It came from a line in a poem by Emerson about the start of the American Revolution with battles at Lexington and Concord. "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."
Just to take this topic into the weeds a bit, a bit of trivia known to anyone who lives or has lived in Concord and Lexington. Emerson was a life long resident of Concord, and his 1837 poem commemorating the shot at the rude bridge was about a gunshot that occurred in Concord, not Lexington. And Daniel Chester French, also a resident of Concord, was commissioned to do the 1874 bronze statue of a minuteman that stands at the bridge (old north bridge) now. So a Concordian would say that a spoon commemorating the shot heard round the world should say Concord on it, and not Lexington. Of course a Lexingtonian would emphatically beg to differ, countering that guns were fired on their green as well, and that they have their own 1900 minuteman statue (later, and not by French). But such is history. Just in case you detect any bias, this history brought to you by a member of the re-established Concord Minutemen, who had a great day yesterday dressed in Revolutionary attire, playing in a fife and drum corps in the annual Patriots day parade and celebrations afterwards.
I spent the weekend recently portraying the 15th Mass. Artillery at the 160th Siege of Fort Blakeley, in Spanish Fort, Alabama. The battery was in the actual works used by this battery in the siege! I don't have a Concord spoon, so Lexington is as close as I could come.
The designer of the Lexington and Concord spoons was Lexington resident Ellery I. Garfield, the manufacturer was the Frank W. Smith Silver Co. ~Cheryl
