Watson's Corner

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Watson's Corner is the historical name for an intersection in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the corner of Rindge Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue. It was part of a wider area called Watson's Plain in colonial and Revolutionary War times and well into the 19th century. [1]

Cambridge, Massachusetts City in Massachusetts, United States

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and part of the Boston metropolitan area.

Watson's Corner gained notability on account of a skirmish that occurred there on April 19, 1775 in connection with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. A marker at 2154 Massachusetts Avenue commemorates the skirmish. [2] An account of this event from the Cambridge city website [3] describes the scene thus: [4]

Battles of Lexington and Concord first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War

The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America.

At Watson’s Corner (the present intersection of Rindge and Massachusetts avenues) Cambridge patriots lay in wait behind a pile of barrels, but were surprised by flanking redcoats. John Hicks and Moses Richardson of Cambridge and Isaac Gardner of Brookline were killed, as was William Marcy, a "simple-minded youth" who thought he was watching a parade. [3]

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References

  1. Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Northwest Cambridge, 1977, ISBN   0-262-53032-5, Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 14-16, 39
  2. "Watson's Corner" (PDF). Cambridge Historical Commission et al. 2000. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
  3. 1 2 "The American Revolution Comes to Cambridge, Part III: Retreat: Deadly Skirmishes in North Cambridge" Archived May 7, 2011, at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 1 May 2016
  4. An obvious typo has been corrected.

Coordinates: 42°23′33.6″N71°7′29.9″W / 42.392667°N 71.124972°W / 42.392667; -71.124972

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.