Sketches from Concord and Appledore

"To one looking westward from Boston State House there appears a line ofrugged, precipitous hills extending across the country from southwest tonortheast. Having ascended these heights, we perceive beyond them anirregular line of pale blue mountains, of which Wachusett is the mostsoutherly peak, and which is in fact a portion of the White Mountainrange extending through New Hampshire and into the northern part ofMaine. The watershed between these two forms the valley of the Concordand Merrimac Rivers, which is the first military line of defence in New England west of the sea-coast. It is for this reason that the firststruggle for American independence took place on the banks of theConcord River, and not elsewhere; a fact that might have been predicted, though not of course with certainty, when Boston was first settled."