Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Sanderson House and Munroe Tavern
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1976. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“Such were tlie opinions expressed, the resokitions adopted, and the measures taken by the people of tliis Province, long before the 19th of April, 1775. It was not the battle of Lexington that gave rise to the llevolution.”
History of the Town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from Its First Settlement to 1868, with a Genealogical Register of Lexington Families (1868). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1976 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.76000248- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Lexington town, The inset identifies its exact
source book and publication year.
He was first taxed in 1748< He was a member of Capt. Parker's company on the morning of 19 April 1775, and was severely wounded by a bullet which struck his right arm, and so fractured the bone that he was not only disabled for a long time, but pieces of bone were extracted from it for several months afterward.
Of the illustrations bound witli this work, the portraits of Rev. Mr. Hancock, Col. INIunroe, and the author were furnished by their respective descendants ; and those of Theodore Parker, Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Follen, and Rev. Mr. Stetson, by their numerous friends resident in the vicinity. The views of dwelling-houses, including the Lexington House, Avere, except as stated below, sup])lied by their present or late owners ; and those of public buildings by citizens' subscriptions.
In the exercise of the powers given to them, the Committee have inserted the following illustrations at the town's expense, viz. : a lithographic portrait of Jonathan Harrington ; wood enjrravinffs of the Clarke House, the old Munroe Tavern, the INIonument, the proposed Monument, and the Battle Scene on the 19th of April ; diagrams of Lexington Common, and the Old North Bridge at Concord, with their surroundings as they were in 1775 ; andy^c similes of the autogi'aphs of twenty-nine men whose names are affixed to public documents which are a part of the History. It was thought that nothing ought to be omitted from the book, which could serve to explain, or invest with additional interest, the events narrated.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 52 fires within 5 miles of Sanderson House and Munroe Tavern between
1992 and 2020, burning about 103 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 24 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Arson/incendiarism
24
Debris and open burning
13
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
11
Other causes
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Natural
1
Recreation and ceremony
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,885 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Sanderson House and Munroe Tavern between 1898 and
1975: 821 Animalia, 573 Plantae, 434 Fungi, 23 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 9 Unrecorded, 8 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
11 workings within 5 miles of Sanderson House and Munroe Tavern: 7 past producers, 2 producers, 2 plants.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Peat, Clay, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Lexington, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1997 and 2022: 6 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 flood, 1 lightning.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Three lanes of Route 128 in Burlington were closed due to flooding. There was also 6 inches of flooding across the all lanes of Route 128 near North Street in Reading.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
4,464 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Sanderson House and the Munroe Tavern are located on contiguous properties on the southerly side of Massachusetts Avenue (formerly Main Street) near the center of the Town of Lexington. The Sanderson House is first mentioned in a deed of 1747, and it is suggested that it was built by local townsman John Mason, Jr. Mason's father lived across the street and the property of his father-in-law Joseph Ioring was adjacent to his. John Mason, Jr. married Lydia loring in 1731, thus suggesting a possible date for the house. The Sanderson House is a story and a half and is covered with shingles stained nearly black. The house faces southeast with its gable end toward the street. Either side of the ridge roof has three small dormers, each with 6-over-6 sash.
The house is six bays wide and three bays deep. Judging by the roof framing, it seems to have been built three bays at a time, the northern section toward the street being the older. The second three bays were undoubtedly added within a few years, for the architectural characteristics of the rafters of the two portions are similar but not identical. The main facade has a slightly off center entrance with a porch of later vintage. The entrance is flanked by two windows (2-over-2 sash) to the right and three more closely spaced windows (2-over-2 sash) to the left. The large chimney is not quite on line with the door, being slightly to the right of center. The middle of the three dormers is slightly to the left of center.
The broad north gable end toward the street has two windows (2-over-2 sash) at the first story level paired on the left half of the elevation. The right half of this elevation has only one window (2-over-2 sash).
/ARCHITECT STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Sanderson House and the Munroe Tavern have stood comfortably side by side since the early eighteenth century. The early history of each involves ownership by mem- bers of Iexington's most prominent early settlers - the Sanderson House with the Mason family and the Munroe Tavern with the Buckman and Munroe families. However, it is their shared history in 1775 which gives them their lasting historical significance. Sargeant William Munroe of the Lexington Minute Men and great-grandson of the first William Munroe (1625-1717) in Lexington, bought the tavern which was to be associated with his name from John Buckman in 1770.
Iwo years later, his cousin, Mary Munroe, great-granddaughter of old William though by different descent, married Samuel San- derson of woburn and moved into the old house just south east of the Tavern. San- derson, a corporal in the Iexington Minute Men and a carpenter-coffin-maker by trade, carried on his business in the cellar of his house. On the night of April 18, 1775, Sargeant Munroe entertained Solomon Brown, back home in Iexington after a day in Boston. Brown told Munroe that he had passed a group of British officers on the road out from Boston. Munroe, suspecting trouble, gathered eight other Minute Men to guard the parsonage of Reverend Jonas Clarke where John Hancock and Samuel Adams were spending the night.
When fighting erupted between Colonials and British regulars, first in the early - morning of the 19th and again in mid-afternoon as the British made their painful re- treat toward Boston from Concord, Cpl. Sanderson and Sgt. Munroe were among Capt. Parker's troop of defending Minute Men. Molly Munroe Sanderson fled to her parents' home on Woburn Street, while Mrs.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 76000248, 22 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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