Off To Boston (sort of)-Friday, Sept. 10, 2010

Battleground where The Revolutionary War began.

Bill and I decided to visit Minute Man National Park. It is actually about a 5 mile long NP that goes from Boston to Lexington, MA. You can see the park in the sign. It is the green part. We traveled from one point of interest to another by car. The trail was actually the path taken by the British soldies and Minute Men (militia) at the beginning of The Revolutionary War. (shot heard around the world) We began at the end! Leave it to us to do things backwards. The first place we visited was the bridge over the Concord River which was the first blood drawn. The militia drove the British all the way back to Boston. They were brave and courageous fighters. We went from there to lunch! We found a nice Chinese restaurant. Then to the visitors center at Lexington. We saw a multimedia movie about how the war got started, how Paul Revere was captured, how the militia drove the British back and much more. It made us really appreciate how fortunate we are that they put their foot down and just wouldn't take it any more!

Dawes rode with Paul Revere but they were both stopped. Dr. Prescott rode on and warned the militia.

Lousia Mae Alcott, Nathaniel's Hawthorne and Harriet Lathrop's home

We went from there to Lousia Mae Alcott's house then called Hillside. She wrote Little Women. This is the house where she spent her childhood and then moved a couple blocks down the road. Little Women is partly autobiographical and I could almost envision those 4 girls playing in the barn and sitting around the table being read to---a lost art. The next person to own Hillside was Nathanial Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables among others. He renamed it Wayside. He lived there 4 years before he died. Harriet Lothrop (pen name Margaret Sydney) bought the house next. She wrote the children's series Five Little Peppers. I read that series as a child. Lothrop was such an admirer of Hawthorne that when her husband heard Hawthorne's house was for sale, he bought it sight unseen for his wife.
This area was also part of the Underground Railroad.