Last week, as residents of Lexington began bracing for the onslaught of the 250th anniversary celebration, I came up from Baltimore with a small film crew to shoot some footage for a documentary called “Parts Unknown: The 1776 Revolution in the American West.” We had originally intended to be there for the big public events of April 17-19, but facing the crush of tourists and restrictions on media, it seemed doubtful we’d get what we needed that weekend.
When I talked to Captain Steve Cole of the Lexington Minutemen, he suggested he could muster his reenactment crew the weekend before — April 12 — and do some drills on Lexington Green for our cameras. He did not ask for compensation, though we were able to make a donation to their nonprofit organization. We also intended to interview Dartmouth historian Colin Calloway, an expert on western American history. I imagined a strong visual of Calloway talking about the untold history of events at that time in western North America, while the Minutemen, drilling on the Green behind him, embodied the better-known United States creation story.
As our shooting date neared, the weather reports grew grim: snow was expected. Minutemen Adjutant Bruce Leader phoned the night before to say his troops might not be able to drill, certainly not to fire their weapons, in snow. We talked about postponing, but the crew was already locked in. I told Bruce if just a few of his men could come, we’d shoot them indoors adjusting their rifles and period clothing at the Masonic Lodge facing the Green.
With only days before the shoot, I called the Lexington Museums Association and asked if we could have a room at Buckman Tavern as a “backup” if weather made outdoor interviews impossible. Despite a demanding schedule surrounding their opening that day of the Lexington Depot Museum, Executive Director Anne Lee and her team agreed to let us film.
Sure enough, we woke in Lexington the morning of April 12 to a chill wind and snow on the ground. We grabbed coffee and hustled to Buckman Tavern at 8 a.m., where staff made us welcome two hours before their normal open.
In the midst of our interview with Calloway in the Tavern tap room, we started picking up background noise from the nearby lobby — a headache for our sound engineer, but, as it turned out, a blessing for us. The problem? The Minutemen. Not just a few, but a full contingent had arrived in period costume, weather be damned, and were preparing to conduct their drills for us outside.
We finished up Calloway’s excellent interview and headed out on the lawn next to the tavern. Cold and wet as it was, the Minutemen did their drills and several came to the foreground for impromptu — and excellent — interviews. Then they marched in formation across the Green.
Ken Burns will be in Lexington for the 250th, and your town’s historic role will be justly celebrated in his documentary series on The Revolution next fall. We are a much smaller production company in the public media universe, and we’re telling a very different 1776 story largely set far from the 13 colonies. Yet the Lexington Minutemen, and the Buckman Tavern crew, went out of their way to help us.
We are truly grateful, and we commend them for their good spirits, disciplined performance, and knowledge. History is alive in Lexington — and so is generous hospitality.