What’s that old saying?  Oh yeah: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

Here’s the thing.  I just bought this house in Lexington, Mass., a small town about half an hour’s drive from where I live in Boston.  And not just any house, but a two-story colonial that may very well be one of the oldest timber-frame homes in the whole United States.  The house was built in 1681.

Timber framing is an old style of construction that uses tree trunks and logs.  The oldest timber-frame building in the world is the Lhasa Jokhang in Tibet, built in the Year of the Pig, 639.

My timing was just right, that’s all I can really say.  I’d been shopping around for years, following these old colonial homes for pretty much most my adult life.  Some people watch birds.  Others follow baseball.  Me, I’m into architecture, houses in particular, Early Colonial American homes, to be exact.  But I never thought I’d actually land one, not on my salary; and as for selling my own home, well, I just never thought I stood a chance, not with the housing market the way it was.

I was teaching at the BAC and living in Brookline at the time.[1]  Crossing the Charles into Cambridge in the evenings after class, walking the cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill, staring for hours at the houses on Louisburg Square, these were just a few of the ways I spent my free time.  I used to drive down to the John Adams House in Quincy sometimes, wondering what it must have been like to live there, in that time, to be him.

But my favorite was the Paul Revere House.  Imagine being there in 1775, the night of that legendary ride.  “The British are coming!  The British are coming!”  I could almost hear him now, even though it’s common knowledge to learned men that he never actually said that.  At that time Boston was a part of Britain, so to shout “The British are coming!” wouldn’t have made a lot of sense.  It’s more likely he said, not shouted, “The Regulars are coming.”  Regulars were British soldiers.  British soldiers were also known as Redcoats.

What would it be like to live in such a home?  To be surrounded by such walls?  Oh, if only those walls could talk.  But I would never be able to afford such a thing, not on a teacher’s salary.  It was all just idle daydreaming; going nowhere, that is, until the morning of October 7^th, 2011.

So I kept an eye on these old homes and made ridiculously low bids whenever one would come on the market.  I’d read all about them and like I said, it was just my way of having a little fun.  It got so out of hand though, it had actually come to the point where agents weren’t taking my calls anymore.  Who could blame them?

And then one day, October 7^th to be exact, completely out of the blue, this one agent calls me up and says “Guess what?”

“What?” I said.  I thought she was going to say she’d phoned the police and filed harassment charges against me.

“They’ve accepted your offer.”

“Who?” I said. “Who’s accepted what offer?”

“For the Lexington property.”

I couldn’t remember which one that was.

“The one built in 1681.”

1681?

“The two-story colonial.”

I was still drawing a blank.

“The Paul Revere House!”

I got it now.  Lexington.  1681.  Two-story colonial.  The Paul Revere House.

Of course, if you were to ask any historian he would tell you there is no Paul Revere House in Lexington.  The Paul Revere House is in Boston’s North End, everybody knows that.  But this house was special.  This house was a deep, dark secret.  It was never owned by Paul Revere, but it is rumored that on that fateful night in April 1775, after he made his famous ride, after he was captured by British Regulars at Lincoln and made his escape on foot, it is rumored that he and John Hancock hid out in this house as the battle on Lexington Green raged on.

If there is any one moment in the American War for Independence possibly more significant than George Washington crossing the Delaware, it’s the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.  Like I said, that he stopped over in this house in Lexington on his escape route is only hearsay, but no one can prove it otherwise, and with history, sometimes that’s all it takes.

“You’re kidding?” I said.  “You sure you didn’t add a few zeroes to my offer by mistake?”

“I’ve spoken to the agent and he says your bid is acceptable.  I even called back to make sure.”

It couldn’t be.  I’m not going to get into the particulars, but if you had any idea how low the offers I was making on these houses were, well, you’d be as shocked as I was.  Of course, there was still the matter of my house.

“And you’re not going to believe this either,” she said, “but I’m 99% sure I’ve got a buyer for your Brownstone.”

“But it’s not even on the market.”

“I know, but I’ve been showing properties in your area to this professor at BU and if you’re still OK with the price we talked about, I think I can get it.  He’s in a corner by now and has to get settled ASAP.  I don’t believe he’ll even counter.”

“This all sounds too good to be true,” I said.

“I know,” she said, “but so does winning the lottery, and somebody still does that, too.”

“And the owners of the colonial, they don’t want to counter either?”

“It’s just the agent,” she said, “and he says he needs to get the property off his books.”

Oh yeah, it did all sound way too good to be true.  But she was right, somebody does win the lottery.  Somebody does on occasion pull the right lever at a casino, and somebody has won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, too.  I know someone has; I saw it on tv.

Of course, what’s that old saying?  Oh yeah: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  But hey, this wasn’t just dumb luck.  I’d been making these crazy offers for years.  I must have bid on at least three or four hundred properties by now.  Every day, the odds were tilting more and more in my favor.  That man who won $315 million in the lottery, who knows how many times he lost before he finally picked a winner.  And that lucky guy who hit the $40 million jackpot at the Excalibur Casino, how many times do you think he pulled that lever before all the bells and lights went off?  And what about all those Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes winners?  Do you think Ed McMahon was lying to us all those years?  Right there on national television?  And my three-story, turn of the century Brownstone.  It wasn’t luck that kept it in such fine condition.  It wasn’t luck that I chose just the right neighborhood, just up Huntington Drive to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Museum of Fine Arts, just down Brookline Avenue from Fenway Park and Beth Israel, and of course, the birthplace of John F. Kennedy.  Heck, now that I think about it, it wasn’t luck at all but hard work and perseverance that made it all pay off.   It wasn’t too good to be true, I earned it.  And anyway, doesn’t that old adage after all say probably?

Now all this time I’ve been saying I, but the truth is it’s We.  We bought this two-story colonial in Lexington, Massachusetts, home of the very first battle of the American Revolution and “The shot heard ’round the world.”  I have no idea whether my wife was serious when she gave me the go-ahead to start making bids on these homes; I doubt she even remembers me asking it’s been so long ago now.  But I do remember showing her a few and her saying “If anyone is crazy enough to accept any of these offers, then by all means do it.”  I don’t know if she was serious about moving or not; I don’t think she believed anyone would ever accept even one of my bids.  But I gave my agent the green light, time was of the essence.

I know my wife loves history, and historical homes, just like I do.  She actually grew up in Concord, and she really enjoys our occasional drives in the country.  Anyway, she’d been bringing up the subject of babies lately and where better to have a child than in the cradle of American liberty?  Where better to raise a family than in the quiet countryside?

I guess in hindsight I should have asked my agent why the seller was so motivated.  What she had said, that the agent just wanted to get it off his books, just didn’t sit right.  But hey, whatever the reason, an offer is an offer.  And anyway, how does that other old saying go.  Oh yeah: Never look a gift horse in the mouth.  I’d been thinking about this for years; I’d been dreaming about it most all my life.  Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, The Battle on Lexington Green, The Shot Heard ‘Round the World; John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and now, Jonathon Jonstone.  Who was Jonathon Jonstone?  Why Me, of course.  I was Jonathon Jonstone, and I was about to make my mark in the birthplace of America as well.

So we signed the papers that week and within a month were out of our Brownstone and driving out of the city on our way to our new life.

Like Paul Revere, my father had been an immigrant too.  And just like Paul Revere, I was setting out on adventures of my own.

 

The town of Lexington, Massachusetts is only 15 miles from Boston.  Today, that’s just a short drive, no more than half an hour really; but 235 years ago, it was another thing entirely.

Founded in 1642, Lexington, known originally as Cambridge Farms, was 133 years old on the day when that first shot was fired.  Think about it: 133 years is an awfully long time.  We have a tendency to blur history together whenever it goes back too far.  After a hundred years or so, it all seems to fall into the “Once upon a time” category.  But to put 133 years into perspective, referencing it to today, that would take us back to the year 1879.  That was before the gasoline-powered motor car, right around the time the telephone was invented, and the very same year Edison perfected the light bulb.  In short, in 1879 we were just coming out of the dark ages.

Again, to put the whole thing into perspective, there was a 78-year span between the beginning of the Civil War and the end of the American Revolution.  Lexington was around 133 years before the revolution ever even began.  What I’m trying to say, quite simply, is that the town of Lexington was around a long, long time before there was even the notion of a United States of America.

There are many historic, even famous homes all around Lexington and in the Boston area.  There is of course the John Adams House, the Paul Revere House, and like I said, in my very own town of Brookline, the house where JFK was born.  But did you know that the John Quincy Adams’ House is also right here in the Boston area, in Quincy, no less?  John Quincy Adams, who was of course the sixth President of the United States, was the son of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States.  John Quincy was a good man, bur he wasn’t a very good president.  Historically speaking, sons of presidents don’t make very good presidents themselves.  Also, the James Blake House, the oldest house in Boston, built way back in 1661, is right here in Dorchester.

And then of course, out in Essex County, in the notorious town of Salem, there is what is known as “The Witch House.”  The Witch House, also known as the Jonathon Corwin House, is the only structure still standing today with direct ties to the Salem witch trials of 1692.

The house, built in 1642, was bought by Judge Jonathan Corwin in 1675 when he was only 24 years old.  Judge Corwin is known for having served on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, which sent 19 people accused of witchcraft to their deaths.  Contrary to popular belief, none of these nineteen were burned to the stake, but hanged instead.  And they were not all women, either.  Five of the people executed were men.  One man was even crushed beneath heavy stones when he refused to confess.

There’s also the Mary Baker Eddy House, right here in Swampscott.  Who, you may ask?  Why Mary Baker Eddy, of course, the founder of the Church of Christian Scientists.  And there’s even the House of Seven Gables.  Yes, the one by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Right here in my new neck of the woods, Middlesex County, just over in Medford, is Grandfather’s house.  You know, from the song “Over the river and through the woods, to Grandfather’s house we go.”  The Peter Tufts House is also in Medford, considered to be the oldest surviving all-brick house in the entire United States.

There is the Old Manse, the house where Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote some of their greatest works, and the Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott.  Both are in Concord.  There’s also the Whistler House in Lowell.  You remember, the painter with the famous mother.

But most of all there’s the Jason Russell House in Arlington, home to the bloodiest fighting in the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and the Hancock-Clark House, right here in Lexington.

On April 19, 1775, British Regulars were on their way back to Boston through Arlington (known as Menotomy at the time) when the Redcoat Lord Percy ordered every home to be cleared for snipers.  By clearing he of course meant ransacking and setting on fire.  Setting things on fire was something military leaders loved to do. The Redcoats were in retreat and it all came to a head at the home of a man named Jason Russell.

Russell was a simple farmer who’d built the home only 35 years before.  Comparatively speaking, it was a relatively new house.  Russell may have been a simple farmer, but on this day he was quickly transformed into a revolutionary soldier.

The Redcoats and the rebels had been skirmishing all day, but by the time they reached Russell’s house it had erupted into a full-blown battle.  It was early in the evening, and there Russell was joined by men from all over: Salem, Needham, Danvers, and Dedham.

Now I wish I could tell you the gallant tale of the heroic Jason Russell.  He did get off on the right foot, so to speak.  He did do the right thing by taking his wife and children to safety before returning to the battle, saying “An Englishman’s house is his castle.”  But from that point on, things went very badly for the farmer Russell.

For you see, Russell was 59 years old (which was really old back then) and lame in one leg.  He never even made it back inside the house.  At his backdoor he was shot twice, then bayoneted eleven times.

After that, the Redcoats stormed the house with a vengeance, clearing the place, as it were.  They killed everything that moved inside that house; and when it was all said and done, Jason Russell and eleven others lay dead.  They were buried all together in one big, dirty grave.  Bullets riddled the house, and today, some of those very bullet holes are still visible on the main staircase.

The only house that might be more famous than the Jason Russell House is the Hancock-Clark House.  While the Hancock-Clark House was not at the heart of any actual bloodletting, it was command central, if there even was such a thing at the time.  It’s where Paul Revere met up with Samuel Adams and John Hancock as the War for American Independence took its very first breath.

The original house was built by the Reverend John Hancock, grandfather to the famous revolutionary of the same name.  That house, a modest little home, is not the house, however, that stands there today.  The house there today was actually built in 1737 by Thomas Hancock, the reverend’s son and a wealthy Boston merchant.  Unlike his father, Thomas heeded a different calling.  Like the Jason Russell House, his house was relatively new to the area at that time.  But unlike Russell, the Hancock House came from money.

On the evening of April 18, 1775, revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, on their way back from the Provincial Congress in Concord, decided to stop over at the house.  Boston was just too dangerous, they determined.  That night, they were the guests of Reverend Jonas Clark, who had since taken over for the Reverend Hancock and resided in the house at the time.

This is where they were when Paul Revere and William Dawes were dispatched from Boston.  This is also where they were when Paul Revere returned on foot, helping John Hancock and his family escape that night.  This was the starting point from which Adams and Hancock began their house-hopping tour, keeping themselves out of sight and eventually ending up in Philadelphia a month later for the Second Continental Congress.

But most importantly, the house was the epicenter for everything that went down that night.  It was the destination of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, it’s where the Redcoats were headed to arrest Hancock and Adams, and after their escape, it was the starting point for the makings of a new nation.  I wonder how many people thought of the significance at the time, or even today, that that house, the center of all that energy and everything that coalesced that night, was in fact a house of God.

The only difference between that house and mine, however, is that there is historical proof of what went down there.  Mine is only rumor.  But that’s why I was here, not only to be right in the cradle of the American Revolution, but to find evidence that my house played just as important a role that first night as any.  I knew it was true.  I just knew it in my heart.  I was going to change the rumor into fact.

 

This house.  Oh, this old house.  You really do have to see it to believe it.  Technically, it’s classified Early Colonial.  Construction began in 1680, coincidentally the very same year construction was completed on the Paul Revere House in Boston.  Incidentally, the Paul Revere House was not built by Paul Revere at all but by a man named Robert Howard.

Robert Howard was a wealthy merchant who bought the property after the church there burned to the ground.  He bought it from the Minister of the Second Church of Boston, a man whose name was Increase Mather, no less.  Increase and his son Cotton lived there in the church until it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1676.   Paul Revere did not actually set foot in the house until the year 1770.

With construction having been completed somewhere between late 1680 and early 1681, my old colonial home may very well be one of the oldest surviving timber-frame houses left standing in all the United States.  One of the main structural beams has been confirmed by dendrochonology as having been cut in the winter of 1679.  Dendrochonology is just a fancy word for tree-ring dating.  The structural beams of the house are all from felled oak, while cedar was used for clapboarding on the exterior.

There is a massive chimney in the center with four fireplaces and four generous rooms surrounding it, two on each floor.  On the first floor are the hall and the parlor.  Upstairs are the two chambers.  There are two cellars that were originally used to store foodstuffs.

Anyway, enough of the boring architect talk.  The main thing is that the house was in amazingly good shape.  Was it in perfect condition?  Of course not.  But considering it was over 300 years old, I’d say, in my professional opinion, that it was in good, if not great condition overall.

The truly amazing part was that the house, the whole house, still had all its original materials.  The structural beams, the clapboard, the red-brick chimney, all original.  For a house this old, I have to tell you, that’s nothing short of miraculous.  None of the original house was going to have to be replaced.  Restored, not replaced, and as far as value goes, historical or even dollar-wise, that’s a huge deal.  Again, I couldn’t help but wonder why the owners let it go so cheap.  But hey.  What’s that old saying?  Oh yeah: Good things come to he who waits.

So you can see the historical importance of my house, even without the Paul Revere dynamic.  But add in the possibility that perhaps Paul Revere, the very man who set forth from the North Church in Boston on that night in April 1775, you add in the possibility that on that night, on the run from the Redcoats, that possibly he stopped in this very house, My house, while the battle raged on, it’s perhaps even more than my poor-man’s imagination can handle.  Just think of it, as the battle that began the American Revolution, as that first shot was fired, as the United States itself was in the process of being born, Paul Revere might have been hiding out right here, in this very house, perhaps warming himself by this very fireplace.  Perhaps.  For a history nut like me, it was bigger than hitting the lottery, beating the casino, and winning the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes all together.

And another thing, on the subject of Paul Revere, that fabled night, and proof of his staying here: you can bet your bottom dollar I wasn’t going to let go of that one without a fight, either.  If it was true, you better believe I was going to find some proof of it somewhere.  If I had to dig halfway to China, if I had pull out and replace every square inch of this place, if it was true, if this house was an integral part of the night America took its very first steps, you better believe, I was going to find it.

 

We spent the first night at our new house in sleeping bags.  We decided we’d just camp out on the floor until the major restorations were done.  I’d taken a leave of absence from my teaching job, my wife had quit hers altogether.  We were in no hurry.  We both enjoyed camping, loved roughing it.  It reminded us of when we were in college.  That first night, we did all the things we used to do when we were first married.  I could have stayed on that floor forever.  Except that I was chomping at the bit to get started, and so was she.  I would head into town the next morning for supplies.  I couldn’t believe it.  It felt like I was living inside a dream.

The clerk at the hardware store asked me, “So you’re the one who bought the old Wilson place, on Evergreen Lane?”  The cashier at the grocery said the same thing, as did the lady at the drug store.  And it was about this time that I began noticing people were looking funny at me.  Word must have gotten around because next thing I knew everybody was giving me the stiff-arm.  I guess they didn’t like outsiders.  I guess they weren’t comfortable with some city slicker buying up a piece of their history.  I guess I could empathize with them.  I guess I wouldn’t have liked it either.

But once the people of the town got to know me, to know us, to know how important history was to the both of us and how much of the house and the land we were going to preserve, how we were going to restore the house back to its original state, once they knew all of this, I’m sure they would change their mind.  What’s that old saying?  Oh yeah: They will come to like me, once they get to know me.

Still, for the time being no one wanted to have anything to do with me.  I said good morning and good afternoon and good evening, but no one answered at all.  They just gave me the ole one-eye, either walked right passed me like I didn’t exist or made a wide swath and avoided me altogether.

Paul Revere’s father, or Apollos Rivoire, as he was known before Anglicizing his name, was actually a Protestant from France.  He changed his name to Paul Revere.  Like me, he was an outsider; and like me, he just wanted to fit in.

Paul Revere Sr. came to the United States at the age of 13 and like his famous son, he was a silversmith.  But while Paul Revere, the son, might be famous now, he certainly was not back in his day.  You see, as a silversmith he was barely more than middle class.  As a silversmith, he was a craftsman, but he was also a salesman.  And if you think it’s sort of creepy being a salesman today, back then, salesmen were just below water rats on the food chain, just above sea urchins and barnacles.  And because he was not a member of the Gentleman class, to the Revolution, he really could never be anything more than just a messenger.

Revere didn’t ride alone that night, you know.  He was instead one of dozens who set out on horseback to warn the Colonial Militia that the Regulars were coming.  So why is it that Paul Revere is the one man we all remember today?  Because he had a great publicist, that’s why?  Never under estimate the importance of having a top-notch adman.

The reason we all remember the name Paul Revere and not Israel Bissell, Samuel Tufts, or Dr. Martin Herrick is because of a man named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Longfellow wrote about that night nearly 90 years later in his famous poem Paul Revere’s Ride.  When I say the name William Dawes, most everyone looks back at me with a blank stare.  William who, you may ask?  Exactly.

But none of this should detract from the importance of that midnight ride some 235 years ago.  Revere set into motion a series of events that led to the beginning of the American Revolution, and the establishment of the United States itself.  Paul Revere’s ride was monumental in the history of our nation, even though the ride itself didn’t last very long at all.  What’s that old saying?  Oh yeah: Bad news travels fast.

So my wife and I got hard to work restoring the old place, just the little things at first, everything two college geeks could do without hurting themselves or damaging the place.  Just enough to make us feel good, like we’d had a real hand in the restoration process: cutting the grass, trimming the hedges, tilling the garden, sanding the walls, the floor, and the stairs, getting the paint off that unbelievably someone had caked all over the natural wood.  In the whole scheme of things, it wasn’t going to amount to much, but it exhausted us just the same, and made us feel good about ourselves.

But there was something else, something huge, my very first discovery.  While I was down there in between the steps of the old staircase, that’s when I first saw it.  And the funny thing was, if I had never gotten down there on my hands and knees, if I had never shoved my face so deep into the cracks between the steps half way up the stairs, I never would have seen it at all.  I could have been here the rest of my life, and I never would have known it even existed.  These carpenters and construction guys, they would have sanded and stained right over it without even a second thought.

But I did see it.  It was right there.  And the only thing I could guess is that the previous owners, and the ones before them, and so on and so on, none of them had ever seen it either.  But there it was, right there in my face.  It was almost like it was calling out to me.  History was speaking to me, like only history can.  And what was it, you may ask?  What was it I found in the middle of my staircase?  Why, a bullet hole, no less.  Just like at the Jason Russell House.  Of course, I was going to have to find proof, at some point, that this bullet hole had been made back in 1775.  But I’d find it.  I had faith.  This whole thing, from my obsession with these old homes to my late nights on all those real estate websites to that agent accepting my crazy bid to, well, everything, quite frankly.  This was destiny.  I had never felt destiny before, but I knew, I could just tell, this is what it felt like.

So armed with this new discovery, I went after that house like a pirate after buried treasure.  I hadn’t even bothered having the electricity turned on, and there certainly was no phone.  We were going to restore the place old-style, with adzes and draw knives: no electric saws, no drills, no working lights, nothing that couldn’t have been used three hundred years ago.  Sure, it was going to be more expensive like this, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  Again, if you had any idea what a steal I got this place for, and the difference between that and what I got for my old Brownstone, you’d understand there was money to burn.

It was money well spent, however.  In the daytime when people passed by and saw us working, free from the sound of buzz saws and power drills, even though still no one stopped to talk to us, I knew they appreciated the fact that I showed the greatest respect for the property.  Just give it some time, I thought. I was sure, with the way I was treating the old house, with the type of person I was, We were, it was only a matter of time until the people of Lexington warmed up to us.

So we camped out on the floor every night, keeping warm by the fireplace, just like they used to do back in 1775.  My wife loves history, just like me, but she’s not a history buff, per say.  She asked me all about that night, about Paul Revere.  All she knew about it, she said, was “The British are coming!  The British are coming!”

 

Of course we’ve all heard the legend of Paul Revere and his Midnight Ride, and we all know how the story begins, with the old North Church and the lanterns in the steeple.  “One if by land, two if by sea.”  But did you know that the signal was not meant for Paul Revere, nor was it sent by him?  It was instead sent by a man named Robert Newman, the sexton of the North Church.  A sexton is pretty much the same thing as a janitor; it just sounds better, that’s all.  He is charged with maintaining the buildings, the cemetery, and ringing the church bells.

The signal may not have been from or to Paul Revere, but it was, however, his idea.  It was meant for the colonists in Charlestown.  You see, to begin his ride to Lexington, and then on to Concord, Revere was first going to have to cross the Charles by rowboat.  At the time, all crossings were prohibited, and there was a very good chance he wasn’t going to even get across the river, much less make it all the way to Lexington and Concord.

So, just in case he was detained by British soldiers, Revere had devised this signal, so that others could take his place, and sally forth.

But he did make it, riding through what is today Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, on his way towards Lexington, warning everyone along the way.  His horse, by the way, was provided by the deacon John Larkin.

In Lexington, he was to alert John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the Redcoats were coming to arrest them.  Most people think of John Hancock as just a signature, and Samuel Adams as a beer; but in reality, from the very beginning, these two men were at the forefront of the revolution, and the British Crown wanted them in chains.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Paul Revere did not go galloping full speed through the streets shouting at the top of his lungs.  Lexington is, after all, fifteen miles from Boston, and he wouldn’t have gotten a quarter of the way before his horse’s legs gave out.  He instead rode at a conservative clip, passing the message along to dozens of other riders who were stationed all along the way.  And he wasn’t shouting anything.  After all, it was a mission of secrecy, and the countryside was filthy with King George’s spies.  By night’s end there were more than forty riders in all.  This is the way it really went down on that night, April 18, 1775, contrary to what Hollywood would have you think.  It may not have been as theatrical as Hollywood likes to portray it, but it was every bit as dramatic just the same.  And the stakes, well, they couldn’t have been any higher.

Revere finally arrived in Lexington sometime around midnight. William Dawes, the other principal rider on that night, showed up about thirty minutes later.  You see, the truth of the matter is that Dawes, younger, less attractive than Revere, and after all just a tanner, had the longer route, taking him the roundabout way through Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, and Menotomy.  If not for this, perhaps it would have been his name we all know today.

The two met with Hancock and Adams in Lexington at the house of Reverend Jonas Clark, today known as the Hancock-Clark House, deciding that the British force was too large to be coming to arrest just two men, and that the ammunition stores in Concord must be their ultimate target.

Revere and Dawes continued their ride to Concord to warn the colonial militia there.  Along the way they met up with a man by the name of Samuel Prescott, a doctor who just happened to be visiting his fiancée in Lexington at the time.  Prescott joined forces with the two, and was now along for the ride.  Oddly enough, he would be the only one of the three to actually make it to Concord.

The three never made it past Lincoln.  They were stopped by the Redcoats at a roadblock and detained.  Prescott however, decided he wasn’t sticking around.  He made a daring escape on horseback, jumping a stone wall and disappearing into the darkness just like some kind of Hollywood movie star.  Seeing this, Dawes decided he didn’t want to keep company with the soldiers either.  His escape, however, was more like the Keystone Cops.  He eventually fell off his horse and never made it to Concord.

Revere decided, on the other hand, that he’d had quite enough time in the saddle for one night.  His thighs were chapped, his back was aching, and his hemorrhoids were acting up by now.  So he stayed in the company of the soldiers, who had tobacco, hardtack, and four guns pointed right at his head.

As for Paul Revere, as stated earlier, he was not a member of the Gentleman class.  He was a working man, and as such, he was able to employ middle-class tactics to trick the Redcoats and escape on foot.  Truth is, if Revere had been a gentleman, he would never have been able to make up the story that he did, to in essence, tell a flat-out lie.  It would have been, well, ungentlemanly, and quite beneath him.  Here’s how the whole thing went down.

You see, Revere was a born talker.  He loved going on about the mouth.  He and a number of other prisoners were being taken east to Lexington, but all along the way he just kept jabbering on.  At gunpoint, he simply did what any commoner would do: he spilled the beans.  He told the Redcoats all about the large army of militia stationed in Lexington.  They just couldn’t shut him up.

Then about a half mile from Lexington there was a gunshot.  The whole trek east the Redcoats couldn’t shut the damn salesman from Boston up.  But now, with this sudden burst of gunfire, they listened closely to what he had to say.

He told them the gunshot was a signal, that it was time to “Alarm the country,” that thousands of colonists were right now arming themselves and preparing to attack.  Then, the town bell began to ring.  One of the prisoners said, “The bell’s a’ringing! The town’s alarmed, and you’re all dead men!”  From this point on, the prisoners had the soldiers completely turned around.

It was at this time that the Redcoats decided to make a strategic retreat, rationalizing that it was necessary for them now to make their way back to warn their commanders.  Just to stick it to him, one of the soldiers stole Revere’s horse.  It was at this point that Revere set out on foot for the house of the Reverend Jonas Clarke, where Hancock and Adams were laying low.

An interesting note: There was no large army of militia laying in wait, there never were thousands of colonists arming themselves and on the move.  In reality, there were just 77 men, all under the command of Captain John Parker.  Sure, they were on the move all right, moving more like an unruly mob than a company of soldiers from Buckman Tavern where they had been drinking all night.  It’s safe to assume that they were completely unorganized.  It’s also safe to assume that they were plenty liquored-up.

The rebels made their showdown with the Redcoats at the Green on Lexington around 6AM on the morning of April 19, 1775.  When finally confronted with greater numbers and superior firepower, however, Captain Parker, common sense being the better part of valor, ordered his men to disperse.  But while his men were on their way back to the bar, suddenly a shot rang out.  It will never be known who or which side actually fired that shot, but upon hearing it the Redcoats opened fire in earnest.  A few minutes later, eight colonists were dead, nine wounded.  And just like that, the American Revolution had begun.  It’s amazing to think that a war began, a revolution took place, and the United States of America might have very well been born all because some drunkard decided to take a cheap shot.  Could be.

So while all this is going on, Paul Revere is on foot heading toward the house of the Reverend Jonas Clarke.  There, he met up with Adams and Hancock; and from there, he helped the revolutionary leaders make their escape.  And this is the part where I come in, where my house comes in.  Rumor has it that on his way out of town, as the battle raged on, as the American Revolution began in earnest, Revere went from house to house, eventually making his way back to Boston.  But which houses were these?  There is no historical record.  What we do know, however, is that on that night Hancock had a trunk of papers that Revere helped him to carry.  And that’s how the rumor got started that this house, My house, was one of the ones they stopped at that night.  Rumor has it that certain documents were found here, some half-burned, but of course none of those papers still survive today.  Just imagine, Paul Revere standing at My fireplace, destroying incriminating documents.  Right here, in My house, right where I stand.  If you’re not a history nut like me, I guess you just wouldn’t understand.  For others, I guess it would be akin to something like finding out that Elvis was still alive.  Being right here, right now, in this house, this was my Elvis moment.

*****

So we got busy restoring the old place right away.  Sleeping on that floor, as romantic as we tried to make it, was a great motivator for getting us up in the morning.  There was a veritable sea of contractors.  It was plaid on parade, like something right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.  On Monday the guy with the window panes came.  On Tuesday the roofers were hard at work, and Wednesday the man came by to get the plumbing in order.  The days passed until on Sunday evening there was a knock at the door.  Sunday, I thought?  This was God’s country.  You ever been in the country on a Sunday?  Well, out in the countryside, God is still very much alive, and on Sunday you can feel him everywhere.

I opened the door and standing there was this old guy in coveralls.  He had this very ordinary face, as plain-looking as I had ever seen, and he never did look me square in the eyes.

I greeted him, and didn’t so much let him in as he just passed on through.  I thought about it, but still wasn’t quite sure who he was, or why he was here.  I hoped whatever it was, he wasn’t going to make a lot of noise.  Two people almost came up and talked to me at the Main Street Diner yesterday, and I didn’t want to set things back.

“Can I help you?” I asked, but he just brushed me off and went on about setting up his supplies.

“Are you here to smooth out the floor?” I asked him, but still he did not answer.

It was at this time that my wife came into the room and she of course asked me who he was.

“I’m not sure, exactly,” I told her.

“On Sunday?” she said.

As more of his tools and supplies came out it was apparent he was some kind of painter.  But I wasn’t sure if he had wood stain or primer in those cans.  He had a series of brushes, rollers, and spray cans, and then he slipped on his painter’s cap and mask.

“I guess he’s here to stain the wood,” I said.

“Sure doesn’t say much,” said my wife, and the man proceeded to get to work, brushing something on the walls.  What is was, I still wasn’t sure.

Now this is the part of the story where what I’m about to tell you is taken completely out of context, timeline-wise, that is  What I’m trying to say is that everything I’m about to tell you is told in hindsight, as they sometimes say.  Neither my wife nor I knew anything about it at the time; it wasn’t until the next day we found out why, why we had got the house so cheap.  I guess you could call this the moment of realization, or an epiphany.  It was shocking, to say the least.

You see, whether or not Paul Revere ever stopped in this house on that night in April 1775 is still not known, maybe never will be.  Like with much of history, it’s all open to debate.  And that’s what sometimes makes dreamers like me see things that aren’t really there, while at the same time not see things that are right in my face.

I guess it has something to do with the fact that sometimes I live in another time and place.  I’m a daydreamer, plain and simple.  I’ve got my head so far into the history books that I never turn on the tv, never so much as lift a newspaper from time to time.  If I did, maybe I would have known then what I know now.

All those walks around historic Boston, through Cambridge and Brookline and Louisburg Square, my head was so far back in the past I wouldn’t see a plane crash if it happened right on top of me.  A marching band could walk right past me, someone could be right there being murdered, and I probably wouldn’t even notice it at all.  But you see, that’s exactly what happened, right here in this house, November 14, 2008, and if I’d ever bothered reading or watching the news, same goes for my wife, then we both would have known exactly what had happened here that terrifying night, right here, exactly three years ago.  Now I knew why no one talked to us.  Finally it dawned on me why people avoided me in the streets, whispered when I walked by, and covered their mouths in disgust.  I thought it was because I was an outsider.  I thought they were just a bunch of snobs.  I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

On the night of November 14, 2008, somewhere around the hour of midnight, it seems someone broke into the house, My house, only then it was owned by a couple named Wilson.  As it was told in the news, the killer entered through the basement in the back.  First he came into the parlor where the couple, Bob and Barbara Wilson, had been relaxing next to a cozy fire.  They’d had a few glasses of wine and fallen asleep.  What happened next exactly, no one really knows for sure.  The police pieced it together as best they could, but it seems that the couple was butchered right here in the living room.  As the cops tell it, first Mr. Wilson was stabbed viciously, then Mrs. Wilson.  But while the killer was going at Mrs. Wilson, stabbing her in the chest and abdomen repeatedly, Mr. Wilson made a break for it.  He got as far as the front door, but the killer pulled him back and finished him off right there.  The killer then went after Mrs. Wilson again, who had somehow got to her feet and nearly made it into the kitchen.  He pinned her up against the wall, stabbing her repeatedly in the back.  He then dragged her across the wood floor, onto the stairs, and halfway up, for whatever reason, put a bullet in her head.  The bullet went clean through her skull, lodging in the cracks in the staircase.  He finished her off there, then murdered the two children in their bedroom upstairs.

No one was ever caught.  There was never even a suspect in the case.  The only eyewitness description came from one of the neighbors, an elderly woman across the street who swore she saw a man, tall, well built, in coveralls.  She swore she saw him walking across the lawn away from the house.  She called the police, but by the time they got there he was long gone.  When asked if she had gotten a good look at his face, she said she surely did.  When asked to describe him however, she said he just looked ordinary, the most plain face she had ever seen, and there was nothing distinctive about him at all.  The case went cold after that.

Like I said, I didn’t find out about any of this until way too late.  Whether my real estate agent knew about it, or the other real estate agent knew about it, I really can’t tell you.  Seems everybody in town knew about it though, and now this guy standing right here in my living room, in coveralls, spraying something all over my walls and floor and stairs, I bet he knew all about it.  My wife and I might be the only two people around who were still in the dark.

And then the man put down the can of spray paint and walked over to one of the windows.  He pulled the draped closed.  He went over to another window, did the same, and then to the last windows.  When he pulled the last drapes, the house went pitch black.  Now we were completely in the dark, alone with this stranger, and then it happened.  I had never seen anything quite like it in all my life.

Have you ever heard of something called luminol?  Well, luminol is a chemical substance used by crime-scene investigators ever since at least as far back as the 1980’s.  It’s used to detect blood residue, no matter how faint the traces, no matter if the blood has been cleaned or removed.  If you watch any of those CSI shows, I bet they’ve had some episode or other with luminol in it.  It looks great on camera, but in real life, it’s scary as hell.

The way it works is that it’s sprayed over the surface of a crime scene.  Any iron in the blood catalyzes a chemical reaction and this leads to a luminescence wherever there are traces of blood.  In English, this means that if there is blood, it glows, neon blue.  Hence the name luminol.  This glowing effect last only about 30 seconds, but it’s a sight to behold.  The only thing it needs to give it its shine: darkness.  Just turn out the lights, and watch it do its thing.

So when this stranger pulled that last drape, and the room went completely black, it took only a second or so and Walla!  The floor, the staircase, the walls came alive, glowing, retelling the horrific story of what happened that night in 2008.

There were pools of luminescence, glowing blue blood splattered all over the place.  There was a handprint on the front door, and another pattern of neon blue right nearby.  On the wall toward the kitchen there were two glowing handprints where the killer had caught up to Mrs. Wilson.  According to the police report, she had been stabbed repeatedly on the wall by the kitchen.  You could see from the trail of blood going down the wall that that’s where she had fallen.  From there, there were drag marks leading up the stairs that glowed like a UV lamp.  You could see the tracks going all the way to the top and around the corner out of sight.  It was a real horror show, right here in my very own house.

And there was this one big splatter mark right there on the stairs, right there in between two steps about halfway up, right there where that bullet hole was.

I noticed that the man was looking all around the room, pivoting his head like some sort of vulture.  He turned and looked at us, and then the luminol died out.

There we were again in the dark.  We had stopped breathing, and there wasn’t a sound in the place.  Then we could hear him breathing again, and the sound of footsteps.

My wife grabbed onto me.  I held her tight, but soon we realized the footsteps were moving away from, not towards us.  The front door opened, I could see him walking out, and it closed.  We were left there standing in the dark, and finally we gasped for air.

What the hell was that?  Who the hell was that?  My heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to come right out of my chest.

I had seen luminol in action one time before.  Not in real life, but in this movie called In a Child’s Name. This doctor was accused of murdering his wife and there was this scene where the cops covered the whole house in luminol.  They closed the blinds and that house lit up like a Spencer’s gag shop.  It was awesome.  But that was just a tv show, not real life.  We spent the night at the Quality Inn over on Bedford St.

I went down to the library early the next morning and found out all about what happened here on that night in 2008.  I couldn’t believe it.  When I got back home I stood there for a moment and then I thought: This is my house, Godammit!  I’d be damned if I was going to let some asshole in coveralls tell me what I could or could not do in my own house.  To hell with him!

But then I thought about it some more, and I made my decision.

What’s that old saying?  Oh yeah: He who runs away today, lives to walk another day.  Or something like that.

Close enough.

We moved back to Boston, back to the old apartment complex where we lived when we first got married.  I don’t even want to talk about the financial hit I took on that house.

I went back to work, and as far as my nights went, I found myself a new hobby.  I didn’t follow those old homes anymore.  I got my head out of the past, and started watching the news from time to time.

Oh, well.  Just like the old saying goes: Easy come, easy go.

END

Luminol scene from In a Child’s Name: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBm08WEgS8

 

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