Munroe Tavern

On April 18, 1775, one day before the outbreak of the battle, Munroe Tavern was a meeting spot for colonials, owned by William Munroe, orderly sergeant of Captain John Parker's militia company, and proprietor of the tavern until 1827. At 6:30 p.m. that evening, Solomon Brown of Lexington, who had gone to the market in Boston, returned and reported to Munroe that he had passed a patrol of British soldiers.

A large force of British troops arrived at Lexington before dawn the next morning, and shots were exchanged on the town common, beginning the Battles of Lexington and Concord. That afternoon the tavern served as the headquarters for Col. Hugh, Earl Percy, and his one thousand reinforcements. The British occupied the tavern for one and one-half hours, during which time the dining room was converted into a field hospital for the wounded, while exhausted British troops consumed liberal quantities of food and drink, compelling John Raymond, a lame private in Parker's company of minutemen who had fought against the soldiers earlier, to serve as their bartender. When Raymond attempted to escape through the door, the drunken soldiers shot and killed him.

President George Washington dined at the Munroe Tavern when he visited the Lexington battlefield in 1789. An upstairs room now contains the table and chair at which he sat and documents relating to his trip.