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[59] lieutenant of the Minute Company, came to the door to see what was stirring. He refused one soldier a drink of water, and as soon as they passed, he began at once to warn his company for immediate service. The British continued their march in silence, though finding the country thoroughly aroused. They entered the barn at the Cutler Tavern, and a man and his wife in one of the old houses at the Foot of the Rocks, narrowly escaped detection in the act of melting their pewter plates into bullets. Such in substance are the adventures of the night march of the British troops through the present town of Arlington, in Smith's Address, with the exception of one incident. On April 18, 1775, Tuesday, the Committee of Safety and the Committee of Supplies sat at Newell's (more generally Wetherby's) tavern, in Menotomy,1 while a great number of British officers dined at Cambridge, on the watch to prevent intelligence of Gage's intended expedition that night. After finishing the business of the day, the committees of safety and supplies, which usually held their sessions together, adjourned to meet at Woburn on the morrow (the 19th). Three members, Gerry, Orne, and Lee, remained to lodge at Newell's (otherwise Wetherby's), while two, Watson and Devens, departed in Devens's chaise at sunset, but soon meeting on the road a great number of British officers and their servants on horseback (the same who had dined that day at Cambridge), Devens and his companion rode some way after they had met this party, and then turned back and rode through them, and went and informed their friends at Wetherby's. They stopped there, till the British party came up and rode by. They then left their friends, and Devens rode home, to Charlestown, after leaving Mr. Watson at his house. Devens, after arrival home, soon received intelligence from Boston
1 A Jacob Newell had a family here, 1766-1769, possibly a former occupant of the tavern.—See Genealogies. Ethan Wetherby married Lucretia Adams, daughter of Capt. Thomas Adams, an innkeeper here, Dec. 31, 1775. The records of the Committees speak of the place as ‘Mr. Wetherby's at the Black Horse, Menotomy.’—See Journals of each Provincial Congress of Mass, pp. 515, 516, &c. The following inscription is on a monumental tablet recently erected (1878) to mark the spot where Wetherby's tavern stood: ‘The site of the Black Horse Tavern, where met the Committee of Safety in 1775.’
Boston: David Clapp and son. 564 Washington Street, 1880.
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