionary War memorial in 1835. The site of their previous resting places in the Old Burying Ground is marked. There is also a grave marker for a British soldier, mortally wounded in the later fighting along Battle Road, who died in Lexington.

Hancock-Clarke House

This home was built for John Hancock’s grandfather, who served as the pastor for the town of Lexington for fifty-five years. His successor was the Reverend Jonas Clarke, whose wife was a cousin of John Hancock. As a young boy, John Hancock lived in this home with his grandfather for several years before going to live with his uncle in Boston.

In the early morning of April 19, 1775, Paul Revere arrived at Clarke’s home, where John Hancock and Samuel Adams were staying, to warn them of an approaching British force marching from Boston. The two revolutionary leaders left to avoid capture.

The home was acquired by the Lexington Historical Society, who had the building moved to a different location to avoid demolition. In 1974, after acquiring the land where the house originally sat, the building was relocated back to its historical location.

Harrington House

In 1775, this was the home of Jonathan Harrington, a member of the Lexington militia, his wife Ruth, and their son Jonathan. The senior Jonathan Harrington was one of the militiamen assembled on the Lexington Green on the morning of April 19. In the ensuing confrontation with the British troops, he was mortally wounded. According to local tradition, Jonathan Harrington crawled back to the doorstep of his home, where he died in the arms of his wife.

In the 1820s, this was the home of John Augustus, a shoemaker who later became well-known for his efforts to reform Boston’s criminal justice system and establishing the system of probation as an alternative to imprisonment.

The structure of the house was significantly altered in the 20th century, and is privately owned today.