Update: pictures
In September 1774, British royal rule broke down in Massachusetts. Thousands of rural militiamen crowded into Cambridge, demanding the resignation of Crown appointees. Within days the upper-class community of “Tory Row”—seven families bound together by marriage, religion, and wealth—fled to safer places, leaving their handsome mansions behind. This tour stops at each of those houses as J. L. Bell narrates the story of the “Powder Alarm” and the revolution in government that occurred eight months before the Revolutionary War.
Meet at the sidewalk in front of the Harvard Lampoon building at 44 Bow Street. This tour covers about two miles and ends at Longfellow House–Washington’s HQ National Historic Site on Brattle Street.