Chapter 1 covers the pre-Revolutionary period of the town’s history, focusing on the most important determining factors in local politics. The chapter unfolds the town’s social and administrative structure, and the balance of power that both kept the town together and sometimes threatened to pull it apart. Concord’s politics were fractious before the War, even unusually so in comparison to other towns in the region: “While Bostonians fulminated against British policies in the 1760s and early 1770s, the yeomen of Concord were squabbling among themselves in a series of increasingly bitter quarrels that threatened ultimately to divide the town into two warring factions” (10).

This chapter introduces the theme of leadership, and specifically what made a good leader in the eyes of eighteenth-century Concordians. By these standards, the ideal leader was a paragon of virtue; good leadership was paternal, and the best leader would be “patient and gentle in guiding his subjects, but he could also be stern when necessary” (11). Good leadership was essential if the ideals of community life were to be upheld, which called for individuals to take it upon themselves to minimize disagreement and outsize ambitions for the sake of harmony.

Conflicts between the center and the outskirts were another guiding tension in the life of the town.