Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Olde Cambridge

[20] the night before the battle of Lexington; when they were bidden to take refuge at Fresh Pond, away from the redcoats' line of march, and when, after the watchful night was over, they went on foot to Andover, passing the dead bodies that lay in what is now Arlington.

It must be remembered that the Cambridge of sixty years ago was not merely that number of years nearer to the great Revolution which made us a nation, but was especially full of its associations. In the old First Church, where Dane Hall now stands,--the present church having been built in 1833,--the First Provincial Congress met, which was presided over by John Hancock, from October 17 to December 10, 1774. Here the Committee of Safety met, November 2, and here, on February 1, 1775, the Second Provincial Congress was convened, adjourning to Concord on the 17th. In Christ Church (built in 1761) the company of Captain John Chester was quartered, after the battle of Lexington, and a bullet mark in the porch still recalls that period. The only member of the church who took the colonial side was appointed commissary general to the