Munroe Tavern

Lexington
MA
Munroe Tavern

Munroe Tavern in Lexington

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Built in 1735, the tavern served as the British field hospital, and headquarters for Lord Hugh Percy, during the Battle of Lexington on 19-Apr-1775.

The tavern is named for William Munroe, who was the proprietor from 1770 to 1827. Munroe was a Freemason, and interestingly, President Washington, who was also a Freemason, chose to dine there when he visited the Lexington battlefield in 1789. An upstairs room contains the table at which Washington sat.

The guided tour provides perspective from the exhausted British point of view.

Associated People
Percy, Hugh
Washington, George

More than any other figure who strode across the revolutionary stage, [Joseph] Warren gave his devotion to the American cause simply because he believed in it. Others believed as passionately, of course; but for Samuel Adams political agitation was a profession which had rescued him from a debtors’ prison; James Otis had deep grievances against the royal government because of their mistreatment of his father; John Hancock was a millionaire merchant who made much of his money from smuggling and owed the British Revenue Service over £100,000 in fines; as a lawyer, John Adams was naturally drawn into the political arena. Warren, as a doctor could have remained aloof, as many of his fellow physicians in Boston did. They were the only class in Massachusetts who were not pressured to join the cause.

— Thomas Fleming
Now We Are Enemies: The Story of Bunker Hill (1960; reissued 2010)