After a battle when the armies moved along, people came to visit the sites to see for themselves what they had read about in the papers. Inevitably some of them picked up relics and took them home as a reminder of the event. The relics are not always an object carried by a soldier. Sometimes they can be a simple brick from a structure, or a scrap of wood.
I have mentioned before that as a child I was infatuated with the start of the American Revolution. In 1975 the Bicentennial of the events of April 19, 1775 was coming up. Our principal had found some original beams from the Old North Bridge recovered during the bridge reconstruction in 1956, dredged out of the bottom of the Concord River. These pieces had sat at the town Department of Public Works for years seemingly forgotten. Our principal had a few of them cut into blocks and presented them to each student. This little block of wood meant so much to me as it was a material piece of the past I could hold in my hand. Years later I was able to collect some larger pieces that I have proudly displayed in my home.
As I grew up and started collecting antique arms and militaria I met others who had collected this type of thing. I would see pieces of trees from famous Civil War battles, and other objects peripheral to the larger collecting community. These things never cost a lot of money but fascinated me.
While doing research at the Arlington Historical Society in Arlington, Massachusetts, I found an interesting scrap in their collection. It looked like the piece of a trim board from a house in town around which the British retreated on their way back to Boston in 1775 and it had a bullet hole in it. In a later search of newspapers done by a colleague we found out where this piece and others had come from. In an 1855 newspaper was an article titled “Relics of The Revolution,” it stated “Many of our citizens as well as numerous strangers, doubtless remember the “Old Adams House,” situated nearly opposite the depot in West Cambridge (now Arlington), which has long been noted as a relic of Revolutionary times, and has been visited by thousands of persons for the purpose of viewing the bullet holes which were made by shots fired by the British on the day of the ever memorable battle of Lexington. The old house is now undergoing demolition, and is daily visited by numbers of persons who are desirous of obtaining some part of it as a memento of the times that tried men’s souls. Quite a number of bullets have been found embedded in the walls and timbers, many of which present flattened and ragged surfaces, made by penetrating the oak timbers. The owner of the estate, Mr. Josiah Russell, takes pains to secure every bullet found in the building, and disposes of them at the rate of one dollar each. Yesterday afternoon a small piece of clapboard which had been perforated by a bullet, was sold for half a dollar.” I am quite sure if I were there, I would have ripped my pocket off to get out the half a dollar!
