Originally, and until 1896, the house stood on the opposite side of the street; the owner was about to demolish it to subdivide the land, when the Historical Society intervened and purchased it.
Neither did we enter the old burying-ground on Elm Street.

The automobile is no respecter of persons or places; it pants with impatience if brought to a stand for so much as a moment before a house or monument of interest, and somehow the throbbing, puffing, impatient machine gets the upper hand of those who are supposed to control it; we are hastened onward in spite of our better inclinations.
The trolley line from Lexington to Concord is by way of Bedford, but the direct road over the hill is the one the British followed.
It is nine miles by Bedford and the Old Bedford Road, and but six miles direct.
A short distance out of Lexington a tablet marks an old well; the inscription reads, "At this well, April 19, 1775, James Hayward, of Acton, met a British soldier, who, raising his gun, said, 'You are a dead man.' 'And so are you,' replied Hayward.

Both fired.
The soldier was instantly killed and Hayward mortally wounded." Grim meeting of two thirsty souls; they sought water and found blood; they wooed life and won death.

War is epitomized in the exclamations, "You are a dead man," "And so are you." Further debate would end the strife; the one query, "Why ?" would bring each musket to a rest.

Poor unknown Britisher, exiled from home, what did he know about the merits of the controversy?
What did he care?
It was his business to shoot, and be shot.