Minuteman: Minute Man National Historical Park, August 2007 This statue commemorates the role of the Minute Men in the Battle of Lexington and Concord and was unveiled on April 19, 1875, the centennial anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The statue was sculpted by Daniel Chester French, who also designed the Pulitzer Prize medallions and the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The inscription on the base of the statue is the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Concord Hymn, which was also written for the dedication of this monument. Emerson was a native of Concord; his grandfather was present at the North Bridge on that fateful day of April 19, 1775, and the Emerson family home, the Old Manse, lies just across the Concord River from this statue. The inscription reads: “By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled; Here once the embattled farmers stood; And fired the shot heard ‘round the world.” (via Photos from Robby Edwards)