Early History

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters but under special conditions, at the request of the writer, names will be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

I notice one or two inaccuracies in your otherwise excellent account of the John Hicks house in your issue of December 3. The first is obviously a misprint of April 18 instead of April 19; the second's that the British troops on their way out to Lexington in the dawn of that day were landed near the present Court buildings in East Cambridge, or as it was then known at Lechmere's Point and crossing on the narrow causeway over what was then the wide tidal estuary of Miller's river made their way to Union Square, Somerville, whence they proceeded by what is now Beacon Street, Somerville, reached Massachusetts Avenue or Menotomy Road, by Beech Street proceeded to Arlington Centre then known as the Village of Menotomy. The return of the British was over the same route. The troops which were able to cross Charles River at the foot of what is now Boylston Street owing to the negligence of the patriots, who failed to destroy the timbers of the bridge after removing them, was the relief column led by Lord Percy, the arrival of which at Lexington saved the British from being wiped out. This relief came as a result of the request of Major Pitcairn when he discovered at Lexington by the presence of the Minute Men drawn up on the Green, that advance information had been given of his expedition. Percy passed through Harvard Square shortly before noon.

I am interested in your giving Harvard classes of the Directors of the Cambridge Historical Society and I might add James Leonard Paine was of the Harvard Class of '81, and concerning our two lady members Miss Carolyn H. Saunders is the daughter of a Harvard graduate and Mrs. Mary I. Gozzaldi the mother of two sons both graduating in 1914 and the grand-daughter of Samuel Batchelder, Esq., many of whose descendents are recorded in the Harvard Quin-quennial including Samuel Francis Batchelder, Class Secretary of the Class of 1893, formerly secretary of the Cambridge Historical Society, and known to many Harvard graduates for his charming and accurate "Episodes in the past history of Harvard College." Yours very truly,   Robert Walcott   Press Cambridge Historical Society.