Watson's Corner is the historical name for an intersection in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
, 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.
[''Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Northwest Cambridge'', 1977, , Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 14-16, 39]
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
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 were the first major military actions of the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot militias from America's Thirteen Co ...
. A marker at 2154 Massachusetts Avenue commemorates the skirmish.
An account of this event from the Cambridge city website
describes the scene thus:
[An obvious typo has been corrected.]
:At Watson’s Corner (the present intersection of Rindge and Massachusetts avenues) Cambridge
patriots lay in wait behind a pile of
barrel
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden stave (wood), staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers ...
s, 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.
["The American Revolution Comes to Cambridge, Part III: Retreat: Deadly Skirmishes in North Cambridge" Retrieved 1 May 2016]
References
{{coord, 42, 23, 33.6, N, 71, 7, 29.9, W, region:US, display=title
History of Cambridge, Massachusetts
Massachusetts in the American Revolution