The date of April 18, 1775, is recorded in the annals of American history as the night of Paul Revere’s midnight ride — warning all in the colony of the approach of British Army troops to Lexington and Concord. 

The next day, as these troops searched for military stores stockpiled by the colonists, firing broke out on Lexington Green, Concord’s North Bridge, and all along the march back to Boston, where the British soldiers were garrisoned.  The American Revolution had begun. 

It is this armed conflict in the American Revolution that will be recognized in a special program titled “The Shot Heard Round the World” planned by the Coastal Senior College (CSC) on Tuesday, April 15 from noon to 1 p.m. in a “hybrid” setting live at St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle and on Zoom.  

Presenters John Ward and Jayne Gordon will look at the events that occurred this same week in April of 1775 and how they were commemorated in the past by two giants of early American literature: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Maine’s own Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.                                                                                                                                                                                        

Ward received his degrees in English literature from Amherst College and the University of Virginia. For 40 years he taught in Ohio (Kenyon) and Kentucky (Centre). While his work has focused principally in the areas of 18th- and 19th-century British literature, more recently he has concentrated on the major poets Yeats, Frost, Lowell and Heaney.  

Gordon has taught CSC courses on various aspects of history, landscape, and literature for the past five years, and she coordinates the fall/spring walks, and winter lecture programs. A public historian and educator for more than 50 years, she was the former director of Education and Public Programs of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and this year was awarded the Thoreau Society’s Distinguished Service Award. Jayne directed five National Endowment for the Humanities institutes for K-12 educators in her former hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, and taught for many years in the graduate Museum Studies Program at Tufts. She is the current president of the CSC Board of Directors. 

The presentation and group discussion are offered free of charge for members of CSC or any of the other seventeen Colleges in the state-wide network and to new members.  

Information about Coastal Senior College, membership, and registration for this special program may be found at coastalseniorcollege.org.