[57] The British troops, after landing at Lechmere's Point, now East Cambridge, on the night of the 18th, first crossed the marshes to the Milk Row Road, now Milk Street, in Somerville, and then marched through Beech Street, at that time the only open passage-way between the Milk Row Road and the present North Avenue in Cambridge. Thence by North Avenue to Menotomy, now Arlington, and thence to Lexington and Concord. Paige, our authority for the foregoing, mentions a solitary house then standing at Lechmere's Point, whose occupant probably gave the alarm at the centre of the town proper (now Old Cambridge), which led to the speedy calling out of Captain Thatcher's Cambridge company (see Hist. Camb., p. 408). The company of minute-men in the Northwest Precinct, or Menotomy (see same, p. 410), were under the command of Capt. Benjamin Locke, and consisted of fifty non-commissioned officers and privates, twenty-five of whom were described as residents of Cambridge on the original enlistment roll of the company. This company was formed previously to April 6, 1775, when Mr. Cooke, the minister of the Precinct, had preached a sermon to them—see previous pages 50, 51, and Smith's Address (1864), pp. 7-11. A copy of the articles of enlistment is published in Smith's Address, p. 59. The original in the possession of Mr. B. D. Locke, the present town-clerk of Arlington, is undated. It is as follows:
We, the subscribers, do hereby solemnly and severally engage and enlist ourselves as soldiers in the Massachusetts service, for the preservation of the liberties of America, from the day of our enlistment to the last day of December next, unless the service should admit of a discharge of a part or the whole sooner, which shall be at the discretion of the Committee of Safety; and we hereby promise to submit ourselves to all the orders and regulations of the army, and faithfully to observe and obey all such orders as we shall receive from time to time, from our superior officers.The signers are all named in the following return preserved at the State House:— Return of Capt. Benjamin Locke's Company, in 37th Regiment of Foot in Continental Army, commanded by William Bond, Lieut. Colonel.1
