Amid Manhunt Mayhem, Oath Keepers Assemble by Lexington's Battle Green

As swarms of law enforcement and military agencies scoured surrounding communitites in search of a suspect in Monday's Boston Marathon bombing, a considerable local police presence took up around Lexington's Battle Green.

They weren't here because of some hot tip that the surviving suspect -- widely identified as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge -- could be headed this way, but rather because the Oath Keepers planned to assemble here despite town officials' attempts to place a moratorium on such gatherings.

The group gathered and grew after 11 a.m. on Friday -- the 238th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, which began here the morning of April 19, 1775 -- and intereacted cordially with local law enforcement.

"We're pleased with the turnout and how respectul the officers have been," said Randy Swanson, the acting state president for the Oath Keepers' Rhode Island chapter. "We're here out of reverence for the courageous men who stood here in the defense of liberty and fought for our freedom."

Swanson's sentiments were echoed a little later by Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder who was originally scheduled to be in Lexington as a guest speaker at a pro-Second Amendment rally organized by Gun Rights Across America: Massachusetts.

"We didn't make any new novel thing up; we're just doing what they did," Rhodes said, referring to a ceremony here hundreds of years ago. "If they thought it was right, combat veterans from the American Revolution, to renew their oathes here, then it's right for us to do so, too. And the selectmen of Lexington can stuff it."

That last barb seemed a direct response to the .

In its decision, the Board of Selectmen placed a two-week moratorium on assemblies on the Battle Green and at Tower Park. The Oath Keepers gathered on the lawn by Buckman Tavern, the historical home where Lexington's mintemen -- along with Sam Adams and John Hancock -- gathered the night of April 18/19 of 1775.

The selectmen's decision came after guidance from state officials and the Lexington Police Department advising against large public assemblies in the immediate wake of the shocking Boston Marathon bombing that occurred Monday, April 15.

In the days since then, new information became available about the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. And, since a string of violent events allegedly involving those suspects starting Thursday night, several surrounding communitites have been locked down today, April 19, as authorities continue a manhunt for the surviving suspect.

There was little to no mention of current events during the Oath Keepers assembly in Lexington on Friday, save for some conspiracy theorist chatter among a few members of the crowd.

Sources said the Oath Keepers assembly, although it fell outside of the selectmen's ruling on Tuesday, was not completely unplanned and the group's leaders were in contact with local law enforcement about hosting the short ceremony before the group moved on to a larger gathering in West Springfield.