Why did General Howe send his soldiers to Lexington?

They were marching at night towards Concord to seize the local militia's weapons and gunpowder to try and avert an armed conflict due to years of unrepresented taxation and laws. Patriots from Boston alerted the folks in the countryside around Concord and Lexington and the militia unit gathered in the British path on the green in Lexington. The rest is, as they say, history...