Old Belfry
Outdoor attraction, open year-round
At a Lexington Town Meeting held June 15, 1761, “Mr. Isaac Stone of Said Town Came into Said Meeting & Gave ye town a Bell to be for the Towns Use Forever, which Bell was there & weighed four hundred and Sixty three pounds, for which ye Moderator in ye name of ye Town Returned him thanks.” “Then voted to hang ye Bell on ye top of ye Hill upon ye North side of Lieut Jonas Munroes house.”
The Belfry was removed from the hill in 1768 to the south side of the Common near the meeting house, where it remained for thirty years, summoning the people to worship and tolling for deaths and alarms. From this Belfy the alarm was sounded on the morning of April 19, 1775, calling the militia to the Common.
After the construction of the third meeting house in 1794 with a steeple for the bell, the Belfry building was removed to the Parker farm in the south part of town and used as a wheelwright’s shop. In 1891, it was presented to the Lexington Historical Society and placed on the hill where it originally stood. The original was destroyed in a gale on June 20, 1909, and an exact replica was erected by the Society in 1910. A nineteenth century bell now hangs in the Belfry, and is tolled each year to signal the start of the Patriots’ Day re-enactment.
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The Belfry was removed from the hill in 1768 to the south side of the Common near the meeting house, where it remained for thirty years, summoning the people to worship and tolling for deaths and alarms. From this Belfy the alarm was sounded on the morning of April 19, 1775, calling the militia to the Common.
After the construction of the third meeting house in 1794 with a steeple for the bell, the Belfry building was removed to the Parker farm in the south part of town and used as a wheelwright’s shop. In 1891, it was presented to the Lexington Historical Society and placed on the hill where it originally stood. The original was destroyed in a gale on June 20, 1909, and an exact replica was erected by the Society in 1910. A nineteenth century bell now hangs in the Belfry, and is tolled each year to signal the start of the Patriots’ Day re-enactment.
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