Fiske Hill: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Minute Man National Historical Park

NPS Northeast Regional Office; Hammond, John

The Fiske Hill component landscape is part of Minute Man National Historical Park (NHP), located in Middlesex County, sixteen miles northwest of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1959, the park preserves the sites of the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 and the “shot heard round the world” that began the Revolutionary War. Four discontiguous management units of Minute Man NHP (Battle Road, North Bridge, Wayside, and Barrett’s Farm) comprise an area of approximately 1,040 acres of land in the towns of Concord, Lincoln, and Lexington. The largest of the units, the 800-acre Battle Road Unit, preserves part of the route along which British Regulars retreated to Boston under colonial fire. The Battle Road is the primary organizing feature of the unit running in a linear route along present-day Lexington Road (Concord), North Great Road (Lincoln), and Massachusetts Avenue (Lexington), parts of which are also designated as State Route 2A. The Battle Road is set within a landscape of farmhouses, barns, stone walls, fields, woodlands, and hedgerows, all remnants of the area’s agricultural past. While there are some areas of post-historic development associated with private residences and park operations within the boundaries of the Battle Road Unit, it nonetheless retains much of its historic low-density, agricultural appearance. This contrasts with areas immediately surrounding the unit that have been heavily developed, such as Hanscom Air Force Base just to the north and its associated military housing areas. Fiske Hill is the easternmost component landscape of the Battle Road cultural landscape. It comprises about 75 acres of field and forest on the western edge of Lexington, Massachusetts, and marks the site of fighting between the colonial militias and the haggard British troops as they tried to restore an orderly retreat from Concord to Boston. The relentless attacks from the colonists through the Fiske Hill area drove the British onward toward Lexington, where they eventually received reinforcements from Boston. Fiske Hill was also the site of a notable incident in which a British soldier and an American, James Hayward, met unexpectedly and exchanged fatal shots. The so-called “Hayward well incident” was told frequently among the stories and legends of the battle. For much of its history, Fiske Hill was home to the Fiske family farm, from its original settlement in about 1647 until the 19th century. Family members David Fiske II, David Fiske III, Jonathan Fiske, Ebenezer Fiske, and Benjamin Fiske all maintained homesteads and subsistence farms in the immediate area at some point during the period. These farmers cleared the hillsides and wetlands for pastures, meadows, and gardens. At the time of the battle, Ebenezer Fiske and his son and daughter-in-law Benjamin and Rebecca lived in a house at the eastern edge of the hill. By then the hillside and its surrounding land consisted primarily of large open pastures divided by stone walls and interspersed with patches of woodland. The road between Concord and Lexington wound over the north slope of the hill and passed directly north of Ebenezer Fiske’s house. Today, Fiske Hill comprises 75 acres of forest and meadow, located primarily between the streets of Massachusetts Avenue, and Old Massachusetts Avenue, Marrett Road, and Wood Street. Extant historic resources include the Ebenezer Fiske house foundation, the Bashian barn foundation, the Hayward well monument tablet, two wells, and stone walls. Also evident, though the presence of the stone walls lining its edge, is the historic right-of-way for the Battle Road. No intact structures remain in the Fiske Hill landscape, but the archeological sites of the Ebenezer Fiske house site and the David Fiske II house site provide valuable information about how the organization and makeup of the farm and its land evolved over time.

Fiske Hill: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Minute Man National Historical Park

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