In front of you is the Col. James Barrett Farm, where Concord's militia gunpowder, weapons and two pairs of bronze cannons were stored in 1775. James Barrett was Colonel of the Concord militia, and his farm was, according to secret British intelligence, the known storage for all the town’s militia gunpowder, weapons and two pairs of prized bronze cannons. On the morning of April 19, 1775, British Regulars were ordered by General Thomas Gage to march from Boston, about 20 miles inland, to seize those cannon and to raid the arsenal at the provincial farm.
They met resistance at both Lexington and Concord, but before the British arrived to search here the townspeople had concealed the stores in a field nearby, and the British never found them. The farmhouse you face was first built in 1705, and this place was later added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Notice the field nearby where townspeople hid the militia's gunpowder, weapons, and bronze cannons before the British could find them.