Editor's Note: An expanded version of this article will appear as a chapter in Aryeh Finklestein's forthcoming book on the 'Grave of British Soldiers' at the North Bridge, HUMBLE TOKEN - STATELY TOMB. This is the first half of a two-part article; the second part tells the interesting story of the stone marker on the grave which bears a section taken from the James Russell Lowell poem "Lines."

The grave of two British soldiers buried where they fell at the North Bridge is marked with a large stone (pictured above at left and below right). Stone posts and iron chains enclose it, to which the viewer might give little or no thought, regarding them as either incidental or unimportant. However, these seemingly dull graveside features represent an interesting story, and demonstrate that there is still much to be uncovered about the site and its history.

According to the authoritative Interim Report of the Boston National Historic Sites Commission Pertaining to the Lexington-Concord Battle Road (1959), the stone posts and iron chains which enclose the 'Grave of British Soldiers' at the North Bridge, had been donated by "some English citizens of Waltham" on the occasion of the Centennial Celebration "in 1875". Subsequent historians have unquestioningly accepted the veracity of this statement, and it remains the oft-repeated, and much paraphrased, "official" version of events. But is it true?

I have discovered that - like so many putative "facts" concerning the history of the 'Grave' - it is not. So why did historian Edwin Small, the very capable Chief of Party of the Commission, write in an August 11, 1958, memo to the Regional Director of the National Park Service, "A group of English people in Waltham in 1875... enclosed the graves of the two British soldiers at the North Bridge in Concord"? And if Small's version is incorrect, who was the real benefactor?

Small, not unreasonably, seems to have based his pronouncement on the following passage in Appendix 2 of William Wheildon's, New Chapter in the History of the Concord Fight: Groton Minute-Men at the North Bridge, April 19, 1775 (1885): "The grave is now enclosed by stone posts and iron chains, the work of some English citizens of Waltham, in 1875." But Wheildon himself, I found, had been mistaken.

The Initial Error: Out of Town and Out of Touch
William Willder Wheildon (1805-1892) was a noted publisher and journalist, and writer on historical and literary topics, who moved to Concord from Boston in 1856. The splendid Wheildon collection in the Concord Free Public Library attests to his assiduousness in both writing about the town's rich history, and in preserving its precious documentary record. So what was the nature of Wheildon's unwitting error, which in turn led to Edwin Small's inaccurate statement some 75 years later? Wheildon, I have concluded, had confused a visit to the 'Grave' at the end of May 1875 by a group of English people residing in Waltham, with the actual donation of the posts and chains by an English gentleman living in Boston two and a half years later. "The graves near the battle ground," records 'The Concord Freeman' of June 5, 1875, "were decorated on Saturday last by some English people from Waltham, with the British flag, wreaths and flowers." Waltham had a large and burgeoning population of English immigrants in the latter part of the 19th century. Wheildon doubtless recalled this handsome tribute paid to their fallen compatriots by the English people of Waltham, and a decade later assumed that they had been responsible as well for the gift of the posts and chains. It may be pertinent, moreover, that Wheildon appears to have spent several months during the Fall of 1877 in Florida, "for health reasons", and may thus have been absent from the town when the true donor visited the site.

The Real Donor Revealed
Born in England, Herbert Radclyffe (1847-1900) was a "well-known figure in State Street". An investor and philanthropist who was much interested in art, he owned "a choice collection of fine paintings." He founded 'The Boston Commercial Advertiser', and was later editor of 'The Boston Journal of Commerce'. Radclyffe came to make his fortune in Boston at the age of twenty.

Less than a month after his thirtieth birthday on October 8, 1877, he informed Concord officials that he wished "to pay the expenses of a suitable enclosure for the remains of the British dead near the North Bridge". In its December 13, 1877, issue, 'The Concord Freeman' carried this cursory note: "The fence around the resting place of the British soldiers... has already been erected." (Interestingly, the posts and chains may have been installed all too hurriedly, because a year later the Commissioner of Public Grounds records in the town's ANNUAL REPORT, that "R.S. Hayward and Co." had been paid "one dollar for repairing chain around graves of British soldiers.")

'The Concord Freeman' of January 3, 1878, expressed its gratitude to Mr. Radclyffe elegantly: "That was a thoughtful and delicate act of international kindness on the part of Herbert Radclyffe... in pursuance of the permission of the citizens of the town, so gracefully sought and so cordially granted. Everything in the work has been done in good taste, and is alike commendable to the mind and heart of the donor."

The next time you visit the 'Grave of British Soldiers' at the North Bridge, and muse about the two redcoats who lie buried at the site, you might wish to think for a moment about their generous countryman, who - a century after they died - saw it as his duty to ensure the dignity of their honored remains.

(The author wishes to thank Leslie P. Wilson and D. Michael Ryan for their kind assistance.)

Photo: ©2000 Richard Stevenson
Artwork: Classic Themes