Buckman Tavern

1 Bedford St, Lexington, MA 02420, USA

Massachusetts

state

MA - Middlesex

county

MA - Boston

city

MUSEUM

TICKETED:

PARKING:

RESTROOMS:

HOURS

TICKET INFO

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.

SITE FEATURES

Surviving Structures

On this site...

The tavern was built in about 1709–1710 by Benjamin Muzzey (1657–1735), and with license granted in 1693 was the first public house in Lexington. Muzzey ran it for years, then his son John, and then at the time of the battle it was run by John's granddaughter and her husband John Buckman, a member of the Lexington Training Band.

TAVERN

EST. 1710

BATTLEFIELD

April 19, 1775

The Battle of Lexington and Concord took form before dawn on April 19, 1775. Having received word that the regular army had left Boston in force to seize and destroy military supplies in Concord, several dozen militiamen gathered on the town common, and then eventually went to the tavern to await the arrival of the British troops.

Definite word reached them just before sunrise, and Captain Parker'scompany of militia left the tavern to assemble in two ranks on the common. Following the arrival of the army, a single shot was fired; by whom, it is still unknown. With this shot, the American Revolutionary War began.

Although best known as the headquarters of the militia, Buckman Tavern is also noteworthy as perhaps the busiest of Lexington's 18th-century taverns. It housed the first village store in Lexington, and later, in 1813, the first town post office.