Parker, Horatio G.; McKenzie, Alexander; Harding, H. R. Memorial to the Men of Cambridge who fell in the First Battle of the Revolutionary War: Services of Dedication, Nov. 3, 1870. Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1870. First Edition. [8911]
Green pebble cloth, bright gilt titles on spine & front, slight fraying top of backstrip, 9 1/2 x 6 inches. Brown end papers, 40 clean pp. of text, Very good. Hardcover.
Nearly one hundred years after the battle the citizens of Cambridge sought to honor those who had died with a significance other than a common grave. The presentations in this book give the local history as remembered by the local people.
"That grave into which they were cast remains here unmarked...It was the first burial of men who fell in arms in our eight years' Revolutionary War; and the men and women who stood by, holding torches and viewing the sad sight, felt keenly and bitterly the want of those common methods and furnishings by which we endeavor to show our respect and affection for the worthy dead." - p. 8, Alderman Parker's Address.
Includes also Hon. H. R. Harding's address, pp. 11-14, and the longer historical address of the Rev. Alexander McKenzie, pp. 17-38, in which he relates the brewing troubles that led to the opening of the War, the sharp exchanges at Lexington and at Concord, and what turned into a bloody march for the British as they retreated to Boston.
Rev. Dr. Alexander McKenzie (1820-1914), b. New Bedford, MA; d. Cambridge, MA. A graduate of Harvard (1859), he was for over forty years the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Cambridge, and an author of theological and historical writings.