
Just before 1775, the town convenes a Provincial Congress at the First Parish Church. A spy gets ahold of a map of the town showing where arms and ammunitions are being stockpiled, and British soldiers are ordered to march from Boston to disarm the town. Paul Revere, Prescott, and Dawes make a mid-night warning ride that is later immortalized as poetry. At the North Bridge, Minute Men from Concord and surrounding towns face off with British soldiers is what is considered the first battle of the revolutionary wary. Musketballs fly and the British soldiers retreat. The six-year fight for independence is on, and Concordians continue to actively lead and participate in the effort to make a new Commonwealth and a new Republic.
Harvard College moved to Concord briefly at the outbreak of the Revolution, and from the Battle of Lexington and Concord to the end of the century, the number of dwellings only increases from about 190 to 225 (still much smaller than our modern Concord Village in Tempe).