The first stop on the second part of our holiday, leaving Cape Cod behind and heading to Boston, was the town of Lexington. Originally known as Cambridge Farms, Lexington was first settled in 1642 by farmers attracted by the availability of the land, acreage and possible land speculation. The early settlers formed their own parish in 1691 to avoid traveling into Cambridge, and Lexington was incorporated in 1713.

As relations with Britain worsened in the 1760s and 1770s, opposition and demonstrations in Colonial Massachusetts grew. The events of April 19^th 1775, when Paul Revere and William Dawes, the Lexington Minute Men confronted the British Regular soldiers in the early morning on this lovely park land, known today as 'Battle Green', which today makrks the spot where the first shots were fired which led to the American Civil War and put Lexington on the map forever.