The British continued along the main road, which at that time ran up the hill westerly from Capt. Locke's home, and is now called Appleton Street, into Paul Revere Road, and out again into the present Massachusetts Avenue. At that time there was no highway between the extreme ends of these two.
Through the rest of Arlington the march was uneventful, save the capture of the scouts sent out from Lexington, who were so neatly ambushed and taken. As we have seen, they were permitted to come down the road passing a few soldiers who were out in advance, and who secreted themselves when an approaching horseman was heard. After the unfortunate scout had passed into the stretch of road bounded by the advance guard and the main body he was not permitted to return to Lexington.
Two men from Woburn, Asahel Porter and Josiah Richardson, were thus captured. It has been stated that they were on their way to the Boston market. If they lived in that part of Woburn which adjoins Lexington, then their natural journey would have been into Lexington, and thence through Arlington and Cambridge. But it may be that they were scouting simply, for they were on horseback, and therefore without any apparent market business. They were compelled to dismount, their horses taken, and then forced to walk along as prisoners. Reaching the Common in Lexington they were both released by their kindly disposed guard, with the particular understanding that they were to walk, not run, away. Richardson accepted those conditions, carried them out and so escaped. But Porter, once over Rufus Merriam's garden-wall, twenty rods away from his captors, started into a run. Some other soldier than his guard saw him, and evidently thinking that a prisoner was escaping, promptly shot him through the body. Those captures were probably made in Arlington, and not far from the Lexington boundary line.
[LIEUT.-COL. SMITH'S ADVANCE THROUGH LEXINGTON.]
It must have been just over the line into Lexington that the young man, Simon Winship, was met. He was on horseback, unarmed, and passing along in a peaceable manner, when he was halted and ordered to dismount. He questioned their right to treat him in that manner, but for answer they forced him from his horse and compelled him to march on foot in their midst. They asked him if he had been out warning the minute-men, to which he replied that he had not, but that he was returning home to his father's. He was kept as a prisoner until they arrived at Lexington Common, two and one-half miles, where he was compelled to witness the shooting of his fellow townsmen.
Half a mile farther along, and about two miles from Lexington Common, Benjamin Wellington, one of Capt. Parker's Company of minute-men, was captured. This took place very nearly at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Pleasant Street. Wellington was armed and on his way from home on Pleasant Street to join his company. Thus it is claimed, and rightly, that he was the first belligerent or armed man captured by the British. But for some reason he was allowed to depart, not towards the Common, but for home. His gun was not returned to him, however. He started towards home but when out of their sight, turned and passed northerly along the crest of the hills, parallel to the highway, and reached the Common just after Thaddeus Bowman, but ahead of the British.
[THE OPENING BATTLE ON LEXINGTON COMMON.]
The six companies of light infantry under command of Major Pitcairn were now considerably in advance of the main body under Smith, and up the road somewhat farther than the present high school building, even farther along than where the Woburn road, now Woburn Street, turns off to the eastward. When still nearer Lexington Common, within about one hundred rods of it, they heard the beating of a drum by William Dimond, drummer in Captain Parker's Company. It was the summons for that little band to assemble across the pathway of an invading army. Major Pitcairn accepted it as a challenge, and promptly ordered his soldiers to halt and load their muskets,[106] and then to march on the double quick for Lexington Common.[107]