Open house features Lincoln Minute Men, refurbished historic home
At an open house on Saturday, Sept. 20, the Lincoln Minute Men will do musket-firing demonstrations at 10 a.m., noon and 1 p.m., as well as drills for children, fife and drum music, and demonstrations of sewing, spinning and colonial clothing throughout the day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event will take place at the Captain William Smith House in the Minute Man National Historical Park on Route 2A near Bedford Road (park in the Hartwell Tavern lot).
Lincoln Minute Men (soldiers, musicians and townspeople) will greet the public in colonial attire and welcome them into the Smith House, which has been refurbished thanks to the concerted effort of the Lincoln Minute Men and the support of friends through donations. The Minute Men worked with the National Park to locate and donate items similar to those that might have been found on that day in the three ground floor rooms of a New England house: the formal parlor, the keeping room and the kitchen. Come and see the walking wheel for spinning wool, the infant’s cradle with reproduction tick and blanket, the kitchen cupboard stocked with redware and pewter, items for cooking on the hearth, a tilt-top table set for tea, a gate-leg table set for Catharine and William’s dinner, a desk where the Smiths could pay bills and write correspondence, and much more.
Also open to the public on September 20 are two other “witness houses” to the events of April 19, 1775: the Hartwell Tavern, where there will be demonstrations of historic crafts and trades, and the Col. James Barrett House in Concord, where His Majesty’s 63rd Regiment of Foot will be displaying British uniforms of the period.
