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CONCORD 
 
 •s of Interest. 
 
 Illustrations ct 
 
 Houses 
 
 of 
 
 Historical and 
 
 Literary Interest. 
 The Rivers, 
 
 The Monuments, 
 
 Walclen Pond, 
 
 The Library, 
 
 and many other 
 
 Points of Interest. 
 
 D. LoTHROP & Co., Publishers, Boston. 
 
MR. FRENCH'S BUST OF EMERSON. 
 
THE CONCORDE- 
 
 GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 GEORGE B. BARTLETT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 Miss L. B. Humphrey and Robert Lewis. 
 
 OF CCi^G^ 
 
 
 '^^y. 
 
 i-' \K'\ 
 
 BOSTON 
 D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY, 
 
 FRANKLIN STREET, CORNER OF HAWLEY. 
 
 
 ^i.r 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 D, LOTHROP & CO, 
 1880. 
 
 Press of Rockwell and Churchill 
 39 Arch St., Bostrm. 
 
PR EFACE. 
 
 This is not a history but a simple Guide Book by which a pilgrim 
 can find his way to all the objects of interest in Concord. For this 
 reason only places which still exist are mentioned and the persons and 
 legends connected with them. If any critic is not satisfied that a Guide 
 Book to this village is needed, he can stand on the common any fine 
 day and answer questions until he is satisfied. To those who find 
 it too full of praise, the author respectfully replies that when a per- 
 son is not proud of his native place his native place is seldom proud 
 of him. 
 
 Thanks are due to Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop for her account 
 of her father's home ; to Mrs. Delano Goddard for her Voyage on 
 the Assabet ; to Miss Munroe for her Memoir of the Founder of the 
 Library ; to Mrs. W. S. Robinson for her Memoir of " Warrington " 
 to W. W. Wheildon Esq. for the articles on Walden Pond, the Con- 
 cord Grape, and the Masonic Institutions ; to Mr. A. Munroe for the 
 history of the Library, the Water Supply and the Curiosity Shop; to 
 Mr. S. R. Bartlett for the sketch of Daniel Chester French and his 
 studio, and to F. M. Holland Esq, for " The Clubs." 
 
 Full credit also should be given to Rev. G. Reynolds, and to F. B. 
 Sanborn Esq. for quotations from their writing's as well as to Shattuck's 
 History, the Diary of Rev. Wm. Emerson, and the Pamphlets of Rev. 
 Dr. Ripley, and others. 
 
 G. B. B. 
 
 Co7icord, Mass. 
 
 5 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Alcott Family 67 
 
 Artillery, Concord 117 
 
 Bank, Concord . . 119 
 
 Battle Ground 27 
 
 Brown, Lieut. Governor 151 
 
 Burying Grounds 13 
 
 Carnival of Boats 156 
 
 Centennial Celebration 152 
 
 Churches 11 
 
 Clubs 121 
 
 Concord Grape 114 
 
 Early History . . 10 
 
 Free Public Library 90 
 
 French, Hon. PL F 155 
 
 French's Studio 107 
 
 PIawthorne 58 
 
 Hemlocks 149 
 
 Hoar, Hon. Samuel 65 
 
 Hoar, Judge E. R 66 
 
 Home of Emerson 48 
 
 Houses of Historical Interest 36 
 
 Houses of Literary^ Interest 48 
 
 Hudson, Frederic . . ^ S4 
 
 7 
 
8 Index. 
 
 Institution of Masonry ii8 
 
 Manse 53 
 
 Middlesex Fire Insurance Co 112 
 
 Monuments 99 
 
 Monroe, W 87 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop 109 
 
 Orchard House Kid 
 
 Ripley, Dr 56 
 
 Rivers and Their Surroundings 142 
 
 Robinson, W. S 80 
 
 Sanborn, F. B 78 
 
 School of Philosophy 124 
 
 Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 18 
 
 Social Circle . . 121 
 
 Thoreau . . 60 
 
 Walden Pond 136 
 
 Wayside 58 
 
 Wheildon, W. W 82 
 
THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY HISTORY, CHURCHES AND BURYING GROUNDS. 
 
 Passengers for Concord, Mass., can take the cars in 
 Boston by way of the Fitchburg or Boston and Lowell Rail 
 Roads, which are near each other on Causeway street. Com- 
 ing from New York by rail or steamboat via Fall River or New 
 Haven, or from the West by Boston and Albany road, they 
 can connect at South Framingham, or from the East and North 
 at Ayer Junction. At the Concord depot carriages are always 
 in readiness to convey tourists to all objects of interest in and 
 about the town, to which this little book endeavors to call their 
 
 9 
 
10 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 attention by i^ivino- a glance at the history, legends, and litera- 
 tnre whicli liave rendered the phice somewhat noted. 
 
 The Town of Concord, probably so named from the peace- 
 I'lil manner of its pnrehase, was settled by a company of about 
 a dozen families, most of whom came directl}' from England for 
 that purpose, having been encouraged in this plan by a traveller 
 who visited the sjjot in the year IGoo. These pilgrims endured 
 great hardships in their passage from tide water to this spot, 
 being compelled to wade through deep swamps and penetrate 
 with great difficulty through tangled thickets. " They suffered 
 greatly from the loss of their cattle which died in great numbers 
 from change of diet and climate. The Indian name of the set- 
 tlement was Musket-a-quid or the Grass-Grown River, and the 
 broad meadows Ivino- for manv miles alone^ tlie river were oreat- 
 ly esteemed by their aboriginal owners as hunting grounds and 
 corn fields; but a peaceful purchase was made abont the year 
 1637, the transaction having occurred, according to a legend, 
 nnder a great tree called Jethro's Oak, which stood near the 
 present site of the Middlesex Hotel. The savage in-ojirietors 
 seemed to have been well disposed and friendly to the new 
 comers who labored earnestly for their conversii)n and improve- 
 ment. The apostle Eliot olYen preached to them, and throuoh 
 his inlluence, abont the year 1(556, a large company of praying 
 Indians existed, who cultivated the land and had an excellent 
 code of laws, a copy v>i which is still extant. During the next 
 twenty years the good feeling originally existing between the 
 English and Indians seems to have gradually given place to the 
 
EARLY HISTORY, CHURCHES AND BURYING GROUNDS 
 
 II 
 
 most bitter animosity, and Concord soon became a military post 
 and a centre of warlike operations, from which parties were 
 constantly sent ont to the relief of neighboring villao-es, and for 
 the punishment of the enemy. 
 
 During Philip's War several block houses were maintained, 
 one of which tradition locates on the present site of the house 
 of Dr. Barrett, one near Merriam's Corner, and one near 
 the residence of Mr. Lewis Flint. 
 
 Several Indians convicted of the crime of murder and arson 
 were executed in the town, and also one white man for the 
 murder of an Indian. Tlic general prejudice against the sav- 
 ages extended also to tlie praying Indians, a small party of 
 whom were living here under the protection of Mr. John Hoar, 
 who had built a building for them to use as a residence and 
 workshop ; and one Sunday a company of soldiers from Boston 
 entered the town and demanded them, and they were saved 
 with great difficuhy by the courage and determination of their 
 guardian. It is stated tliat before proceeding to attack these 
 inoffensive Indians, the soldiers decorously attended public 
 worship, and waited until after service before stating the object 
 of their mission. 
 
 The Old Church stood near the site of tlie present Unita- 
 rian liouse of worship, which was built on the old frame, so that 
 it contains the same timbers as the one in which the first Pro- 
 vincial Congress was held, on the fourteenth of October, 1774, 
 of which John Hancock was chosen president. In this assembly 
 were made those stirring speeches by himself, Adams, and other 
 patriots, which did so much to hasten the events of the Revolu- 
 
12 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 tion. The church was organized at Cambridge, in 1636, and in 
 1637 the Rev. Peter Bulkeley and John Jones were chosen as 
 the teacher and the pastor. In this organization, like most 
 of those under two heads, some difficulty seems to have arisen, 
 and a part of the congregation seceded for a time, and some of 
 the people followed Mr. Jones on his subsequent removal from 
 
 
 FIRST CHURCH. 
 
 the town. Mr. Bulkeley came from noble ancestry, was renowned 
 as a finished scholar and gentleman, and expended his means 
 and strength for his town and church with a liberalitj' only 
 equalled by his piet}'. He died universally lamented, March 
 9th, 1659, at which time his son, the Rev. Edward, was in- 
 stalled in his place. The Rev. Joseph Esterbrook, Rev. Mr. 
 Whiting, and Rev. Mr. Bliss successively succeeded him. 
 After them came the eloquent divine and fearless patriot. Rev. 
 
EARLY HISTORY, CHURCHES AND BURYING GROUNDS. 13 
 
 William Emerson, who preached for ten years, when he gave 
 his life to the service of his country. The Rev. Ezra Ripley 
 succeeded to the church and home of Mr. Emerson, whose 
 widow he married. Of both of the two last-named divines, 
 an account will be found in another place. The Rev. H. B. 
 Goodwin and the Rev. B. Frost were both colleaofues of 
 Dr. Ripley, the latter being pastor of the church after him, in 
 which position he was succeeded by the present incumbent, 
 Rev. G. Reynolds, who has identified himself with the history 
 of this town, writing many valuable historical papers and 
 books. 
 
 The Congregational Church, under the charge of the Rev. 
 Henry M. Grout, is situated on the street behind the Old 
 Church, and was organized June 5, 1826. 
 
 The Catholic Church, which is in a flourishing condition, 
 occupies a fine site on the public square. 
 
 The Old Hill Burying Ground stands directly behind 
 the Catholic Church. The date of its opening is unknown, and 
 the location of no older one can be ascertained. The oldest 
 stone in this ground is probably the monument to Joseph 
 Merriam, who died the twentieth of April, 1677 ; and the most 
 celebrated epitaph is that of John Jack, an old slave who died 
 in town in 1773. This has been widely copied at home and 
 abroad as a curious specimen of antithesis, and it is usually 
 attributed to the pen of Daniel Bliss. The stone, which has 
 been renewed, stands at the northerl}^ corner of the yard, and a 
 well-worn track leads to it from the main path. The inscrip- 
 tion is here copied in full : 
 
14 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 God wills us free, man wills us slaves, 
 
 I will as God wills ; God's will be done. 
 
 Here lies the body of 
 
 JOHN JACK 
 
 A native of Africa, who died 
 
 March 1773 aged about sixty years. 
 
 Though born in a land of slavery. 
 
 He was born free. 
 
 Though he lived in a land of liberty. 
 
 He lived a slave ; 
 
 Till by his honest though stolen labors, 
 
 He acquired the source of slavery, 
 
 Which gave him his freedom : 
 
 Though not long before 
 
 Death the grand tyrant, 
 
 Gave him his final emancipation. 
 
 And put him on a footing with kings. 
 
 Though a slave to vice, 
 
 He practised those virtues, 
 
 Without which kings are but slaves. 
 
 On the first wliite stone which was pkiced in tliis cemetery is 
 this inscription, curious as showing the date when white marble 
 superseded the common shite ; 
 
 This stone is designed 
 
 by its durability 
 
 to perpetuate the memory, 
 
 and by its colour 
 
 to signify the moral character, 
 
 of 
 MISS ABIGAIL DUDLEY. 
 
OLD HILL BURYING GROUND. 
 
EARLY HISTORY, CHURCHES AND BURIAL GROUNDS. 17 
 
 Who died Jan 4, 181 2, 
 aged 7T,. 
 
 In the same yard is this beautiful epitaph : 
 
 "VIVENS 
 DILECTISSIMA." 
 
 ORPHA BRYANT. 
 
 Born December 24 1797, 
 Died October i, 1798. 
 
 She was the joy of her father, 
 and the delight of her mother, 
 
 MORTUA LACHRYMABILLIMA. 
 
 In this 3'ai'd is the grave of Major John Buttrick, who led the 
 fight at the old North Bridge. He lies at the head of a large 
 family, which includes his son who accompanied him as fifer, 
 both these facts being properly noted on their gravestones, 
 which may be seen near the crest of the hill by the side of the 
 small magazine, in which the powder is kept for the village stores. 
 Very near are the graves of the lamented pastors of the town, 
 including: that of the Rev. William Emerson as shown in the 
 picture. It was probably near tliis spot that Col. Smith 
 and Maj. Pitcairn, who commanded the British on the day of 
 the Fight, stood to review the movements of their troops en- 
 gaged in various parts of the town, and to watch the Ameri- 
 cans as the}^ assembled from various quarters. On the same 
 hill a hundred rods farther south, was the Liberty Pole erected 
 by the patriots, which was cut down by the British on the morn- 
 ing of the battle. By the side of the tomb of Rev. William 
 
i8 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 TOMB OF REV. WIL- 
 '•■*• LIAM EMERSON. 
 
 Emerson is tliat of John Beatton, 
 an eccentric and frugal Scotcliman 
 vvlio accumulated a large fortune 
 and made a liberal bequest to the 
 church wliich still goes by the 
 name of the Beatton fund and is 
 annually devoted to pious uses. 
 
 The Burial Ground on Main 
 Street was, according to tradition, 
 the gift of two maiden ladies. In 
 1Y75 the road probabl}- went around 
 the back side of it, and across the 
 upper end, for which reason most 
 of the stones face the west, toward 
 what was then the principal street. The oldest stone is that 
 of Thomas Hartshorn, who died Nov. 17, 1697 ; and no other 
 one appears there until 1713. 
 
 Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was purchased by the town, of 
 the heirs of Reuben Brown, in 1855, and was laid out according 
 to plans furnished by Morris Copeland, Esq, 
 
 The architect has followed, wisely, the natural form of the 
 ground, and left undisturbed the amphitheatre which has existed 
 for years in the center, and w^hich had borne the name of Sleepy 
 Hollow long before it was thought of as a place of burial. On 
 tlie nineteenth of April, 1856, a tree-bee was organized, and 
 over an hundred trees were set out in a single day by the citi- 
 zens, each one of whom thus brought his own memorial. The 
 ladies held two festivals in the same year to raise money for 
 
EARLY HISTORY, CHURCHES AND BURYING GROUNDS. 19 
 
 seats and decorations. The oration at the dedication was deliv- 
 ered by Emerson, and an ode by F. B. Sanborn was sung, which 
 is copied here from '' Parnassus." 
 
 Shine kindly forth, September sun, 
 
 From heavens calm and clear. 
 That no untimely cloud may run 
 
 Before thy golden sphere, 
 To vex our simple rites to-day 
 
 With one prophetic tear. 
 
 With steady voices let us raise 
 
 The fitting" psalm and prayer ; 
 Remembered grief of other days 
 
 Breathes softening in the air : 
 Who knows not Death — who mourns no loss — 
 
 He has with us no share. 
 
 To holy sorrow, solemn joy. 
 
 We consecrate the place 
 Where soon shall sleep the maid and boy. 
 
 The father and his race. 
 The mother with her tender babe, 
 
 The venerable face. 
 
 These waving woods, these valleys low, 
 
 Between these tufted knolls, 
 Year after year shall dearer grow 
 
 To many loving souls ; 
 And flowers be sweeter here than blow 
 
 Elsewhere between the poles. 
 
20 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 For deathless Love and blessed Grief 
 
 Shall guard these wooded aisles, 
 When either Autumn casts the leaf, 
 
 Or blushing Summer smiles, 
 Or Winter whitens o'er the land. 
 
 Or Spring the buds uncoils. 
 
 Many of the most marked graves are on The Ridge. 
 Ascending the hill by Ridge Path, at the Avest, N^athaniel 
 Hawthorne's grave is seen, surrounded by a low hedge of arbor 
 vitce, as if the gifted author sought in death the modest retire- 
 ment which he loved in life. His eloquent epitaph consists 
 only of his name on a plain white stone. 
 
 The grave of Thoreau is just behind, Avitli a common red 
 stone ; and by his side lies his brother John, whose genius 
 might have outslione that of the poet, philosopher, and natural- 
 ist, had not he died in its first flush. 
 
 A little farther on, past the graves of Nathan Brooks and 
 John M. Chene}', citizens whose worth and virtue have caused 
 their names to be honored forever by their townsmen, may be 
 seen the Whiting monument, a copy of the Brewster monu- 
 ment at Plymouth, and that of Col. George L. Prescott, the 
 patriot martyr who fell in response to his country's earliest call 
 for help. 
 
 A plain brown slab commemorates in a Latin verse Mrs. 
 Samuel Ripley, whose classical attainments have been chron- 
 icled in the Centennial book bv the lovinof hand of another of 
 the most gifted women that our country ever knew. 
 
 In the center of the same lot is the monument to her son. 
 
ia 
 
 ? 
 
EARLY HISTORY, CHURCHES AND BURYING GROUNDS. 23 
 
 Lieut. Ezra Ripley, a portion of whose epitaph is here copied : 
 
 Of the best Pilgrim stock, 
 
 descended from officers in the Revolutionary army 
 
 and from a long line of the ministers of Concord, 
 
 he was worthy of his lineage. 
 
 An able and successful lawyer, 
 
 he gave himself with persistent zeal 
 
 to the cause of the friendless and the oppressed. 
 
 Of slender physical strength 
 
 and of a nature refined and delicate. 
 
 He was led by patriotism and the love of freedom 
 
 to leave home and friends for the toilsome labors of war, 
 
 and shrank from no fatigue and danger, 
 
 until worn out in her service. 
 
 He gave his life for his country. 
 
 r 
 
 Just opposite is the phiin shaft, erected by himself twenty 
 years before his death, of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, wlio practised 
 medicine in this town with devotion and success for a period of 
 fifty-five 3'ears. He was the son of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, of 
 Charlestown, who was a surgeon's mate, in 1775, at Concord 
 Fight, so that tlie practice of father and son extended over a 
 century. He was an earnest and fearless advocate of the cause 
 of temperance when it was most unpopular, and was always on 
 the side of the oppressed. He died in January, 1878, in active 
 practice at the age of eighty-one. 
 
 On the side of the hill, on Glen Path, is the monument 
 designed by Hammatt Billings, and erected to the memory of 
 the Hon. Samuel Hoar, who by his descendants, as well as by 
 the probity and simple grandeur of his life, has done more to 
 
24 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 elevate the standard of living than an}^ other man in the town 
 or county. His epitaph, which is here copied, will speak far 
 better than any words of this book. At the upper portion, on 
 a tablet resembling a window, is this quotation from Pilgrim's 
 Progress : 
 
 '• The pilgrim they laid in a chamber 
 
 Whose window opened toward the sunrising ; 
 
 The name of the chamber was Peace. 
 
 There he lay till break of day, and then 
 
 He arose and sang." 
 
 Lower on the same face of the monument : 
 
 SAMUEL HOAR 
 
 of Concord. 
 
 Born in Lincoln, May, 1778, 
 
 Died in Concord, Nov. 2, 1856. 
 
 He was long one of the most eminent lawyers 
 
 and best beloved citizens of Mass., 
 
 a safe counsellor, a kind neighbor, 
 
 a Crhristian gentleman. 
 
 He had a dignity that commanded the respect, 
 
 and a sweetness and modesty that won the affection 
 
 of all men. 
 
 He practised an economy that never wasted, 
 
 and a liberality that never spared. 
 
 Of proved capacity for the highest offices, 
 
 He never avoided obscure duties. 
 
 He never sought stations of fame or emolument, 
 
 and never shrank 
 
 from positions of danger or obloquy. 
 
EARLY HISTORY, CHURCHES AND BURYING GROUND. 25 
 
 His days were made happy 
 
 by public esteem and private affection. 
 
 To the latest moment of his long life 
 
 he preserved his clear intellect unimpaired, 
 
 and fully conscious of its approach, 
 
 met death with the perfect assurance of 
 
 immortal life. 
 
 We copy, also, another inscription from the same family lot, 
 in memory of his daughter, whose death was mourned as the 
 greatest of calamities, as her life was held by all as the greatest 
 of blessings. 
 
 MISS ELIZABETH HOAR, 
 
 Died April 7, 1878, aged 63. 
 
 Her sympathy with what is high and fair 
 
 brought her into intimacy with many 
 
 eminent men and women of her time. 
 
 Nothing excellent or beautiful escaped 
 
 her quick apprehension ; and in her 
 
 unfailing memory precious things 
 
 lay in exact order as in a royal treasury, 
 
 hospitably ready to instruct and 
 
 delight young and old. Her calm 
 
 courage and simple religious faith 
 
 triumphed over sickness and pain ; and 
 
 when Death transplanted her to her 
 
 place in the Garden of the Lord, 
 
 He found little perishable to prune away. 
 
 The first burial in Sleepy Hollow was that of Mrs. Maria 
 Holbrook, in the fall of 1855. The first burial in the New Hill 
 
26 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 Burying Ground was that of Mrs. Anna Robbins in 1823, whicli 
 fact is noted on the stone. In the year 1869 the town pur- 
 chased the land of the Agricultural Societ}^ and thus united 
 the New Hill Ground with Sleepy Hollow, which now com- 
 prises about thirty acres. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE BATTLE GKOTJND. 
 
 The Battle Ground was presented to the town by the Rev. 
 Dr. Ripley, who remarked iu Town Meeting a half century ago 
 that the time woukl come when the spot wouhl be a phice of 
 great interest to many. How well the prediction has been ful- 
 filled, the daily stream of visitors bears abundant witness. It 
 is on Monument St., nearly half a mile from the center of the 
 town, and near the Old Manse, having been a part of the farm 
 belonging to it, since the course of the road was changed which 
 formerly crossed the old North Bridge. 
 
 The lesrends of the Fight being: somewhat contradictory in 
 
 27 
 
28 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 minor parts, it has been thought best to follow in this brief 
 sketch the account of Lemuel Shattuck, and that of the Rev. 
 Dr. Ripley, adding in ftdl the extract from the diary of the Rev. 
 Mr. William Emerson, which was discovered and first published 
 in 1835, by his grandson, Mr. R. W. Emerson. The following 
 is a concise statement abridged from Shattuck's History of Con- 
 cord, published in 1835. It should be borne in mind that it is 
 not within the scope of this book to allude to events which did 
 not take place in the town. 
 
 The morning had advanced to about seven o'clock, and the British army 
 were soon seen approaching the town on the Lexington road. The glitter- 
 ing arms of eight hundred soldiers, " the flower of the British army " were 
 full in view. At first it was thought best that our men should face the 
 enemy, as few as they were, and abide the consequences. Of this opinion, 
 among others, was the Rev. William Emerson, the clergyman of the town, 
 who had turned out amongst the first in the morning to animate and encour- 
 age his people by his counsel and patriotic example. " Let us stand our 
 ground," said he ; " if we die, let us die here ! " Eleazar Brooks of Lincoln 
 was then on the hill. " Let us go and meet them," said one to him. " No," 
 he answered, "it will not do for tis to begin' the war." They did not then 
 know what had happened at Lexington. Their number was very small in 
 comparison with the enemy, and it was concluded best to retire a short dis- 
 tance, and wait for reinforcements. They consequently marched to the 
 northern declivity of the burying ground hill, near the present site of the 
 court house. They did not, however, leave their station till the British light 
 infantry had arrived within a few rods' distance. About this time Colonel 
 James Barrett, who was commander of the militia, and who had been almost 
 incessantly engaged that morning in securing the stores, rode up. Individ- 
 uals were frequently arriving, bringing different reports. It was difficult to 
 obtain correct information. Under these circumstances, he ordered the men 
 there paraded, being about one hundred and fifty, to march over the North 
 
THE BATTLE GROUND. 29 
 
 Bridg-e, and there wait for reinforcements. In the meantime the British 
 troops entered the town. The six companies of Hght infantry were ordered 
 to enter on the hill, and disperse tiie minute men whom they had seen 
 paraded there. The grenadiers came up the main road, and halted on the 
 common. The first object of the British was to gain possession of the 
 North and South bridges, to prevent any militia from entering over them. 
 Accordingly, while Col. Smith remained in the center of the town, he de- 
 tached six companies of light infantry, under command of Capt. Lawrence 
 Parsons of his own regiment, to take possession of the North Brid^re, and 
 proceed thence to places where stores were deposited. On their arrival 
 there, three companies under command of Capt. Laurie of the 43d reg- 
 iment, were left to protect the bridge ; one of those, commanded by Lieut. 
 Edward Thornton Gould, paraded at the bridge ; the other, of the 4th and 
 loth regiments, fell back in the rear towards the hill. Capt. Parsons, with 
 three companies, proceeded to Col. Barrett's to destroy the stores there 
 deposited. At the same time Capt. Mundey Pole, of the loth regiment, was 
 ordered to take possession of the South Bridge, and destroy such public 
 property as he could find in that direction. The grenadiers and marines, 
 under Smith and Pitcairn, remained in the center of the town, where all 
 means in their power were used to accomplish the destruction of military 
 stores. In the center of the town the grenadiers broke open about sixty 
 barrels of flour, nearly one half of which was afterwards saved, knocked off 
 the trunnions of three iron twenty-four pound cannon, and burnt sixteen 
 new carriage-wheels, and a few barrels of wooden trenchers and spoons. 
 The liberty-pole on the hill was cut down, and suffered the same fate. 
 About five hundred pounds of balls were thrown into the mill-pond and 
 into wells. While the British were thus engaged, our citizens and part of 
 our military men, having secured what articles of public property they could, 
 were assembling under arms. Beside the minute-men and militia of Con- 
 cord, the military companies from the adjoining towns began to assemble ; 
 and the number had increased to about two hundred and fifty or three 
 hundred. John Robinson of Westford, a lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of 
 
30 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 minute-men under Col. William Prescott, and other men of distinction had 
 already assembled. The hostile acts and formidable array of the enemy, 
 and the burning of the articles they had collected in the village, led them to 
 anticipate a general destruction. Joseph Hosmer, acting as adjutant, formed 
 the soldiers as they arrived singly or in squads, the minute companies on the 
 right, and the militia on the left, facing the town. He then, observing an 
 unusual smoke arising from the center of the town, went to the officers and 
 citizens in consultation on the high ground near by, and inquired earnestly, 
 " Will you let them burn the town down ? " They then " resolved to march 
 into the middle of the town to defend their homes, or die in the attempt ; " 
 and at the same time they resolved not to tire unless first fired upon. " They 
 acted upon principle, and in the fear of God." Col. Barrett immediately 
 gave orders to march by wheeling from the right. Major Buttrick requested 
 Lieut. Col. Robinson to accompany him, and led them in double file to the 
 scene of action. When they came to the road leading from Capt. Brown's 
 to the bridge, a part of the Acton minute company under Capt. Davis passed 
 by in front, marched towards the bridge a short distance, and halted. Being 
 in files of two abreast, the Concord minute company under Capt. Brown, 
 being before at the head, marched up the north side till they came equally 
 in front. The precise position, however, of each company, cannot now be 
 fully ascertained. 
 
 The British, observing their motions, immediately formed on the east side 
 of the river, and soon began to take up the planks of the bridge. Against 
 this Maj. Buttrick remonstrated, and ordered a quicker step of his soldiers. 
 The British desisted. At that moment two or three guns were fired in quick 
 succession into the river, which the provincials considered as alarm guns, 
 and not aimed at them. They had arrived within ten or fifteen rods of the 
 bridge when a single gun was fired by a British soldier, the ball from which, 
 passing under Col. Robinson's arm, slightly wounded the side of Luther 
 Blanchard, a fifer in the Acton company, and Jonas Brown, one of the Con- 
 cord minute-men. This gun was instantly followed by a volley, by which 
 Capt. Isaac Davis and Abner Hosmer, both belonging to Acton, were killed. 
 
THE BATTLE GROUND. 33 
 
 On seeing- this, Maj. Buttrick instantly leaped from the ground, and partly 
 turning to his men, exclaimed : " Fire, fellow-soldiers, for God's sake, fire ; " 
 discharg-ing his own gun almost in the same instant. His order was in- 
 stantly obeyed ; and a general discharge from the whole line of the pro- 
 vincial ranks took place. Firing on both sides continued a few minutes. 
 Three British soldiers were killed, and Lieuts. Sunderland, Kelley, and 
 Gould, a sergeant and four privates were wounded. The British immedi- 
 ately retreated about half way to the meeting house, and were met by two 
 companies of grenadiers, who had been drawn thither by " the noise of 
 battle." Two of the soldiers killed at the bridge were left on the ground, 
 where they were afterwards buried by Zachariah Brown, and Thomas Davis, 
 jun. From this time through the day, little or no military order was pre- 
 served among the provincials ; every man chose his own time and mode of 
 attack. It was between ten and eleven o'clock when the firing at the bridge 
 took place, and a short time after Capt. Parsons and his party returned 
 unmolested from Col. Barrett's. 
 
 By this time the provincials had considerably increased, and were con- 
 stantly arriving from the neighboring towns. The British had but partially 
 accomplished the objects of their expedition ; but they now began to feel 
 that they were in danger, and resolved on an immediate retreat. They 
 retreated in the same order as they entered town, the infantry on the hill and 
 the grenadiers in the road, but with flanking parties more numerous and 
 farther from the main body. On arriving at Merriam's Corner they were 
 attacked by the provincials, who had proceeded across the Great Fields in 
 conjunction with a company from Reading, under command of Gov. Brooks. 
 Several of the British were killed, and several wounded. None of the pro- 
 vincials were injured. From this time the road was literally lined with 
 provincials, whose accurate aim generally produced the desired effect. Guns 
 were fired from every house, barn, wall, or covert. After they had waylaid 
 the enemy and fired upon them from one position, they fell back from the 
 road, ran forward, and came up again to perform a similar manoeuvre. 
 
34 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 The following is an extract from the diary of Rev. William 
 
 Emerson : 
 
 "1775, 19 April. This morning, between one and two o'clock, we were 
 alarmed by the ringing of the bell, and upon examination found that the 
 troops, to the number of eight hundred, had stolen their march from Boston, 
 in boats and barges, from the bottom of the Common over to a point in 
 Cambndo-e, near to Inman's Farm, and were at Lexington meeting-house 
 half an hour before sunrise, where they had fired upon a body of our men 
 and, as we afterward heard, had killed several. This intelligence w^as 
 broucrht us first by Dr. Samuel Prescott, who narrowly escaped the guard 
 that were sent before on horses, purposely to prevent all posts and messen- 
 gers from giving us timely information. He, by the help of a very fleet 
 horse, crossing several walls and fences, arrived at Concord at the time 
 above mentioned, when several posts were .immediately despatched, that, 
 returning, confirmed the account of the regulars' arrival at Lexington, and 
 that they were on their way to Concord. Upon this, a number of our minute 
 men belono-ing to this town, and Acton and Lincoln, with several others 
 that were in readiness, marched out to meet them, while the alarm com- 
 pany were preparing to receive them in the town. Capt. Minot, who 
 commanded them, thought it proper to take possession of the hill above the 
 meeting-house as the most advantageous situation. No sooner had our 
 men gained it, than we were met by the companies that were sent out to 
 meet the troops, who informed us that they were just upon us, and that 
 we must retreat, as their number was more than treble ours. We then 
 retreated from the hill near the Liberty Pole, and took a new post back 
 of the town, upon an eminence, where we formed into two battalions, and 
 waited the arrival of the enemy. Scarcely had we formed, before we saw 
 the British troops, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, glittering in 
 arms, advancing towards us with the greatest celerity. Some were for 
 making a stand, notwithstanding the superiority of their number; but 
 others, more prudent, thought best to retreat, till our strength should be 
 equal to the enemy's, by recruits from neighboring towns that were con- 
 
THE BA TTLE GROUND. 35 
 
 tinually coming in to our assistance. Accordingly we retreated over the 
 bridge. The troops came into the town, set fire to several carriages for 
 the artillery, distroyed sixty barrels of flour, rifled several houses, took pos- 
 session of the town-house, destroyed five hundred pounds of balls, set a 
 guard of a hundred men at the North Bridge, and sent up a party to the 
 house of Col. Barrett, where they were in expectation of finding a quantity 
 of warlike stores. But these w^ere happily secured, just before their arrival, 
 by transportation into the woods and other by-places. In the mean time, 
 the guard set by the enemy to secure the posts at the North Bridge were 
 alarmed by the approach of our people, who had retreated, as mentioned 
 before, and were now advancing, with special orders not to fire upon the 
 troops unless fired upon. These orders w^ere so punctually observed, that 
 we received the fire of the enemy in three several and separate discharges of 
 their pieces before it was returned by our commanding officer. The firing 
 then soon became general for several minutes, in which skirmish two w^ere 
 killed on each side, and several of the enemy wounded. It may here be 
 observed, by the way, that w^e \vere the more cautious to prevent beginning a 
 rupture with the king's troops, as we were then uncertain what had happened 
 at Lexington, and knew [riot] that they had begun the quarrel there by 
 firing upon our people, and killing eight men upon the spot. The three 
 companies of troops soon quitted their post at the bridge, and retreated in 
 the greatest disorder and confusion to the main body, who were soon upon 
 the march to meet them. For half an hour, the enemy, by their marches 
 and counter-marches, discovered great fickleness and inconstancy of mind; 
 sometimes advancing sometimes returning to their former posts, till at 
 length they quitted the towm, and retreated by the way they came. In the 
 mean time a party of our men (one hundred and fifty) took the back w^ay, 
 through the Great Fields, into the east quarter, and had placed themselves to 
 advantage, lying in ambush behind walls, fences, and buildings, ready to fire 
 upon the enemy on their retreat." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOUSES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST. 
 
 Under this head it is proposed to give a list of all houses any 
 part of which was standing at the time of the Fight. Of most 
 of them it has been difQcult to find the exact date of their 
 erection, but it has been approximated as nearly as possible. 
 Few have been included which are more than a mile from the 
 center of tlie town, and none of which there is a doubt of their 
 being in existence or in progress at the date above mentioned. 
 
 On the square the Wright tavern stands just as on the day 
 when Maj. Pitcairn entered it on the morning before the battle, 
 when he stirred the brandy with his bloody finger, making the re- 
 
 36 
 
HOUSES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST. 
 
 37 
 
 mark, that he would stir the rebels blood before night. This 
 building, with the exception of the L has probably suffered less 
 change than any other of the old houses. Tlie church which stood 
 near it was built in 1712, and the present building contains 
 some of the same timbers as the old one. The old yellow block 
 
 
 1^«»!'"U ■r.ip^—^ ^fr 
 
 
 THE WRIGHT TAVERN. 
 
 at the other side of the square was used for stores and residen- 
 ces, and probably dates back to 1750. Nearly opposite Wriglit's 
 tavern is the Tolman house, which was inhabited by Dr. Ezekiel 
 Brown, who was a surgeon in the Revolutionar}^ war ; and at 
 the other side of the square, at the beginning of Monument St., 
 the row of buildings were in part occupied as store-houses, in 
 
38 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 which some of the Provincial supplies were kept, to obtain 
 which was one of the causes of the invasion of the town by 
 the British troops. 
 
 Proceeding down the Boston road the house of Jonas Lee 
 is about opposite the end of the yellow block. Its owner was a 
 staunch patriot, although the son of a noted tory who was 
 brouo'ht to discipline by his townsmen for that cause. The 
 next house on the same side was the home of Dr. Joseph Hunt ; 
 and the next building but one was the shop of Reuben Brown, 
 where knapsacks, saddlery and other equipments were made. 
 Its owner was prominent on the day of the Fight having been dis- 
 patched on a reconnoitering tour toward Lexington in the morn- 
 ing. The house next to it was also standing, as well as the one 
 oQCupied by George Hey wood, Esq., which is supposed to be at 
 least two hundred years old. It was just below this house that 
 the guard was posted, at the same time that one was placed at 
 the old North and another at the old South brido-e. A little 
 below is the Beal house, and half a mile below it the Alcott 
 house, both of which date back to about 1740. The house of 
 Ephraim Bull, Esq., was probably nearly as old, and it is well 
 known all over tlie United States through the Concord Grape 
 which was originated here by its present owner. Half a mile 
 below is Merriam's corner. The old house stands as it stood 
 when the Reading and other troops under the command of Gov. 
 Brooks, came up and joined the men Avho had come across the 
 great fields from the North Bridge, and killed and wounded 
 several of the retreating British. 
 
HOUSES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST. 41 
 
 On the Bedford road are two or three houses of great 
 age. 
 
 On the Turnpike and Lincoln roads the Tuttle and Fox 
 houses date back to 1740 or ^b. 
 Returning to the square and crossing the old mill-dam, 
 
 the Vose house is remarkable as being the only three-story 
 house ever built in town. In a picture taken about 1775 it is 
 very prominent, and was doubtless one of the chief houses of 
 the village. Above it on the right, on Main street stands the 
 house of Dr. Barrett, one room of which was a portion of the 
 old block house dating back perhaps to King Philip's War; near 
 this house, at a corner of the burial ground, stood the old jail 
 in which some of the British prisoners were confined. The 
 road turned at this point and went toward the Wheeler house, 
 which was built in the present forjii in 1700, and ]ias always 
 remained in the possession of the same family. A i^vf rods 
 above the South Bridge was the home of Capt. Joseph Hosmer 
 who was requested by Maj. Buttrick to act as adjutant, and 
 rendered ver}^ efficient service in marshalling and collecting the 
 Americans as they arrived from various points ; it has remained 
 in the family of his descendants ever since its erection in 1761, 
 and was a place of concealment for stores which were saved by 
 the courage and ingenuity of Mrs. Hosmer; a detachment of 
 British soldiers was sent to capture their cannon balls which 
 were heaped in one of the rooms, and the kegs of powder which 
 had been hidden behind some feathers under the eaves, but the 
 shrewd lady contrived to send the troops away without discov- 
 
42 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 eriiig them, although thej destroyed several of her beds in the 
 search. 
 
 Nearly behind this house is another old one built about 1763, 
 which was the home of Ephriam Wood, Esq., who was a zealous 
 patriot and an officer of the town, and was engaged in secreting 
 some stores in another place, and escaped the search which was 
 made for him through the house. A short distance up the road 
 which passes in front of Adjutant, afterwards known as Maj. 
 Hosmer's house, is another old house which belonged to a 
 member of the same famil}^ and half a mile east of it is the 
 house of Abel Hosmer, the builder of which was on his way to 
 Charlestown for a load of brick when he met the British coming 
 from Lexington. 
 
 Opposite the Depot of the extension of the Middlesex 
 branch of the Central R. R. stands the house of the celebrated Dr. 
 Cummings, In early life he was a soldier in the wars with the In- 
 dians. Being wounded, he was captured, treated with severity 
 at first, and afterwards with kindness. He received a commission 
 from the Crown as Justice of the Peace, and at the beginning of 
 the Revolution he became chairman of tlie committee of corre- 
 spondence, inspection and safety. After tlie war he acquired 
 property and left bequests to the church, town. Harvard Col- 
 lege, etc. 
 
 Going up Monument street toward the Battle Ground, 
 the first of the old houses is that owned by Mr. Lang which 
 was built by Humphrey Barrett, the great grandfather of Col. 
 James Barrett who had command of the American forces. He 
 came to Concord in 1640, and a portion of the house bears 
 
BOUSES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST. 43 
 
 marks of great age. The next liouse but two on the same side 
 of the road, is one of the oklest in town, and was owned by 
 Elisha Jones at the time of the Fi^'ht, and bore marks of acre at 
 tliat time, it remains much in tlie same form, and the present 
 owner Jolni S. Keyes, Esq., has carefully preserved many relics 
 of the time, among which are copies of tlie old pictures of the 
 battle, and a view of the town as it then existed. In the L 
 part a bullet hole is plainly visible, which was made by a British 
 bullet, near which is a portion of the old North Bridge nailed 
 auainst a beam ; underneath this stands the stone across which 
 Capt. Isaac Davis fell. This stone formed a portion of a row 
 which were used as stepping stones when the water was liigh on 
 the causeway, and it was identified by certain stains which 
 appear on it. The wife of a grandson of Col. Barrett lived in 
 this house and used to relate her vivid recollections of the day, 
 as she watched the red coats march by the house as she stood 
 at a window on a pile of salt fish which formed part of the 
 stores concealed tliere. Her husband's father built a house on 
 Ponkawtassett where Mr. Daniel Hunt also lived. 
 
 On Ponkawtassett Hill, near these houses the min- 
 ute men and militia went to watch the movements of the British, 
 and after receiving reinforcements marched down to the liigh 
 groundby Maj. Buttrick's house which still stands, and is now 
 occupied by Mr. J. Derby. This house was built by Jonathan 
 Buttrick in 1712, and the front part remains the same as in 1775, 
 and it was in the j)ossession of the Buttrick family until 1832. 
 It is recorded on the grave stone of Jonathan Buttrick that 
 thirteen well-instructed children followed him to the grave, one 
 
44 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 of whom was Maj. John Buttrick the liero of the Fight. His 
 brothers Samuel, Joseph and Daniel all left their farms and 
 served under the Maj. at the bridge. Their houses are now 
 standing on the Carlisle road above Ponkawtassett on the farms 
 which were given them by their father. The Ball Hill farm- 
 house was also built long before 1775, and a son of the family, 
 Benjamin Ball, was killed at Bunker Hill. The old Whittaker 
 house was also where it is now, just behind Ponkawtassett. 
 The Hunt house was the oldest on this hill, and it was the one 
 at which the Americans were supplied with food as they assem- 
 bled on the hill waiting for reinforcements. The house of 
 Capt. Nathan Barrett who commanded the fourth company at 
 the fight, and who joined in the pursuit of the British, and was 
 wounded in the afternoon of that day, was near Mr. Hunt'son 
 Ponkawtassett ; and the house of his father, Col. James Barrett, 
 also stands near Annursnuck hill on the same spot as it occu- 
 pied in 1775. He was in command of the American forces 
 engaged, and discharged the onerous duties also of the arrange- 
 ment and protection of the public stores. Being one of the 
 most prominent men of the town, a party of British soldiers 
 searched his house as well as that of his brother which stood 
 near. They were provided with refreshments by the wife of 
 Col. Barrett who refused payment, saying: "We are com- 
 manded to feed our enemies." She afterwards kept with reluc- 
 tance the money which they threw into her lap, saying, " this 
 is the price of blood." This heroic woman succeeded in con- 
 cealing a quantity of ammunition, but fifty dollars was taken by 
 the soldiers who also arrested her son whom she persuaded them 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 45 
 
 to liberate with the remark '' this is my son and not the master 
 of the house." 
 
 The vicinity of Col. Barrett's house is a very important 
 point in the history of the town, for his prominence as Col. of 
 the Militia rendered him and his property objects of peculiar 
 importance and suspicion to the British who were well informed 
 through their spies of the state of things at Concord. For 
 this reason a detachment of troops was sent to this house early 
 in the forenoon in the hope of capturing Col. Barrett himself, 
 as well as some of the munitions of war which were known to 
 be concealed there; some of them were saved by beirtg buried 
 in a newly-planted field and by being ingeniously hidden in 
 other ways. The British had made a pile of the gun carriages 
 and of the articles which they succeeded in finding, and were 
 about to burn them when their attention was turned from the 
 work of destruction by the sound of firing at the old North 
 Bridge. 
 
 On hearing the repeated volleys of musketry the company 
 which numbered about one hundred men took up their line of 
 march toward the center of the town which had been held by 
 the main body of the troops, under Smith and Pitcairn, as they 
 were in great danger of being cut off in their retreat. They 
 had to march a distance of nearly two miles and were well 
 aware, from small bodies of minute men who passed within 
 sight, that the citizens of the neighboring towns were rapidly 
 hastening to the relief of Concord. 
 
 On their return they were obliged to pass over the old North 
 Bridge where the Fight occurred, but were enabled to do this in 
 
46 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 safety, as tlie victorious Americans did not attempt to follow 
 the British with whom they had been engaged, on their way 
 back to the center of the town, but they crossed over the great 
 fields as before stated in order to intercept the British forces at 
 Merriam's Corner. 
 
 The college road which is near the Barrett house is a lasting 
 memorial of the time when Harvard College was removed to 
 Concord in the winter of 1775, by order of the Provincial Con- 
 gress, as the college buildings at Cambridge were needed for 
 the use of the soldiers of the American Arm3^ The Rev. Dr. 
 Ripley and Dr. Hurd, and several other men afterward well 
 known in the annals of their state, were among those who 
 made a visit to Concord at this period. A letter of thanks 
 from the President of the college is still extant, in which he 
 expresses his gratitude and apologies in graceful terms. The 
 Professors were quartered in several houses in the village, the 
 President himself residing at Dr. Minot's near the Middlesex 
 hotel. 
 
 Many of the students boarded at the old mansion house, 
 built by Simon Willard, one of the founders of the town at 
 the foot of Lee's hill. If this article were not necessarily con- 
 fined to the Historical houses at present standing, a picture 
 of the Willard liouse would be of great interest; but the 
 building unfortunately was destroyed by fire about twenty 
 years ago. 
 
 This house stood on the farm of a noted tory named Lee, 
 who made himself so unpopular that he was confined to the 
 limits of his farm, and legend states that the minute men when 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 47 
 
 returinnp^ from their drill often made a tarsfet of liis buildincrs. 
 The house was owned formerly by the Woodis family with 
 whom the Barrett family were conneoted, and Joseph P^arrett 
 Esq. a grandson of Col. James Barrett, owned and occupied it 
 for many years. He was a prominent citizen of Concord, and 
 was appointed to many places of trust and honor, having been 
 at the time of his death Treasurer of the Commonwealth. 
 
 The several branches of the Barrett family which descended 
 from Humphrey Barrett, whose house is spoken of in this arti- 
 cle, have been prominent in the town of Concord ever since its 
 settlement, and still continue to occupy places worthy of their 
 ancestry, and three of their homes have been included in this 
 list of Historical Houses which still stand as they stood at 
 the time of the Concord Figi'ht. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 
 
 The Home of Ralph Waldo Emerson is a plain, square, 
 wooden house, standing in a grove of pine trees, which conceal 
 the front and side from the gaze of passers. Tall chestnut 
 trees ornament the old-fashioned yard, through which a road 
 leads to the plain, yellow barn in the rear. A garden fills half 
 an acre at the back, and has for 3^ears been famous for its roses 
 and also has a rare collection of hollyhocks, the flowers that 
 Wordsworth loved, and most of ihe old-time annuals and 
 shrubs. From the road a gate, which is always open, leads 
 over marble flag-stones to the broad, low step before the hospit- 
 able door. 
 
 48 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST- 
 
 49 
 
 A long hall divides the centre of the house, with two large 
 square rooms on each side ; a plain, solid table stands at the 
 right of tills entry, over which is an old picture of Ganymede. 
 
 The first door on the right leads to the study, a plain, square 
 room, lined on one side with simple wooden shelves filled with 
 choice books; a large mahogany table stands in the middle, 
 covered with books, and by the morocco writing-pad lies the 
 pen which has had so great an influence for twentj^-five j^ears 
 on the thoughts of two continents. A large fire-place, with 
 a low grate occupies the lower end, over which hangs 
 a fine copy of Michael Angelo's Fates, the faces of the strong- 
 minded women frowning upon all who would disturb with idle 
 tongues this haunt of solemn thought. On the mantle shelf are 
 busts and statuettes of men prominent in the great reforms of 
 the age, and a quaint, rough idol brought from the Nile. A 
 few choice engravings hang upon the walls, and the pine trees 
 shade the windows. 
 
 Two doors, one on each side of the great fire place, lead into 
 the large parlor which fills the southern quarter of the house. 
 This room is hung with curtains of crimson and carpeted with 
 a warm color, and when a bright fire is blazing on the broad 
 hearth reflected in the large mirror opposite, the effect is cheer- 
 ful in the extreme. A beautiful portrait of one of the daugh- 
 ters of the house is hung in this pleasant and homelike room, 
 whose home circle seems to reach around the world ; for almost 
 every person of note who has visited this country, has enjoyed 
 its genial hospitality, and listened with attention to the words 
 of wisdom from the kindly master of the house — the most 
 
so 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 modest and most gifted writer, and deepest thinker of the age. 
 
 Years ago the chatty, little Frederika Bremer paid a long visit 
 here, a brisk old lady, as restless as her tongue 
 and pen. Here Margaret Fuller and the other 
 bright figures of TAe i)ia? met for conversation. 
 Thoreau was a daily visitor, and his " Wood^ 
 Notes " might have been unuttered but for the 
 kind encouragement he found here. The Al- 
 cotts, father and daughter, 
 \Aere near neighbors, and it was 
 
 HOME OF EMERSON. 
 
 in this room that Mr. Alcott's earliest " Conversations " were 
 held, now so well known. Here, too, old John Brown was of- 
 
HO USES OF LITERAR Y IN TERES T. 51 
 
 ten to be met, a plain, poorly-dressed old farmer, seeming out 
 of place, and absorbed in his own plans until some allusion, 
 or chance remark, would fire his soul and light up his rugged 
 features. 
 
 But a dozen volumes would not give space enough to mention 
 in full the many guests from foreign lands, who have been 
 entertained at this house, which is also a favorite place for the 
 villagers to visit. The school-children of Concord are enter- 
 tained here every year with merry games and dances, and they 
 look forward with great interest to the eventful occasion. 
 
 The house w^as partially destroyed by fire in the spring of 
 1873, and was rebuilt as nearly as possible like the former. 
 During the building a portion of tlie family found shelter in the 
 Old ]\Ianse, the home of Mr. Emerson's grandfather, while Mr. 
 Emerson himself visited Europe. Upon his return an im- 
 promptu reception took place ; the citizens gathered at the 
 depot in crowds, the school children were drawn up in two 
 smiling rows, through which he passed, greeted by enthusiastic 
 cheers and songs of welcome. All followed his carriage to the 
 house and sung '^ Home, Sweet Home," to the music of the 
 band. A few days afterward he invited all his fellow-citizens 
 to call and see him in his new home, and nearly all the inhabi- 
 tants availed themselves of the opportunity. 
 
 A general invitation is now very often extended to old and 
 young, to assemble on Sunday evenings in the pleasant parlor 
 for conversation. Many of these talks have been led by Mr. 
 Alcott, as before mentioned. Some have been of a religious 
 nature, especially those led by the Rev. Mr. Channing, and by 
 
52 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK, 
 
 Rev. Mr. Reynolds, the pastor of the Unitarian churcli. The 
 house stands on an okl country road, up which the Britisli 
 marched on the memorable 19th of April, 1775, It is not 
 necessary to speak of the writings of Mr. Emerson, as they 
 are too well-known to need mention here. 
 
 The Old Manse which has been at various times the home 
 of Emerson, stands at the left of the Battle Ground and is 
 approached by an avenue of noble trees, which were originally 
 black ash, a tree very rare in this part of New England. Many 
 of these ash trees have died from age, and their places have 
 been supplied by elms and maples. Two high posts of granite 
 mark the entrance to the avenue, which extends for about two 
 hundred feet to the door of tlie house. Opposite, across the 
 narrow country road, a hill overlooks the village, and gives a 
 fine view of the winding river, and distant mountains. A 
 solitary poplar crowns the summit of the hill, and affords a 
 landmark to the river-voyager, as it can be seen for miles up 
 and down the stream. A romantic legend is connected with 
 this tree, about a party of young girls who were at school in 
 the Old Manse, each of whom caused a tree to be set out, and 
 called b}^ her name. Year by year, the girls and trees grew up 
 together in grace and beauty. At length, one by one, the old 
 ladies died, and the trees died too, until one very old lady and 
 this old weather-beaten poplar, alone remained. The lady for 
 whom the surviving poplar was named, has gone to her rest, and 
 the tree seems likely to follow before long. 
 
 The large field at the left of the Old Manse, which divides 
 it from the Battle Ground, was, centuries ao-o, the site of an 
 
BOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 
 
 S3 
 
 Indian village, and often rough arrows and spear-heads have 
 been turned up by the plough. The savages probably chose 
 this gentle slope by the river for the sake of tlie fish with wliich 
 it then abounded, for the earlier settlers report a plentiful 
 supply of shad and salmon, where now poor little breams and 
 
 THE OLD MANSE. 
 
 horn-pouts alone tempt the idle fisherman. Behind the house 
 there extends to the river an ancient orchard of apple trees, 
 wliich is in itself a monument of energy and faitli, lor it 
 was set by Dr. Ripley, who came to the house in 1778, as 
 stated below. The house, built for Rev. William Emerson 
 
54 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 in the year 1765, and occupied by him the next year after 
 his marriage to a daughter of the Rev. Daniel Bliss, with the 
 exception of a few j^ears when it was occupied by Hawthorne, 
 has always been the home of ministers and the descendants of 
 the builder. Nearly all the old New England ministers have 
 been entertained under its roof, and many questions affecting 
 the beliefs of the age have been here discussed and settled. 
 The room in which this article is written, was the study of the 
 Rev. Ezra Riplejs who as stated elsewhere married the widow 
 of the builder of the home, and here thousands of sermons 
 have doubtless been written. It is a small, square room with 
 high wainscot and oaken beams overhead, with a huge fire-place 
 where four-foot sticks used to burn on great, high, brass 
 andirons. 
 
 It was in this room, too, that the ghost used to appear, 
 according to Hawthorne, but it probably only existed in his 
 brilliant imagination. Often, on a winter night, the latch of 
 the old door has lifted without human help, and a gust of cold 
 wind has swept into the room. 
 
 Opposite the study, is a larger room, which is modernized by 
 rare photographs and recent adornments, and is used as a parlor 
 by its present owners, the grandchildren of the original pro- 
 prietors. From this apartment a door opens into the ancient 
 dining-room, in which the old-time ministers held their solemn 
 feasts, and it is said that they were well able to appreciate the 
 good cheer which covered the long table that nearly filled the 
 narrow liall. In one corner of this room stands a tall clock, 
 looking across at its life-long companion, the ancient desk of 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 
 
 55 
 
 Dr. Ripley ; and a set of curious, old, high-backed chairs recall 
 the days of our upright ancestors. 
 
 Opposite this room is a big kitchen with its enormous fire- 
 place, which twenty-five years ago was used wholly by the 
 present occupants for all purposes of cooking. The hooks 
 which held the long, iron crime on which the pots and kettles 
 hung still remain, although a modern cooking stove occupies 
 the chief part of the broad hearth. 
 
 The Old Manse was the principal house of the town for many 
 years, and probably the only one which had two stories, as 
 almost all of the houses of its period were built with a lean-to. 
 It was also the only one which was built with two chimneys, 
 thus giving a large garret, which is rich in the curious lumber 
 of two generations, and stored with literature enjoyed only by 
 the spider and the moth. In one corner, on the southern side, 
 is a curious little room which has been always known as the 
 '* Saints' Chamber," its walls bearing inscriptions in the hand- 
 writing of the holy men who have rested there. 
 
 The room over the dining-room is perhaps the most interest- 
 ing, for it was here that Emerson wrote "Nature" and also 
 many of his best poems. Hawthorjie describes this room, 
 which he also used as his study, in his " Mosses from an Old 
 Manse," which was also written here. It has three windows 
 with small cracked panes of glass bearing inscriptions traced 
 with a diamond, probably by some of the Hawthorne family. 
 From the northern window the wife of the Rev. William 
 Emerson watched the progress of the 19th of April fight ; and 
 one hundred years later, on the same day, her grandaughter, 
 
56 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 who now occupies the room, pointed out to her guests the 
 
 honored men who marched in 
 over the old North Bridge to 
 monument and celebrate the 
 the memorable day. The Old 
 mentioned, was 
 home of Dr. Ezra 
 sketcli lol 
 
 long procession 
 dedicate the new 
 anniversary of 
 Manse, as before 
 for years the 
 
 ^^"^ Ripley, of whom a short 
 -^J^^ lows. 
 
 ^ ^ ley was born May 1st, 
 
 1751, at Woodstock, Conn. 
 \ He was the fifth of nine- 
 teen children. His father 
 was born in Hingham, 
 Mass., on the farm first 
 purchased by Mr. Ripley 
 from England, at tlie first 
 settlement of the town. Thir- 
 ty 3^ears ago the seventh and 
 eiofhth o-enerations still lived 
 on this farm. By his own 
 '^ exertions, and the patronage 
 of Dr. Forbes, of Gloucester, he fitted himself for college, 
 and entered Harvard University in July 1772. Owing to his 
 high moral and religious character, he was called by his class- 
 mates '' Holy Ripley." He became the pastor of the church 
 in Concord, Nov. 7, 1778. The times were disordered and 
 the currency depreciated. His salary of five hundred and fifty 
 pounds, when paid, was found to be worth only forty pounds. 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 57 
 
 For many years he did a man's work in the field, more tlian 
 three days out of the week on an average, to snpport his family. 
 Scarcely any minister ever took so deep an interest in tlie tem- 
 poral prosperity of his people as Dr. Ripley. The honor of the 
 town Avas almost as dear to him as that of his own family. 
 Education, temperance, and morals were the subjects of his 
 watchful care. He formed, more than seventy years ago, per- 
 haps the first Temperance Society that ever was formed. He 
 went round among his people and got them to agree to banish 
 intoxicating drinks from funerals. But the following extracts 
 from a notice of him by Mr. R. W. Emerson, will be more 
 appreciated : 
 
 '' He was a natural gentleman — no dandy, courtly, hospitable, 
 manly and public spirited, his nature social, his house open to 
 all men. His brow was open and serene to his visitors — for he 
 loved men and he had no studies, no occupations which com- 
 pany could interrupt. His friends were his study, and to see 
 them, loosened his talents and his tongue. 
 
 '' He was open-handed, just, and generous. Ingratitude and 
 meanness in his beneficiaries did not wear out his compassion. 
 He bore the insult, and the next day his basket for the beggar, 
 and his horse and chaise for the cripple were at their door. A 
 man of anecdote, his talk in tlie parlor was chiefly narrative. 
 We remember the remark of a gentleman who listened with 
 much delisfht to his conversation, ' that a man Avho could tell a 
 story so well, was company for kings.' An eminent skill he 
 had in saying difficult and remarkable things. Was a man a 
 sot or a spendthrift, or suspected of some hidden crime, or had 
 
58 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 he quarreled with his wife, or coUared his father, or was there 
 any cloud or suspicious circumstauces in his behavior, the good 
 pastor knew his way straiglit to that point. In all such passages 
 he justified himself to the conscience, and commonly to the 
 love, of the person concerned. He was the more competent to 
 these searching discourses from his knowledge of family history. 
 He knew every body's grandfather, and seemed to talk with 
 each person rather as the representative of his house and name 
 than as an individual. This, and still more his sympathy, made 
 him incomparable in his parochial visits, in his exhorations and 
 prayers with sick and suffering persons. 
 
 The Home of Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne. Mr. Hawthorne 
 returned to Concord from Len- 
 nox in 1852, and bought of Mr. 
 Alcott the small house which 
 he afterward enlarged, and 
 called from the first, " Way- 
 side," for it stands close upon 
 the way-faring of the Lexing- 
 ton road. The charm of the 
 Wayside felt by persons who 
 have lived there any length 
 of time, consists in the effect- 
 ive groupings of pines, the odd, 
 MR. HAWTHORNE'S INKSTAND. ^^ccp scmi-circlc fomicd about 
 
 the lawn by the shoulder of the 
 hill, closely foliaged with several kinds of trees ; and in the pretty 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 
 
 59 
 
 glimpses of the meadows, hemmed with woods, their delicate 
 colors and occasional mists being delightful against the dark 
 stems of the pines. Mr. Hawthorne was pleased with the hill- 
 top, and its view. He said that such a scene, neither quite 
 tame nor wholly admirable, assisted meditation far more than 
 the fine landscapes at Lennox, which called so largely upon his 
 attention that he could not easily think of anything else. A 
 curving path, bordered by pines and locusts, leads to the top of 
 the hill along which Mr. Hawthorne walked daily, and where 
 he was wont to compose (he liked space for that) what he 
 afterwards wrote in *'the tower," as the room elevated above 
 the front of the house was humorously called in memory of the 
 tower of ]\Ionte Onto. From the lawn below the hill I have 
 looked up and seen Mr. Hawthorne's dark, quiet figure passing 
 slowly across the dim light of mingled sky and branches, his 
 tread measured, and his head bent — and he seemed to be at 
 one with those surroundings, of eloquent and sombre pines, and 
 the uncloying scent of the sweet-fern. Mr. Hawthorne's long 
 out-door meditations in composing were explained by a remark 
 he once made, that if he found he had been composing from a 
 mood, he felt almost guilty of having perpetrated a lie. During 
 the last year of his life he occupied very often the small 
 lower room upon the left of the house, where his books were 
 collected. Here he read aloud to the family the novels of Sir 
 Walter Scott, in a voice rich and smooth, and changing in 
 sympathetic cadence with the flow of wit, pathos, or chivalric 
 sternness into broad nature. Mr. Hawthorne's loss of health 
 prevented the completing of the Wayside, which was to have 
 
6o THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 been ultimately brought into a better harmony of the old part 
 with the new. 
 
 Miss Elizabeth P. Peabod}" a sister of Mrs. Hawthorne has 
 devoted herself to Philanthropic and Educational labors and 
 was instrumental in introducing the Kindergarten into this 
 countr3\ 
 
 Mr. G. P. Lathrop, the gifted author, poet and editor, and a 
 son-in-law of Mr. Hawthorne now owns and occupies Wayside. 
 
 The Poet Channing who has lived in town for forty years, 
 was a friend of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau ; of the last 
 he has written a biography, as well as many other books in 
 prose and verse, the best of which, *' Near Home," is a poetical 
 guide book of Concord. 
 
 Thoreau was born in Concord on the 12th of July, 1817, 
 and graduated at Harvard College in 1837. Having a distaste 
 for all professions he worked at the manufacture of lead pencils 
 until he had made one which was pronounced perfect by the 
 chemists and dealers, and fully equal to the best of foreign 
 manufacture, and then said he would make iio more. 
 
 In writing of Thoreau's Home let us try to go back to the 
 ancient Walden where Emerson walked through miles of his 
 own woods, and where the hermit poet and philosopher Thoreau 
 lived alone for over two 3'ears. Then Walden was a deep, well- 
 like pond without visible inlet or outlet, half a mile in length 
 and one and a half in circumference, wholly surrounded by hills 
 which rise from forty to one hundred feet in height, densely 
 covered with pine and oak trees. 
 
 The water of Walden is cool in all weather and so transpar- 
 ent that objects can be distinctly seen at a deoth of twenty-f^ve 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 63 
 
 feet. Tlie pond rises and falls, but it is impossible to tell what 
 laws govern it, as it is often higher in a drought than in a rainy 
 season. On the northern side is a high sand-bar which was 
 bare in 1825, but is now covered by about three feet of water, 
 behind which a pleasant cove extends for about twenty rods to 
 a gentle eminence on which stood Thoreau's house, built in 
 1845, of timbers which grew on the spot, covered with boards 
 which he brought from the shanty of an Irishman who had 
 helped to build the railroad. With the exception of a little 
 help in raising the frame, the house was the work of its owner 
 and cost about thirty dollars. It was a completely weather- 
 proof room, ten feet wide by fifteen long with a garret, closet, 
 door and window, with two trap doors in the floor, and a brick 
 chimney at one end. 
 
 Moving into this little house in 1845, Thoreau lived for eight 
 months, from July to the following May, at an expense of 
 eight dollars and seventy-six cents or about one dollar nine 
 cents per month. He cultivated a crop of beans to supply the 
 small sum needed for his daily wants, thus being able to devote 
 the greater part of his time to writing and study. He was a 
 sincere philosopher and wished to protest by his simple life and 
 habits against the folly of devoting much time to the demands 
 of society. He used to make long journeys on foot, thinking 
 it was cheaper and quicker than to devote the time to earning 
 money for his railroad tickets, as he could easily walk thirty 
 miles a day for weeks at a time. In this way he travelled over 
 much of New England. He has left interesting accounts of 
 these excursions, especially of his journeys through the Maine 
 
64 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 woods, and lakes and to Mt. Katahdin and the other great 
 mountains which they contain. Often he wandered alone 
 through these grand old primeval forests ; at other times he 
 took an Indian guide or joined some roving band of savages 
 who welcomed him as a lover of nature, and taught him their 
 simple woodcraft, sometimes gliding for da3^s in a birch canoe 
 like an autumn leaf on the gentle lakes, or down the foaming 
 rapids, and sometimes climbing rough mountain sides or scaling 
 dangerous precipices. He knew just what could best sustain 
 life, and travelled with as little baggage as possible. He could 
 content himself without food or water longer than even the 
 Indians, and was able to bear great extremes of heat and cold, 
 and made a variety of experiments upon his powers of 
 endurance. He is said to have slept one night in a barrel 
 buried in a snow-drift to ascertain the warmth of that kind 
 of comforter. 
 
 His walks about Cape Cod are full of interest, and are pub- 
 lished in a book, as are also his voyages on the Concord 
 and Merrimac rivers, which he carefully explored in an open 
 boat. He also wrote a book on Walden itself which contains 
 a chapter on wood sounds, which everybody who loves to be 
 out of doors ought to know by heart. Although rather shy 
 of strangers, Thoreau was always glad to welcome children to 
 his house, to walk with them through the woods and teach them 
 to love nature as he did. He was noted late in life as a lecturer 
 and was obliged to spend some of his evenings in city life, but 
 he was always glad to go back to the woods and was never 
 lonely when alone in their solitude. Living thus out of doors 
 
HO USES OF LITER A R V INTERES T, 65 
 
 he became a close observer, could tell the notes of all insects, 
 birds and animals, and the meaning which they wished to 
 express. He knew where all the scarce and curious flowers 
 grew, and discovered plants in Concord woods which no one 
 had ever seen there. He first found the climbing fern, and is 
 said to have discovered the red snow of the Arctic regions. He 
 was an earnest admirer of old John Brown, and made an elo- 
 quent address in his praise directly after his arrest at Harper's 
 Ferry ; although his townsmen doubted the advisibility of it at 
 the time as the current of public sentiment had not then begun 
 to turn strongly in favor of the old hero. 
 
 Tlioreau was born in an old house ON the VIRGINIA ROAD 
 which still stands, and he died on the 6th of May 1862, in the 
 house now owned by Mrs. Pratt, who lives there at present with 
 her father Mr. Alcott, and her sister Miss Louisa M. Alcott. 
 
 It is the intention of his friends to mark permanently the site 
 of Thoreau's home at Walden Pond witli a monumental boulder 
 which will be put in position with appropriate exercises and 
 addresses by his friends. 
 
 The house of the Hon. Samuel Hoar stands near the 
 library on Main street. It is one of the most noted in Concord, 
 if literary and political interests are considered. Of the life 
 and character of its first proprietor, no description can exceed 
 the grand and simple statement of his epitaph, recorded in the 
 account of Sleepy Hollow. The same eulogy may be accorded 
 his daughter who accompanied him on his famous journey to 
 Charleston, when he was forcibly removed from the State by a 
 
66 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 mob for attempting to test the legality of the imprisonment of 
 free colored sailors. He was himself a member of and seut two 
 sons to Congress, where one of them still continues his 
 fearless and devoted labors in that capacity. The house oppo- 
 site also sent the Hon. William Whiting to the same body, so 
 that four United States Congressmen were furnished from a 
 half acre of Concord ground. 
 
 The Hon. E. R. Hoar was born in this house, his mother 
 being the daughter of Roger Sherman. He graduated at Hai- 
 vard College in 1835, was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas 
 from 1849 to 1855 ; Judge of the Supreme Judicial Court from 
 1859 to 1869; Atty. Gen. of the U.S. from 1869 to 1870; 
 Member of Joint High Commission which made the Treaty of 
 Washington with Great Britain, in 1871 ; Fellow of Harvard 
 College from 1858 to 1868 ; President of Board of Overseers of 
 Harvard College 1879 and 80; Presidential Elector 1872; Mem- 
 ber of the 44th Congress 1873 to 1875. 
 
 Among his printed works may be mentioned Report of Con- 
 cord committee to build Soldiers' Monument 1867 ; Address at 
 laying corner stone of Memorial Hall at Harvard College Oct. 
 6, 1870 ; Opinions in Massachusetts Reports from 13 Gray to 101 
 Mass ; Opinions as Attorney General of United States. He has 
 been identified for years with the history of the town, whose 
 people depend on him as they did on his father. His son Sam- 
 uel Hoar, is a partner in his father's law office, making three 
 generations of Concord lawyers who have held the highest rank 
 in county and state. 
 
 The Orchard House, noted as having been for many years 
 
HO USES OF LITER A R Y IN TERES T. 67 
 
 the home of the Alcott famih% stands on the old Boston road 
 about half a mile below the house of Emerson, and next to 
 The Wayside, the house once owned and occupied by Haw- 
 thorne. 
 
 Amos Bronson Alcott was born at Walcott, Ct., Nov. 29th, 
 1799. He went to school until he was thirteen years old, and 
 at the age of twelve began to keep a diary, a practice which he 
 has continued the greater part of the time since. Still earlier 
 he had read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, tiie book of all 
 otliers which had the greatest influence on his mind. He learned 
 to write by practising Avith chalk on his mother's kitchen floor 
 and became in his bo} hood a skillful penman, so tliat his first 
 essay in teaching was as master of a writing school in Carolina. 
 
 At the age of fourteen, he worked for a while at clock 
 making at Pljniiouth, Ct., and in the same year went on an excur- 
 sion into northern Connecticut, and western Massachusetts, sell- 
 ing a few articles as he went, to meet the expenses of his 
 journey. 
 
 On a similar journey in Virginia, a few years afterwards he 
 was kindly received at the great houses of the planters, where 
 he received generous hospitality and permission to explore their 
 libraries, where he found many books he had never seen. Biog- 
 raphy was his favorite reading; then poems and tales; and 
 books of metaphysics and devotion. 
 
 His first school was in a district three miles from his home, 
 where he tauelit for three months for ten dollars a month, 
 and his board ; afterwards he taught a famous school at 
 Cheshire, Ct. 
 
68 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 Ill Januaiy 1828, he wrote a brief account of his method of 
 teachingf, which attracted much attention. He continued this 
 system in a simihir school in Bristol in the winter of 1827-8, 
 and then removed to Boston to take charge of an infant school 
 in Salem street, in June, 1828. In the following April, he 
 opened a private school near St. Paul's church on Tremont 
 street, in whicli he remained until November 5tli, 1830, when 
 he gave it up to open a school in Gerraantown, near Philadel- 
 pliia, where witli his associate, Mr. W. Russell, he remained a 
 little more than two years. On the 22d of April, 1833, he 
 opened a school in Philadelphia, which continued until Julv, 
 1834, soon after which, September 22, 1834, Mr. Alcott returned 
 to Boston and there began his famous Temple school, concern- 
 ing which so much has been written and published. 
 
 He first gave his pupils single desks, now so common, instead 
 of the long benches and double or three-seated desks, still in 
 use in some sections. He gave his youthful pupils slates and 
 pencils, and blackboards. He established a school librar}^, and 
 taught them to enjoy the benefits of careful reading ; he broke 
 away from the old rule of severe and indiscriminate punish- 
 ments, and substituted tlierefor appeals to the affections and the 
 moral sentiment of children, so that he was able almost wholly 
 to dispense with corporal punishment. He introduced, also, 
 light gymnastic exercises, evening amusements at the school- 
 room, the keeping of diaries by 3'oung children, and, in general, 
 an affectionate and reverent mode of drawing out the child's 
 mind towards knowledge, rather than the pouring in of instruc- 
 tion by mechanical or compulsory processes. 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 69 
 
 Among the eminent women who took an interest in his school 
 ma}' be named, (besides Miss Martiiieau), Miss Margaret Fuller, 
 Miss Elizabeth Peabody, her sister, the late Mrs. Hawthorne, 
 and others. Both Miss Fuller and Miss Peabody were assistant 
 teachers in the Temple scliool at Boston, and Miss Peabody 
 compiled the accounts of it which were published under the 
 title of '' Record of a School," and " Conversations with Chil- 
 dren on the Gospels." 
 
 Mr. Alcott was one of the originators and members of the 
 somewhat famous Transcendental Club, which met under various 
 names, from 1836 to 1850. It was first called " The Sym- 
 posium," and met originally on the 19th of September, 1836, 
 at the house of George Ripley, then a minister in Boston. In 
 the October following, it met at Mr. Alcott's house (16 Front 
 street), and there were present Mr. Emerson, George Ripley, 
 Frederic H. Hedge, O. A. Brownson, James Freeman Clarke, 
 and C. A. Bartol. The subject of conversation that day was 
 " American Genius ; causes which hinder its growth." Two 
 years' later, in 1838, we find it meeting at Dr. Bartol's in 
 Chestnut street, Boston, where of late years the " Radical 
 Club " often gathered ; there were then present JNIr. Em- 
 erson, Mr. Alcott, Dr. Follen, Dr. C. Francis, Theodore Par- 
 ker, Caleb Stetson, William Russell, James Freeman Clarke, 
 and John S. D wight, the famous musical critic. The topic 
 discussed was "Pantheism." In September, 1839, there is 
 record of a meetino; at the house of Dr. Francis, in Water- 
 town, where, besides those alread}^ mentioned, Margaret Fuller, 
 William Henry Channing, Robert Bartlett, and Samuel J. Ma}^ 
 
70 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 were present. In December, 1839, at George Ripley's, Dr. 
 Channing, George Bancroft, the sculptor Clevenger, the artist- 
 poet C. P. Cranch, and Samuel G. Ward, were among the com- 
 pan3\ Tliese names will give some notion of the nature of the 
 Club, and the attraction it had for thinking and aspiring persons. 
 In October, 1840, we find Mr. Alcott in consultation with 
 George Ripley and Margaret Fuller, at Mr. Emerson's house, 
 in Concord, concerning the proposed community, which was 
 afterwards established at Brook Farm. In 1848, the Trans- 
 cendental Club became the '^ Town and Countr}^ Club,'* on a 
 wider basis, and in a year or two came to an end, having done 
 its work. 
 
 During this period of Transcendental agitation, from 1835 to 
 1850, Mr. Alcott gradually passed through the various degrees 
 of his progress as a reformer. In 1835, he gave up the use 
 of animal food, and the next 3'ear invited Dr. Sylvester 
 Graham to lecture in his school. Still earlier he had joined 
 the Anti-Slavery society, when founded b\' William Lloyd Garri- 
 son, and he was present at many of the celebrated gatherings 
 of abolitionists — for instance at the Lovejoy meeting in Faneuil 
 Hall, in 1837, when Wendell Phillips made his first appearance 
 as an anti-slavery orator. 
 
 In company Avitli Charles Lane, he examined estates in order 
 to choose one for the proposed community, and finally Lane 
 bought the " Wyman Farm," in Harvard, consisting of ninety 
 acres, with an old farm-house upon it, where Mr. Alcott and 
 his family, with J\Ir. Lane and a few others, took up their resi- 
 dence in their new home '' Fruitlands ; " which experiment was 
 

 ^- "-^'^^kw^^^'^yj^^x,^ 
 
 MR. Al.COirS HOME 
 
HO USES OF LITERAR Y INTEREST. 73 
 
 not a financial success. He finally abandoned the farm, in 
 poverty and disappointment, about the middle of January, 
 1844. The lesson thus tauglit was a severe one, but Mr. Alcott 
 looks back upon it as one of the turning points in his life. 
 From that day forward, he has had less desire to change the 
 condition of men upon earth than to modify and enlighten 
 their inward Hfe. He soon after returned to Concord, and in 
 1845 bouglit a small farm tiiere with an old house upon it, 
 wliich lie rebuilt and christened " Hillside." A few years later 
 when it passed into the hands of Nathaniel Hawthorne, he 
 changed the name to " Wayside." It is the estate next east of 
 the Orchard House in Concord. At '' Hillside " j\Ir. Alcott 
 gardened and gave conversations, and in the year 1847, 
 while living there, he built in Mr. Emerson's garden, not 
 far off, the unique summer house wliich ornamented the grounds 
 until within ten 3-ears past, when it decayed and fell into ruin. 
 In 1848 he removed from Concord to Boston, and did not return 
 until 1857. Since then he has lived constantly in Concord. 
 
 In 1858 he became the Superintendent of the Public Schools 
 of Concord, and wrote very admirable reports of them. 
 
 He for a few years published many essays, poems, and conver- 
 sations in the Boston Commonwealth and The Radical, between 
 1863 and 1868, and in the last-named year brought out a modest 
 volume of essays entitled "Tablets." This was followed, in 
 1872, by another volume styled "Concord Days," and still other 
 volumes have since appeared. Mr. Alcott has been pressed to 
 write his autobiography, for which his journals and other 
 collections would give him ample material, and it is to be hoped 
 
74 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 he will appl}' himself to this task. Should the work include 
 his correspondence with contemporaries, it would be of ample 
 bulk and of great value. 
 
 At all times he was enamored of rural pursuits, and he prac- 
 ticed gardening with zeal and success. His Orchard House 
 estate, of a few acres only, was laid out and for years cultivated 
 by himself. It was a favorite theory of Mr. Alcott's through all 
 this period of agitation and outward activity, tliat he could prop- 
 agate his ideas best by conversations. Accordingly, from 1839 
 to the present time, a quarter of a century, he has held conver- 
 sations on his cliosen subjects, and in many and widely separated 
 parts of the country. In later times he has visited and spoken in 
 the schools wherever he happened to be lecturing or conversing, 
 particularly at tlie West, where he has been warmly welcomed 
 in his annual tours. His home has been at all times a center 
 of hospitalit}^, and a resort for persons with ideas and aspira- 
 tions. Not unfrequently his formal conversations have been 
 held there ; at other times in the parlors of his friends, at 
 public halls or college rooms, or in the chambers of some club. 
 Mr. Alcott has held opinions and engaged in enterprises, during 
 his lifetime, which would not have commanded the entire 
 approbation of his townsmen, had they been called to pass 
 judgment upon them ; but with the general result of his long 
 and varied life, neither they nor he can have reason to be dis- 
 satisfied. He has not accumulated riches, nor attained political 
 power, nor made labor superfluous and comfort cheaper by 
 ingenious mechanical inventions. But he has maintained, at all 
 times and amid many discouragements, the Christian doctrine 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 75 
 
 that the life is more than meat, and that the perishing things of 
 this world are of small moment compared with things spiritual 
 and eternal. He has devoted himself, in youth with ardor, in 
 mature and advancing years Avith serene benevolence, to the 
 task of improving the hearts and lives of men, by drawing 
 their attention to the sweetness of philosophy and the charm 
 of a religion at once contemplative and practical. There is no 
 higher work than this, and none that leaves so plainly its 
 impress on the character and aspect of him who spends a life- 
 time in it. 
 
 Mr;^ Alcott was a daughter of Col. Joseph May, of Boston, 
 and was born in that city, October 8, 1800. The Rev. Samuel 
 J. May, of Syracuse, whose memoir has been quoted, was her 
 elder brother, born 1T93. Tt was at his parsonage house in 
 Brooklyn that she first met Mr. Alcott, in 1827, when he was 
 teaching school in Cheshire, and it was largely on her account 
 and tlirough the efforts of her family and friends that he went 
 to Boston, in 1828, and took charge of the Salem street infant 
 school. They were married jNIay 23, 1830, and resided in 
 Boston until their removal to Germantown in the following 
 winter. Their oldest daughter Anna Bronson, now Mrs. Pratt, 
 (the mother of Miss Alcott's " Little Men ") was born at 
 Germantown, March 16, 1831, and Miss Alcott herself (Louisa 
 May) was born at Germantown, Nov. 29, 1832, A third 
 daughter, Elizabeth Sewall, was born in Boston, June 24, 1835, 
 and died in Concord, March 14, 1858. Miss May Alcott, the 
 youngest of the four daughters, a well-known artist, was 
 born in Concord, July 26, 1840, and died in Paris in December 
 
76 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 1879, having earned great fame as an artist, especially in her 
 copies of Turner's pictures, in which one of ihe greatest critics 
 of England pronounced her unsurpassed. She lived for a time 
 in London and Paris, where she won hosts of friends, and several 
 art prizes in the exhibitions. She married Mons. Nieriker, and 
 died after a short illness deeply lamented, leaving a daughter 
 Louisa. 
 
 The eldest of the four sisters, Anna Bronson Alcott, named 
 for her grandmother, was married May 23, 1860, the anniversary 
 of her mother's wedding day, to Mr. John B. Pratt, of Concord, 
 a son of Minot Pratt, one of the Brook Farm community in 
 former years, and afterwards an esteemed citizen of Concord. 
 Their children are the famous *' Little Men " — Frederick 
 Alcott Pratt, born March 28, 1863, and John Sewall Pratt, 
 born June 24, 1866. Mrs. Pratt was left a widow by the 
 sudden death of her husband Nov. 27, 1870, and has since 
 resided much of the time, with her two sons, at her father's 
 house in Concord. 
 
 Miss Louisa May Alcott, the popular writer of humorous 
 and pathetic tales, owes her training, and thus her success in 
 writing, to her father and mother more than to all the world 
 beside. Her instruction for many years came almost wholly 
 from them, and though her genius has taken a direction 
 quite other than that of Mr. Alcott (guided strongly by her 
 mother's social humor and practical benevolence), it still has 
 many traits of resemblance ; while ihe material on which it 
 works is largely drawn from the idyllic actual life of the 
 Alcott famil3\ It can scarcely be remembered when Miss 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 77 
 
 Alcott did not display the story-telling talent, either with her 
 voice or with her pen. Her first book was published twenty-five 
 years ago, and was Avritten several years before that. 
 For a long period afterwards slie contributed copiously to 
 newspapers and periodicals of no permanent renown, though 
 some of the pieces then written have since appeared in her 
 collection of tales. Her first great success as a writer was 
 in 1863, when, after a brief experience as an army nurse, 
 followed bv a long and almost fatal illness, she contributed 
 to the Boston Commonwealth those remarkable '' Hospital 
 Sketches." These were made up from her letters written home 
 during her army life, and bore the stamp of reality so strongly 
 upon them, that tlie}^ caught at once the popular lieart. They 
 were re-printed in mau}^ newspapers, and in a small volume, and 
 made her name known and beloved all over tlie North. From 
 that time forward she has been a popular writer for the periodi- 
 cals, but lier great success as an author of books did not begin 
 until she found a publisher of the right quality in jNIr. Thomas 
 Niles, of the Boston firm of Roberts Brothers, who have now 
 published all her works for six years. Within that time the 
 '' Little Women " and their successors have been published, and 
 the sale of aU her books has exceeded a quarter of a million 
 copies. Her earliest novel, "Moods," published in 1864, b}* A. 
 K. Loring, of Boston, did not at first command much attention, 
 but man}' thousand copies have since been sold. Her second nov- 
 el " Work," was published by Roberts, in the summer of 1873, 
 and at once had a great sale, both in America and iu Europe.. 
 Manv of lier books have been translated into French and Ger- 
 
78 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 man, and there are now few living autliors whose works are 
 so universally read. 
 
 Th9 house of F. B. Sanborn is now building at the 
 upper part of Main street at the bend of the river near 
 the stone bridge. Mr. Sanborn came to Concord in March, 
 1855, the year of his graduation at Harvard College. He lived 
 in the house opposite Thoreau, (then the residence, of EUer}' 
 Channino",) and took his dinners at the same house with Thoreau, 
 and became a frequent companion of his daily walks and rows 
 on the river. 
 
 He started the Concord School which lasted eight years, 
 at which were several pupils now noted in literature. He be- 
 came interested in John Brown, whom he first brought to 
 Concord in 1857, and who made his celebrated Kansas speech in 
 March of that year, in which his simple eloquence inspired the 
 citizens to open their hearts and purses for the relief of Kansas. 
 He passed a portion of Ins last birthday. May 9th, 1859, at Mr. 
 Sanborn's house, leaving at noon for his noted campaign in Vir- 
 ginia, having spoken at the Town Hall on the previous evening. 
 Funeral services of great impressiveness were held on tlie death 
 of Jolni Brown, Dec. 2d, 1859, for which the liymn was written 
 by Mr. Sanborn, and addresses were made by Emerson, Thoreau, 
 and others. During the progress of these exercises Rev. E. H. 
 Sears wrote his celebrated and prophetic ode to the memory 
 of the old liero. 
 
 On account of liis complicity and supposed knowledge of 
 the plans of Jolm Brown, ]\Ir. Sanborn was summoned to appear 
 to testify before a committee of the U. S. Senate, of which 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 
 
 79 
 
 Mason of Virginia, was the chairman. On liis refusal to comply 
 with this demand, the United States Marshal with four men came 
 to his house, and after calling him out on a false pretence, lumd- 
 cuffed him and would have carried him away, had not his ^sister 
 by her vigorous attack upon the men and their horses prevented 
 them until her outcries had summoned a crowd of liis infuriated 
 fellow-citizens to his aid. Judge Hoar issued a writ of Jiaheas 
 corpus., upon which he was discharged the next day by Judge 
 Shaw of the Supreme Court. On his return home the same 
 day, April 4th, he was received by his townsmen with a salute 
 of cannon and other testimonials of rejoicing, and a public meet- 
 ing was held at which Col. Higginson and others made congrat- 
 ulatory remarks. Mr Sanborn became an editor of the Com- 
 mo7itvealth in 1863, and left it in 1868 to become an editor of the 
 Springfield IlepuhUcan., with which paper he is still connected. 
 In 1863 he was appointed by Gov. Andrew, Secretary of the 
 Board of State Charities, in which Board he continued for 
 twelve years, and with Dr. Howe, Dr. Wheelwright and others, 
 reorganized the whole charitable system of the State, introducing 
 many changes which have since been widely copied. 
 
 For many 3'ears he has been a contributor to Scrihners 3Iont}ily^ 
 for which he wrote the illustrated article on Emerson ; and 
 an occasional writer in the Atlantic Monthly., in which his most 
 noticeable papers were those on John Brown, upon whose biog- 
 raphy he is now engaged. To this work he proposes to devote 
 his best energies in order to make it worthy of its subject. His 
 home has often oiven shelter to fug^itive slaves, and once was the 
 place of concealment of two of John Brown's soldiers, when a 
 
8o THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 large reward was offered for their apprehension. He was one 
 of the founders and Secretary of tlie Social Science Associ- 
 ation, and, with Mr. Alcott, originated tlie Concord School of 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Of the many distinguished writers, who have from time to 
 time made Concord their home, William S. Robinson ('' War- 
 rington") is one of the very few, who were born in that 
 rare old town. His ancestors were of English, and Welsh 
 descent, and on both the father's and mother's side, had lived 
 there for two generations. 
 
 Lieut. Col. John Robinson, who " led the soldiers in double 
 file," on the famous 19th of April, 1775, was a brother of Mr. 
 Robinson's grandfather. His maternal grandfather, Lieut. 
 Emerson Cogswell, (a descendent of one of the ancestors of 
 Mr. R. W. Emerson) Avas one of the minute men of Concord, 
 and a member of the Committee of Public Safety of that town 
 during the revolution. This committee afterwards became the 
 " Social Circle," and Mr. Cogswell was one of its founders. 
 
 Mr. Robinson was born Dec. 7, 1818, in what is now called 
 the '' old block," (near the Unitarian church) once his grand- 
 father's homestead. He was educated in the public schools 
 of the town, and at seventeen years of ao-e beg^an to learn 
 the printer's trade. When twentj^-one, lie became editor 
 and proprietor of the Yeomans Gazette^ afterwards called the 
 Concord Republican. In 1842, the Republican was merged in 
 tlie Loivell Courier and Journal^ and j\Ir. Robinson moved to 
 that city, and became one of its editors. Subsequently he was 
 the editor of the Boston Daily Wliig^ and the Boston Republi- 
 
HOUSES OF LITERARY INTEREST. 8i 
 
 can^ leading free-soil newspapers of 1848-9. For nearly four 
 years he edited and published a free-soil and anti-slavery news- 
 paper which he had started in Lowell, called the Lowell 
 American. He wrote letters and articles for the Boston Com- 
 mo7iwealth, the Atlas and Bee; the New York Tribune^ the 
 Eve7iing Post, and many of the other leading newspapers in 
 the country. 
 
 He was one of the founders of, and leaders in, the free-soil, 
 and republican party. For tw^enty years, during the fiercest of 
 the anti-slavery struggle, and the war of the rebellion, he 
 wrote for the Springfield Bepuhliean. It was through his 
 letters to this newspaper, that he became known as the re- 
 nowned war correspondent, and made famous his nam de jylnme 
 of '' Warrington." In all his writings, he advocated the 
 freedom of the slave, personal and political purity, and the 
 equal rights of woman. One of his most distinguished con- 
 temporaries in the field of journalism said of him : " He was 
 the sharpest, steadiest, truest journalist, in all the mighty battle 
 for freedom." He was Secretary of the Constitutional Con- 
 vention of 1853, and eleven years Clerk of the Massachusetts 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 His published works are, Warrington's Manual of Parliamen- 
 tary Law ; The Salary Grab ; and a volume of selections from 
 his writings, (Warrington Pen Portraits, with a Memoir by Mrs. 
 Robinson) published after his death. 
 
 He died March 11th, 1876, and lies buried in Sleepy Hollow 
 Cemetery. 
 
82 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 William W. Wheildon was born in Boston, and as he often 
 says, " drove his mother's cow to pasture on Boston Common." 
 He was educated in the public schools, and when he was a boy, 
 durino- the sickness of one of the carriers, used to distribute 
 around the west end of the town, the " New England Palla- 
 dium." In 1822, he went to Haverhill, as an apprentice to the 
 printhig business with Nathaniel Greene ; returned to Boston 
 with him and assisted in the issue of the first number of the 
 American Statesman. In 1827, Mr. Wheildon established the 
 "Bunker Hill Aurora," at Charlestown, and continued its 
 proprietor and editor, until September, 1870, more than forty 
 years: a complete file of the Aurora for all these years is now 
 in the public library at Charlestown, and contains the material 
 for a full and complete history of the town during that period. 
 In 1846, Mr. Wheildon took up his summer residence in Concord, 
 retaining his home in Charlestown, as a winter residence, until 
 1856, since Avhich time he has remained in Concord. In 1863, 
 while conducting his paper and managing his printing office, in 
 Charlestown Square, he published his " Memoir of Solomon 
 Willard," written as chairman of a Committee of the Bunker 
 Hill Monument Association. Not being able to spare the time 
 fully to write out the work, a large part of it was set up by 
 him in type, without the use of manuscript. The proof sheets 
 and other necessary reading, and some of the writing, was done 
 while in the cars in the daily trips between Charlestown and 
 Concord. In the composition of the whole work, and its prep- 
 aration for the press, ^Ir. Wheildon never allowed one of his 
 workmen to touch it, but did the whole work himself, in por- 
 
HO USES OF LITERAR V IN TERES T. 83 
 
 tions of an hour or two of time whenever he could spare it. 
 The forms were sent to Boston, and the press work done by 
 steam power. Prior to this time, Mr. Wheildon had published 
 liis " Letters from Nahant," and other pamphlets, on annexation 
 and other subjects. 
 
 At Ciiarlestown, Mr. Wheildon was a student at law, for two 
 or three years, with Hon. Wm. Austin, and thougli never admit- 
 ted to the bar, had a number of important matters entrusted to 
 his care. He represented the Middlesex Railroad Co. before the 
 Aldermen of Ciiarlestown, in a case affecting the riglits of the 
 railroad, in regard to an enforced removal of their tracks, and 
 the running of their cars ; again on the petition of the Monu- 
 ment Association for the opening of an avenue from the City 
 Square to Monument Sqnare ; and again in the interest of the 
 Boston and Chelsea railroad and the Lynn and Boston railroad, 
 and on other occasions. He also represented the city of Charles- 
 town before tlie Commissioners in the matter of making Chelsea 
 Bridge a free avenue ; also before the Commissioners on the 
 Warren Brido-e and its snrrender to the Commonwealth. In 
 the very important case concerning the building of the Maver- 
 ick Bridge, as authorized by the Legislature of INLassachusetts, 
 when the matter came before a Board of United States Com- 
 missioners, at the Charlestown Navy Yard, ]Mr. Wheildon 
 represented the city of Charlestown, the Wharf Owners, the 
 Fitchburcr, JNIaine and Eastern railroads, and made the closing 
 argument in tlie case. He also re[)resented the city and private 
 parties repeatedly before committees of the State Legislature, 
 and on one occasion before a committee of the Maine Legislature, 
 
84 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 at Augusta. Arguments covering the subject, in several of 
 these cases, have been published in pamphlet form. Mr. 
 Wheildon was instrumental in procuring the law for the pro- 
 tection of the Lobster fishery, and read a paper on the natural 
 history of the lobster before the American Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, which is published in their proceed- 
 ings. At the centennial period of 1875, Mr. Wheildon was urged 
 by a Boston publisher to write a history of the Battle of Bunker 
 Hill — a service which he very reluctantly undertook to do, 
 and when completed, having followed previous writers on the 
 subject, he declined to have published ; but subsequently re- 
 wrote the work, and it was published by Lee & Shepard " as 
 a New History of the Battle of Bunker Hill: its purpose, 
 conduct and result." This was followed, the next year, by 
 his history of the " Siege and Evacuation of Boston and 
 Charlestown." 
 
 In 1877, Mr. Wheildon published from his private printing 
 office, in Concord, his " Sentry or Beacon Hill ; the Beacon and 
 Monument, of 1635 and 1790,'' entirely the work of his own 
 hands, with the aid of the steam press, and is regarded as 
 a ver}' complete and valuable addition to the history of the city 
 and the times. It is very handsomely illustrated with heliotype 
 plates and maps ; was prepared in behalf of the Bunker 
 Hill Monument Association, and was published under their 
 auspices. It urges upon the people of Boston the propriety of 
 rebuilding the Beacon Hill Monument. 
 
 Mr. Wheildon's next publication was in 1878, " History of 
 Paul Revere's Signal Lanterns, April 18, 1775, in the Steeple 
 
BOUSES OF LITERARY INTER EST. 85 
 
 of the North Church," etc., to which is added an interesting 
 " New Chapter in the History of tlie Concord Fight." The 
 decision of the question as to the location of the signal lanterns 
 is considered as finally determined by this publication, and not 
 only was the tablet erected on the strength of its conclusions, 
 but the inscription, (necessarily brief from its elevation,) was 
 furnished by the author. The city government, (the committee 
 not having made any full report of the hearing before it,) finally 
 became the purchaser of two hundred copies of the work. The 
 volume is illustrated with a handsome heliotype of this cele- 
 brated church. 
 
 Besides his historical publications, Mr. Wheildon is the 
 author of a small duodecimo volume of 230 pages, entitled 
 verj^ happily, " Contributions to Thought," being a series of lect- 
 ures, essaj^s, etc., some of which have been repeatedly delivered 
 before the lyceums of the count}^ in past years. This hand- 
 some volume, as well as all of Mr. Wheildon's historical works, 
 has been very highl}^ spoken of and commended by the public 
 press. His papers read before the Scientific Association, on the 
 Atmospheric Theory of an Open Polar Sea, the Arctic Regions, 
 Excursion Across the State of Iowa, the American Lobster, etc. 
 are published in the volumes of the Association. 
 
 Mr. Wheildon, though having the ambition of politicians in 
 a very small degree, has held a number of public offices in 
 Charlestown ; and was a member of the City Council, and of the 
 School Committee for many years. In public associations and 
 corporations of a more private nature, outside the borders of 
 politicians, Mr. Wheildon has held many prominent positions. 
 
86 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 He was at one time, one of the Trustees of the Mass. Char. 
 Mechanic Association, a Director of the Bunker Hill Monument 
 Association, an officer of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 
 and a director in four or five business corporations. He is at 
 present the President of the Boston and Chelsea Railroad Co. ; 
 Trustee of the Five Cent Savings Bank of Charlestown, and 
 director of the Charlestown Gas Co. ; Fellow of the American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science — a national asso- 
 ciation — holdino; its charter from the State of Massachusetts ; 
 member of the Historic Genealogical Society, Massachusetts 
 Horticultural Society, etc. From 1848 to 1851, Mr. Wheildon 
 was a member of the Social Club of Concord. 
 
 Mr. Wheildon has matter in manuscript, relating to the 
 Revolutionary War in Massachusetts, and other subjects, and is 
 still a regular contributor to the public press of Boston ; and is 
 with a single exception, it is believed, tlie oldest journalist of 
 Boston, having^ been assistant editor of the Boston Statesman 
 in 1825 and "26. 
 
 Mr. Wheildon has also contributed the articles on The Con- 
 cord Grape, The Masonic Societies, and on Walden Pond in the 
 present volume. 
 
 The Rev. Grindall Reynolds was settled as pastor of the 
 Unitarian society on the 8th of Jul}^, 1858. His house stands 
 on Main street, and is partially shaded by a magnificent elm. 
 His garden abounds in flowers and fruit, and the Sudbury river 
 flows at its foot. On tlie banks of the river grows a beautiful 
 clump of willows, under wliich several boats are moored. As 
 before stated Mr. Reynolds is a close student of history, and 
 
HOUSES OF LITEKAR Y INTEREST. 87 
 
 has made many valuable contributions to magazines and books 
 on that and kindred subjects. For full information on the 
 history of Concord, and the important part taken by her 
 citizens in the Shay's rebellion of which it is not in the province 
 of this little book to treat, (as it is a guide-book, not a history) 
 readers are referred to Mr. Reynolds' able paper on Concord, in 
 Drake's Book, and to his pamphlets on Shay's Rebellion, and 
 Concord Fight which are considered the most able and exhaus- 
 tive papers on these subjects ever published. He has at 
 various times published in the Atlantic and other magazines, 
 articles of historical interest, a partial list of which is given. 
 
 A discourse on leaving the old meeting-house at Jamaica 
 Plain. 
 
 A discourse on the death of Gen. Zachary Taylor, July, 
 21st, 1850. 
 
 A lecture before the American Institute of Instruction ; Mora] 
 Office of the Teacher ; Parish Organization ; John Calvin; Ration- 
 ale of Prayer ; Mexico ; Fortnight with the Sanitary Commission ; 
 English Naval Power and Encrlish Colonies ; French Struo-g-le 
 for Naval and Colonial Power ; Saints who have had Bodies ; 
 Late Insurrection in Jamaica ; Borneo and Rajah Brooke ; 
 Abyssinia and King Theodore ; Concord Fight ; Siege of Bos- 
 ton ; From Ticonderoga to Saratoga ; Our Bedouins and what 
 shall we do with them? The New Religion. 
 
 William Munroe was born in Concord, Mass. June 
 24th, 1806. 
 
 His father, William Munroe, was a descendant of the Mun- 
 roes of Lexington, of revolutionary fame, and was himself 
 
88 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 worthy of note as the first, and for many years the only manu- 
 facturer of lead pencils in the United States. 
 
 His motiier was of the Greenough family of Boston, and 
 dauo'hter of Capt. Jolni Stone, architect and builder of the first 
 brido-e connecting Charlestown with Boston. 
 
 WilUam was the eldest of nine children. He was, in liis 
 youth, conscientious, earnest, generous, and reliable ; and these, 
 added to strict integrity, unfailing industry, and marked unself- 
 ishness, were his ruling characteristics through all his business 
 career, and to the close of life. As was recorded by one of his 
 friends: "During his long life he was noted for his many acts 
 of disinterested kindness, his career as a business man was 
 most honorable ; he was straight-forward in all his dealings ; 
 while those who enjoyed his friendship, found in him purit}^ 
 of purpose, which gave a charm to his quiet life." 
 
 He had a delicate constitution, and although prepared to 
 enter college when quite young, a student's life was not consid- 
 ered advisable for him, and at the age of fifteen, he entered a 
 store in Boston, where he soon gained the confidence of his 
 employers, and very early was entrusted with the care of pur- 
 chasing goods in New York, and in Europe, and subsequently 
 became a partner in the firm. He was afterwards engaged in 
 business with parties in England, and this country, and finally 
 became a member of the firm of Little, Alden & Co. Boston. 
 He was one of the prime movers in establishing the " Pacific 
 Mills " at Lawrence Mass. to the interests of which he gave 
 the last few years of his business life. 
 
 In 1861 his health failed, and he was obliged to retire from 
 
HO USES OF LITER A K V IN TERES T. 89 
 
 active business. After an extended tour throiigh Europe, he 
 returned to Boston, where he resided until 1876. 
 
 He devoted much of his time during the hist years of his 
 life, to making plans for the benefit of his native town, and 
 especially for the erection and endowment of a Free Public 
 Library, which he lived to see completed as it now stands ; and 
 plans for the future addition of an Art Museum, etc., gave him 
 occupation and delight during the man}^ weeks and months of 
 severe bodily suffering which he was called to bear, and which 
 terminated his life. He died at the home of his sisters, in 
 Concord, April 27th, 1877, at the age of seventy-one. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 
 
 In its Free Public Library Concord feels a just pride. 
 To the visitor it is one of tlie first and most attractive points of 
 interest. 
 
 The Library bnihling, though quite picturesque in appear- 
 anc, is of no positive order of architecture, but rather a com- 
 bination of the old and the modern st3des. From every point 
 of view, it strikes the eye most pleasantly, and is a decided 
 ornament to the town. The front view is particularly attrac- 
 tive, suggesting a group of buildings rising successively one 
 above the other. It is situated in a central and beautiful 
 portion of the village, on the slightly elevated part of an 
 
 acre of land, triangular in shape, at the junction of Main and 
 
 90 
 
FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 91 
 
 Sudbury streets. A full description of the building would 
 require more space tlum can well be spared. The engraving- 
 presents a good idea of its outward appearance from one point 
 of view. 
 
 The plans of the building, its construction, and the interior 
 fixtures were completed under the direction, and at the expense 
 of Mr. Wm Munroe, as a gift to his native town. The build- 
 ino' and land adioining; were conveyed by him in trust to the 
 Concord Free Public Library, subject to certain conditions and 
 restrictions, as follows: '' To forever keep and maintain there- 
 upon a building for a public library, for the use of the iidiabi- 
 tants of Concord ; that no building shall ever be erected npon 
 the granted premises, except for the use of the public library, 
 as aforesaid ; and tlie ground not so used, to remain open for 
 ligVit and air, and as an ornamental enclosure for the benefit of 
 the inhabitants of Concord, but without a right in said inhabi- 
 tants to go upon, or use the same, except for reasonable access 
 to said library, under such regulations as may be made by said 
 Corporation," etc. 
 
 The building was dedicated for the use of the library on the 
 1st of October, 1873, with ceremonies appropriate to the 
 occasion. 
 
 A circulating library has existed in Concord probably for a 
 longer period of time than in any other town in the United 
 States. 
 
 Most of the early settlers in Concord, were men of liberal 
 education and refinement, though, as with the Puritans gener- 
 ally, the religious sentiment predominated far above the intel- 
 
92 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 lectual. " The religious bias of our founders," says Mr. 
 Emerson, " had its usual effect to secure an education to read 
 the Bible and hymn-book, and thence the step was easy for 
 active minds to an acquaintance with history and with poetry." 
 
 In 1672, the town, by a committee, instructed the select men 
 to see " that care be taken of the Books of Martyrs and other 
 books that belong to the town, that they be kept from abusive 
 usage, and not be lent to persons more than one month at a 
 time." How long previous to this record, that little nucleus of 
 a library existed here, can only be conjectured, but as Bulkeley, 
 Flint, and others, brought with them from England quite 
 respectable sums of money, and personal property of various 
 kinds, no doubt those " Books of Martyrs," and other books 
 were among the effects brought into Concord by those religious 
 enthusiasts in 1635, and freely circulated, to keep alive the 
 sentiment wliich prompted them to seek this new home in the 
 wilderness, and to sustain all its trials. 
 
 During the next hundred years or more there were, no doubt, 
 other books added to this collection from time to time, but to 
 what extent is not known. 
 
 In 1786, a literary company was formed in the village, with a 
 collection "consisting of well-chosen books in the various 
 branches of literature " which were purchased by subscription. 
 In 1795, the Charitable Library Society was organized, and of 
 the books of this Society, there is a copy of the catalogue now 
 in the Concord Alcove, printed in 1805, which has two hundred 
 and fifty volumes recorded. The members of this library 
 united with others in the oro^anization of another, which was 
 
FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 
 
 93 
 
 incorporated in 1821. This was called the Concord Social 
 Library. In 1835, it had 11G8 volumes on its shelves. No 
 records exist to enable us to give all the statistics we would 
 like in reference to the Social Library. It was owned by 
 shareholders, and supported by contributions ; the shareholders 
 pa} ing a certain sum yearly, and others a larger sum, for the 
 privilege of taking out books, the money so contributed going 
 towards buying new books and paying expenses. In 1851, tlie 
 Social Library was merged into the Town Library. Two other 
 collections, the Parish Library and the Agricultural Library, 
 were afterwards added to the Town Librar}^ which continued 
 in existence till the autumn of 1873. Its books were then 
 transferred to the present Concord Free Public Library. 
 
 The first iUinual report of the Town Library Committee 
 ending March 1st, 1853 represents the number of volumes re- 
 ceived from the Social Library to be 1,318, to which were added 
 during the previous year 199 volumes. 111 by purchase, and 88 
 by donation. The number of books taken out during that year 
 was 4,288, the largest number in one day being 80, and the 
 smallest five. A special appeal was made in this report, to the 
 friends of the library, for additional contributions, which how- 
 ever, was not responded to very liberally, for during the next 
 year, only 18 books were presented, 131 others were purchased, 
 making the whole number 1,663. When the Social Library con- 
 veyed its property to the town, it bound the latter by contract 
 to raise annually the largest sum allowed by law. The amount 
 so raised in 1853 was fill. 75. The number of books taken 
 out the following yearis not reported, but the use of the library, 
 
94 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 the committee siiy, was " constant and increasing." In 1856 
 the committee re[)orted with some exultation, that '' 295 vol- 
 umes a month have been taken out, on an average thruughout 
 the year." The report of 1858 says "the interest of the peo- 
 ple in the library continues without abatement." 
 
 The amount appropriated by the town, varied but slightly 
 from year to year up to 1860, when the law seems to have been 
 changed authorizing towns to appropriate fifty cents each of the 
 ratable tolls, instead of twenty-five cents as had previously been 
 the hiw. The whole number of volumes in the library in 1860 
 was 2,762. With the larger appropriations from 1860, the 
 library increased in a greater ratio from year to year up to the 
 time immediately preceding its transfer to the present Free 
 Public Library, Oct. 1st, 1873, when the number of the volumes 
 was 6,887. 
 
 Previous to the opening of the new library building, an ap- 
 peal was made to citizens of the town, to natives who resided 
 elsewhere, and to all lovers of old Concord, for donations of 
 books, etc., tlie great object being to bring the number of books 
 up to what is termed a first-class library, viz: 10,000 volumes. 
 Such was the interest and enthusiasm excited by this appeal, 
 that money, books, pamphlets, coins, medals, busts and pictures 
 come in from all directions. There were one hundred and 
 nineteen donors. The totals of the gifts were as follows : 
 Money i3,570 ; books, 2,489 ; pamphlets, 1,360 ; three oil paint- 
 ings ; forty-eight heliot3^pe impressions ; seven busts of promi- 
 nent men ; twenty medals ; five hundred and sixty-nine coins ; 
 and seven autograph manuscripts. One ladj^ sent a thousand 
 
FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
 
 95 
 
 dollars; Geo. Wm, Curtis sent a full set of his works. Jas. T. 
 Fields presented six autographs, viz; original manuscripts of 
 '' Dorothy Q," by O. W. Hohnes ; - The Cathedral/* by J. R. 
 Lowell ; '' Culture " by R. W. Emerson ; " Walking " by II. D, 
 Thoreau ; ^' The Brazen Serpent," by Nath'l Hawthorne, and an 
 address by J. L. Motley. Of the books presented, there were 
 many rare and valuable ones ; one old Bible printed in 1598 
 and other ancient and curious works covered with the wrinkles 
 of age, containing autographs of the Bulkeleys, the Emersons, 
 and the Riplej^s of old. 
 
 Under these favorable circumstances, the new library com- 
 menced its career of usefulness, and its success has more than 
 realized the most sanguine expectations, " making," as Mr. Em- 
 erson said it would, "- readers of those who were not readers, 
 scholars of those who only read newspapers and novels till 
 then," and greatly adding to the many attractions which make 
 Concord a desirable place of residence. 
 
 In the report of the Social Library in 183G, the committee 
 congratulated the public on its increased love of reading. It 
 says : " Judging by the number of books taken out, your com- 
 mittee are hap})y to state that the library has been useful during 
 the past year beyond all precedent." The number of books 
 given out that year was 2,438, a less number than is now fre- 
 quently given out in a single month. 
 
 On commencing its work Oct. 1st, 1873, the Concord Free 
 Public Library had upon its shelves nearly 10,000 volumes, ex- 
 cluding duplicates. Since that date up to March 1st. 1880, over 
 5,000 volumes have been added to the librarv, about half of 
 
96 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 which have been donations, and the others by purchase, making 
 the present number of volumes in the library a little over 15,- 
 000. Besides books, there are over 5,000 pamphlets. 
 
 Tlie annual circulation since the opening of the new library 
 has averaged over 23,000. The largest number of volumes 
 
 
 THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 
 
 gis^en out in any one year is 26,000 and in any one month is 
 2,868, and the largest number in any one day 278. 
 
 A portion of the library room is devoted to reference books, 
 and conveniences for consulting them. About 5,000 volumes 
 are used here annually in addition to the circulation of the 
 lending library. 
 
 This seems a most extraordinary showing for a population of 
 less than 3,000. Nearly ten books for every man, woman and 
 
, FREE PUBLIC LIERAR Y. 97 
 
 child ; and including the books used in the reference depart- 
 ment, more than ten to each person. It is doubtful if any other 
 library in any town or city in the world can nndvc so favorable 
 a showing. 
 
 The reading room, which is separate from the library room, 
 is liberally furnished with magazines aud otherr periodicals, by 
 subscriptions and donations. By the last report March 1st 
 1880, there were on the tables twenty-nine quarterly and 
 monthly magazines, twenty-four weekly and two daily papers. 
 The number of readers in this room varies from twenty to fifty 
 per day, which should also be added to the previous statement 
 of the reading capacity of Concord people. 
 
 From the commencement, the new library has been extremely 
 fortunate in securing and retaining the services of a very effici- 
 ent librarian, Miss Whitney. Much credit is due to her for the 
 interior arrangements and for the successful management of 
 the library. The catalogue of books compiled by Miss Whit- 
 ney is a most admirable one. All the books are alphabetically 
 arranged and classified under the names of authors, titles, and 
 subjects, with many cross-references. The books are all classi- 
 fied, each subject, and each division of a subject being by itself. 
 
 One alcove in the library is devoted exclusively to the books, 
 pamphlets, etc., relating particularly to Concord. 
 
 The reference department is a very important one. It in- 
 cludes many valuable books in all departments of learning. Its 
 advantages are seen every day, not only in connection with 
 general readers, but with scholars from the higher schools; 
 words, technical terms, names, dates, and places in history, 
 
98 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 geography and science, and illustrations and references in fiction, 
 are made clear by the works in this section. 
 
 Since the opening of the new library to the present date, a 
 period of six years and five months, during which time over 
 one hundred and fifty-two thousand volumes have been given 
 out, not a volume has been lost or seriously injured, without 
 being replaced by the borrower. 
 
 The library is now supported by appropriations from the 
 town, and by income from a permanent fund donated and be- 
 queathed to the library by different individuals. 
 
 The library is open every day except Sundays and holidays, 
 from 9 to 12 A. M. and from 2 to 6 P. j\I., and on Saturday 
 evenings from 7 to 9 o'clock. 
 
 Visitors will be interested in examining the fine oil painting 
 of Emerson by David Scott of Edinborough, painted in 1848 ; 
 an oil painting of Columbus copied by Raphael Mengs from the 
 portrait by Titian ; a copy of Stuart's Washington by Wm. 
 Marshall ; an engraving of Emerson by Schroff made from 
 Rouse's crayon ; a craj^on of Thoreau by Rouse ; a bust of 
 Emerson by Gould ; bust of Plato ; Miss Landor's bust of 
 Hawthorne ; Dexter's bust of Agassiz ; Gould's bust of Mr. 
 Munroe ; French's bust of Simon Brown ; a bust of Horace 
 Mann ; a picture of the old jail drawn by a British officer im- 
 prisoned there ; the sword carried by Capt. Isaac Davis at the 
 Concord P'iglit ; spontoon carried at the Concord Fight ; scis- j 
 
 sors with which the cartridges were cut, and the anvil on which 
 guns were repaired previous to the Concord Fight. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MONUMENTS. 
 
 The Monuments. The spot on which the British fought 
 has long been marked by a pkiin, granite monument, a portion 
 of the inscription upon which was written by Mr. Emerson. 
 
 It was erected in 1836 and bears upon a tablet the following 
 
 inscription : 
 
 Here 
 
 on the 19th of April, 1775, 
 
 was made the first forcible resistance to 
 
 British Aggression. 
 
 On the opposite bank stood the American militia, 
 
 and on this spot the first of the enemy fell 
 
 in the War of the Revolution, 
 
 which gave Independence to these United States. 
 
 99 
 
lOO 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 In gratitude to God, and in tlie love of Freedom, 
 
 This monument was erected, 
 
 A. D. 1836. 
 
 For the side where the Americans fought, Mr. D. C. French, 
 
 a young sculptor of the town, has designed a bronze statue of 
 
 THE NORTH BRIDGE AND MONUMENT. 
 
 the Minute Man of the day, with wonderful truth and vigor of 
 action ; and it is visited daily by people who come from far and 
 near, and the bridge, which has been built by the citizens of the 
 town to copy the old North Bridge, is constantly being crossed 
 by ever}^ description of vehicle, conveying passengers to stud}^ 
 the details of tlie monument, as the costume of the expectant 
 soldier, tlie old-fashioned plough upon which he leans, and the 
 old flint-lock musket, vv^hich he grasps, are careful copies of the 
 
THE MONUMENTS. loi 
 
 originals from which the young artist made the closest studies. 
 Upon the granite base are cut the first lines of one of Emerson's 
 liymns. It Jias been well said, " Few towns can furnish a poet, 
 a sculptor, and an occasion." 
 
 As they pass over the bridge on their return, even the most 
 careless visitor pauses for a moment at the grave of the British 
 soldiers, who, for a hundred years, have lain on the spot where 
 they were hastily buried on the afternoon of the Fight, by two 
 of the Concord men who made a grave for them just where 
 they had fallen. No one knew their names, and they slept un- 
 wept, save by the murmuring pines, with the very same rough 
 stones from the wall which have been their onlj^ monuments for 
 one hundred 3'ears until at the last centennial celebration the 
 town caused this inscription to be cut on the stone which forms 
 a part of the wall, '' Grave of British Soldiers." The avenue 
 of pine trees was set out by the citizens in one morning, as each 
 one brought and placed in the row a little sapling; and 
 some of the towns-people are now able to tell which tree was 
 planted by their ancestor. The two large trees which stood 
 near the river Avere in existence at the time of the battle. 
 
 The monument on the Common in memory of the soldiers 
 who fell in the late civil war was erected April 19th, 1867. It 
 bears on a bronze tablet tlie names of all the departed heroes 
 "who found in Concord a home, a birthplace or a grave." The 
 motto " Faithful unto death " is cut on the south side, and the 
 dates of the beginning: and the end of the war are on the north 
 side, Near it is an elm tree under which, according to tradition, 
 
102 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 the Rev. William Emerson delivered his famous speech on the 
 morning of the fight. A hundred years later, when the descen- 
 dants of the same men who fought that day returned from the 
 bloody battle-fields of the south, bearing in honor the same an- 
 cient names and assisted at the dedication of the monument to 
 their comrades who w^ere " faithful unto death," the present Mr. 
 Emerson delivered an address, standing in the shade of the 
 same noble old elm, making true the lines in the ode sung on 
 that day : 
 
 " Beneath the shadow of the elm where ninety years ago 
 Old Concord's rustic heroes met to face a foreign foe, 
 We come to consecrate this stone to heroes of to-day, 
 Who perished in a holy cause as gallantly as they. 
 
 The patriot preacher's bugle call that April morning knew. 
 Still lingers in the silver tones of him who speaks to you. 
 As on their former muster fields called by its notes again, 
 Thobe ancient heroes seem to greet brave Prescott and his men. 
 
 And as each soldier saint appears to answer to his name, 
 Not one has dimmed the lustre of its old unconquered fame; 
 They, too, have left their peaceful fields for scenes of bloody strife 
 And death has changed to hallowed ground the fields they tilled in life. 
 
 The bronze and stone we proudly rear must surely pass away, 
 But deathless lives of dying braves can never know decay ; 
 For freed from stain of slavery, our re-united land, 
 The soldier's proudest monument will ever firmly stand." 
 
THE MINUTE MAN. 
 
THE MONUMENTS, 
 
 105 
 
 An eloquent address was made upon this occasion by the 
 Hon. E. H. Hoar, who also made a speech of welcome to the 
 soldiers on tlieir return, which is remembered with pride and 
 pleasure by all who lieard it. 
 
 -*^'ft^' "%-' 
 
 
 
 Kr ^m 
 
 
 ^K^^ 
 
 ^ Ai^'V^^ i <- 
 
 THE MONUMENT ON THE COMMON. 
 
 The 19th of April will ever be a memorable da}- in Concord, 
 not only as the anniversary of the first battle of tlie Revolution, 
 but because of its singular bearing upon the history of our whole 
 countr}^ ; for we learn from Palfrey that in June, 1602, Gos- 
 nold's ship, the Concord, left America on her return. Eighty- 
 
io6 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 six years after, on the 19tli of April, Sir Edmund Andros was 
 imprisoned; eighty-six years after, on the 19th of April, the 
 battle of Concord was fought ; eighty-six years after, on the 
 19th of April, the first attack was made in Baltimore upon the 
 Northern forces on their way to Washington, and on the same 
 day the first company left Concord for "Washington, composed 
 largely of descendants, bearing the names of the same men Avho 
 fought in 1775. 
 
 The Town Hall is behind the old elm, where the orators 
 before alluded to have spoken ; and next on the right is the 
 building formerly used as a Court House, behind which an old 
 gate stood, within the memory of some natives of the town, 
 which was the entrance to the field held in common by the forty 
 original holders. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE STUDIO — THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP* 
 
 The studio of Mr. Daniel Chester French stands in the 
 orchard of the farm of his father, Hon. H. F. French, not far from 
 the station of the Fitchburg Railroad. It was built in the year 
 1879 in the modified Queen Anne style, after a plan of his own. 
 It consists of two buildings united, the reception and the work- 
 ing room ; the outside is finished to a height of ten feet in 
 olive-green mastic, over which round shingles of Venetian red 
 extend to the brown roof which rises to a height of nineteen 
 feet from the entrance, which is twelve feet. 
 
 The reception room is ornamented with antique furniture, and 
 decorated with tapestry and curtains and pieces of Kensington 
 
 107 
 
loS 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK, 
 
 work. EndymioD, Echo, and other statues, and bas-reliefs of 
 owls and other figures, are in this room, and the space by the 
 door is filled with a deep window-seat of a quaint and rich 
 
 MR. FRENCIIS STUDIO. 
 
 design, with a tasteful combination of colors; and the space 
 above it is filled by a bas-relief and Japanese and other orna- 
 ments. The work room contains The Minute Man in tlie original 
 plaster, his great group of Law, Prosperity and Power, busts of 
 Emerson and Judge French, and many models aiid Avorks in vari- 
 ous stages of completion. Mr. French's earliest important 
 
MR. FRENCH'S STUDIO. 109 
 
 work, '' The Minute Man," wliich as before mentioned, 
 stands on the scene of the Fight at the old North Bridge, 
 was completed in 1874, when he was twenty-four years old. 
 Before its dedication he went to Florence^ Italy, to pursue his 
 studies, and while there, among otlier works of lesser note he 
 modelled his " Endymion." After his return to this country he 
 worked awhile in Washington, then in Boston, and in the 
 spring of 1879 permanently established himself in his dearly 
 loved town and built tlie studio. 
 
 His bust of Emerson, showing in the best light the ripe ma- 
 turity of the scholar, teacher and poet, is well worth the year's 
 work if nothino' else had been done. 
 
 Mr. French's colossal designs of " Peace and Vigilance " and 
 " Law, Prosperity and Power," have been much admired, while 
 his portrait busts are very successful. 
 
 His swift advance in ]iis ten years devotion to his art, from 
 the time when liis first clay was given him by the lamented 
 May Alcott, to to-da}*, when his matured work commands praise 
 from the severest critics, is a warrant that the studio and the 
 sctdptor will long be one of the best attractions of Concord. 
 
 The " Old Curiosity Shop." It would have delighted the 
 heart of Dickens or Scott to be able to examine the remarkable 
 collection of rare and curious articles which Mr. C. E. Davis has' 
 for years been gathering, and which can be seen in his rooms at 
 the Court House. It is in reality, nothing less than a " Curios- 
 ity Shop," and embraces a greater variety of family relics 
 than the great novelist ever dreamed of. 
 
no THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 There is scarcely a family in Concord whose ancestors have 
 not contributed to this collection. There are dozens of sets, and 
 parts of sets of old family china, from one hundred to two hun- 
 dred and fifty years old — furniture once belonging to Peter 
 Bulkeley, and brought by him from England in 1635 — many 
 articles once belonging to Thoreau, among others, the cane bed- 
 stead on which he slept in his hut in Walden Woods, and on 
 which he died ; his desk and chair used at Walden, and the pen 
 with which he wrote his last words — a very beautiful old 
 clock, said to be at least three hundred years old, also an old 
 chair, both of which belonged to Dr. John Prescott, who died 
 in 1729 — a chair once belonging to John Beatton, who was 
 town treasurer of Concord, and who died about 1776 — an old 
 looking-glass belonging to the Minot family in 1705 — another 
 looking-glass said to be seven hundred years old — an old bed- 
 stead with curious curtains, brought from England in 1670 — a 
 napkin used by Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of 
 Scots, also a piece of a curtain embroidered by the Queen — a 
 workbox, used by Queen Elizabeth ; the former ownership of 
 these articles of royalty, is well authenticated — a pitcher once 
 belonging to Robert Burns, presented by his sister to Margaret 
 Murry, and by her to Mr. Davis — an old book printed in 1628 
 with the autograph of " Peter Bulkley, Concord Towne, 1640." 
 — a sword of a British soldier, left in Concord in 1775 — a 
 sword worn by Capt. Nathan Barrett at the Concord Fight — a 
 British gun found on the road to Boston, April 19th 1775 — an 
 Indian basket found on Lee's Hill, when the town was first set- 
 tled — a part of the communion service used in the Concord 
 
THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. iii 
 
 church, in times of the Balkeleys — a coffee urn which belonged 
 to Gov. Winthrop — a spear carried at the head of a Concord 
 company two hundred years ago — Indian relics innumerable, 
 and thousands of other curiosities which we have no room to 
 numerate. 
 
 No person should visit Concord without examining Mr. 
 Davis' wonderful collection. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 The Middlesex Mutual Fire Insurance Co. was organized 
 March 29, 18-6. Its first President svas the Hon. Abiel Hey- 
 wood, distinguished as a physician as well as for honorable 
 service in town and state, as in later life he turned his attention 
 from professional to public duties and was Associate Judge of 
 the Court of Sessions, and as Justice of the Peace and Quorum, 
 heard most of the cases in and about the town which were 
 within his jurisdiction ; he was also town clerk for a period of 
 thirty-eight years. He graduated in 1781, was married at the 
 age of sixty-two, and died October 29th, 1839, aged 80 years. 
 His monument of Scotch granite is one of the ornaments of 
 Sleepy Hollow, and his memory is cherished by his townsmen. 
 His son, Geo. Heywood, holds the positions of his father as Presi- 
 dent of the Insurance Company, and town clerk, the books having 
 
 I 12 
 
VA/^IOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 113 
 
 been kept by them for over sixty-five years. He has also been 
 for seven years in the Massachusetts House of Representatives 
 and Senate, and is now a member of the Governor's Council. 
 Its first Secretary and Treasurer was the Hon. Nathan Brooks, 
 whose upright character and wisdom made liim the counsellor 
 and guide of thousands, and his genial wit and kindness of 
 heart will make him long remembered and loved. He was a 
 successful lawyer in which profession he was succeeded by his 
 son, the Hon. George M. Brooks, who has been in the Massa- 
 chusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and United 
 States House of Representatives, and is now Judge of Probate. 
 The present Secretary is Richard Barrett Esq., and the organi- 
 zation under the existing management is one of the most pow- 
 erful and trustworthy in the State. 
 
 The Charitable Society has been successful in relieving 
 distress and almost exterminating pauperism from the town 
 since 1814, to the present day, when it is more vigorous and 
 efficient than ever, being managed wholly by ladies. 
 
 The Fire Society was organized May 5th, 1794. Each 
 member was obliged to keep in order a long ladder, and two or 
 more fire buckets in a convenient place, and many of the latter 
 are to' be seen hanging in the entrys of the old houses. The 
 first fire engine was procured in 1794. 
 
 The Middlesex Agricultural Society held its first show 
 in Concord on the 11th of October, 1820, and formerly owned 
 a tract of land in the center of what is now the area of Sleepy 
 Hollow. Upon the sale of this land to the town they pur- 
 chased the extensive grounds, and built the hall and other con- 
 
114 ^^^ CONCORD GUIDE BOOK, 
 
 veiiieiices near the depot of the Fitchburg Railroad where large 
 gatherings are held in the fall of each year. It has for a Presi- 
 dent the noted manufacturer, financier, and scientist, John 
 Cummings, Esq., and for a Vice-President John B. Moore, well- 
 known as gardener, florist and lecturer, as well as by the fruit and 
 veocetables which bear his name. 
 
 The Concord Grape now so well known all over the coun- 
 try, may properly be mentioned in this connection. This grape 
 was produced by the scientific process of hybridizing, by Mr. 
 Ephraim Bull, of Concord. It is believed to be a cross between 
 the Isabella and the native wild grape, from which it was ob- 
 tained. The grapes prior to this in Massachusetts were the 
 Isabella, Catawba, Diana, and one or two others, all of which 
 were more or less uncertain in ripening their fruit, as they are 
 at the present time. The Concord was introduced to the public 
 in 1855, and immediately became very popular, not only in New 
 England, for which it was specially fitted by its early ripening, 
 but all over the country. Nursery-men everywhere multiplied the 
 plants as fast as they were able, and in a few years there were 
 thousands of vines all over the country, as there are now mil- 
 lions of them, in the numerous vineyards of the South and West. 
 
 In 1852, Mr. James S. Lippincott of New Jersey, in the Agri- 
 cultural Report of that year, remarks that many hardy north- 
 ern grapes " find in lower latitudes and warmer zones a more 
 congenial climate, and attain there a degree of perfection never 
 reached farther north. Thus the Concord is so highly esteemed 
 in some parts of the West, in lower latitudes, as almost to sur- 
 
VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 115 
 
 pass the Delaware." In some respects it does surpass the Dela- 
 ware, which rarely ripens in the New England States. 
 
 In 1868, in Iowa, 50,000 gallons of wine were made in Des 
 Moines county alone, and it was said "the Concord is the 
 favorite grape, though many others are grown." 
 
 In Missouri, in 1868, it was said " thousands of pounds of 
 grapes are now produced where one pound was grown twenty 
 years ago." " The Concord maintains its reputation in all parts 
 of the State." " The Concord with ample room, frequently 
 produced one hundred pounds to the vine." Mr. Husmann 
 " thinks it will produce the wine for the masses ; a life and 
 health inspiring, gentle stimulant, destined to become the every 
 day drink of the sturdy laborer, and supplant the fiery whiskey 
 that has been too long the national beverage." 
 
 In Wisconsin, in 1868, the Concord was the favorite variety; 
 and in Michigan, it was said, the Concord and Delaware were 
 the most extensively planted. In Ohio, the same year, 143,767 
 gallons of wine were produced, largely from the Concord grape. 
 
 It ripens early everywhere, and is admitted to be a good table 
 grape, and some years ago, all through the West and Northwest, 
 was regularly sold to passengers at all the railroad stations east 
 of the Rocky Mountains. In the great region beyond the Mis- 
 sissippi, as well as throughout New York, the Lake Region, 
 Pennsylvania and Virginia, there are thousands of acres of 
 vineyards a.id millions of vines. The nursery-men in the West 
 ern States sell hundred of thousand of vines, one, two and three 
 years old, and in some years were not able to supply the de- 
 mand. It is entirely safe to say that no single fruit of any kind, 
 
ii6 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 ever produced, has ever been received with such favor, given 
 such universal satisfaction, or been so widely spread, in our 
 own, and to a considerable extent in foreign countries. It is 
 still sold by nursery men in all parts of the country to a very 
 large extent, notwithstanding the introduction of manj^ new 
 varieties. 
 
 Within a few years past a very large number of vines and 
 cuttings have been called for in France and Germany, and it is 
 said to be the only vine known which resists the phyloxera, 
 which has so fearfully destroyed the vineyards of Europe. 
 
 Mr. Bull at this time, is cultivating very extensively two new 
 varieties of grapes, derived from the same parentage, which are 
 said to be superior in many respects to the Concord, one of 
 them ranks as a white grape. These have been named respect- 
 ively, the Esther (white) and the Rockwood, and it is presumed 
 will be offered to the public in 1881. 
 
 In 1862, Mai. Adlum, who had the honor of introducing the 
 Catawba grape, in 1823, thought that simple act a matter of so 
 much importance, that he said in a letter to Mr. Longworth, '' In 
 bringing the Catawba grape into public notice, I have rendered 
 my country a greater service than I could have done had I paid 
 off the national debt.''* 
 
 If this be so, and we think the statement correct, it may well 
 be asked what is due to Mr. Bull, who has created and intro- 
 duced so valuable a grape and profited so little by his skill and 
 labor in this cause? The hills and gardens of Concord speak 
 his praise, and the whole country owes him a debt which it 
 *See Agricultural Report, 1862, p. 508. 
 
VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 117 
 
 would be well if a portion of it, say one cent upon each vine 
 growing in the country, could be paid ; it is eminently deserved 
 and would be much less than is justly his due. 
 
 The Concord Artillery was incorporated on Feb. 28th, 
 1804, and first paraded on the following 4th of July. The in- 
 scription on their cannon is as follows ; 
 
 The Legislature of Massachusetts consecrate the names of Maj. John But- 
 rick and Capt. Isaac Davis whose valor and example excited their fellow- 
 citizens to a successful resistance of a superior number of British troops at 
 Concord Bridge the 19th of April 1775 which was the beginning of the 
 contest in arms that ended in American Independence." 
 
 This company formed a portion of the regiment under the 
 command of the gallant Col. Prescott which went from the 
 town to the seat of the Rebellion on the 19th of April 1861, 
 and many of its members enlisted for the war and followed him 
 from Bull Run and the bloody field of Fredricksburg to the 
 victory of Gettysburg, and through the many engagements be- 
 tween the wilderness and Petersburg, where on the 18th of June 
 he received a mortal wound and died the next day. These 
 verses were copied in his funeral oration ; 
 
 "Deck out your hills old Concord in all your summer pride, 
 To welcome back your soldier who for Liberty has died. 
 Trail in the dust your weeping elms along the silent street, 
 And with pride and sorrow mingled, prepare your dead to meet, 
 For he loved the gentle river, with its calm and peaceful shore. 
 He loved the quiet village life, but he loved his country more ; 
 For he heard her earliest call for help, and answering to the cry. 
 Showed how a soldier oui?ht to fight, and a Christian ought to die." 
 
ii8 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 The Institution of Masonry, has always held a respectable 
 footing in Concord, and, in its history, numbers among its mem- 
 bers many of the most prominent citizens of the town. The 
 Corinthian Lodge was organized in 1797, under a charter from 
 the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, of the 16th of June, signed 
 by the lAL W. Grand Master Paul Revere, of revolutionar}^ 
 memorj', and by Isaiah Thomas, of equal historic eminence, Grand 
 Secretary. In the organization of the lodge. Rev. Dr. Morse, of 
 Charlestown, delivered the address, and at the dedication of the 
 first hall, November, loth 1820, a Masonic address was pro- 
 nounced by R. W. Benj. Gleason, grand lecturer of Massachu- 
 setts. W. Isaac Hurd was first master, and Rev. Dr. Ripley was 
 one of the early initiates in 1798. Among the masters of the 
 lodge may be mentioned the names of Francis Jarvis, Benj. 
 Ball, John Brown, John Keyes, William Whiting Ephraim H. 
 Bellows,LouisA.Surette, Geo. P. How, and many others. Among 
 its prominent members were Abel Barrett, Abraham Skinner, 
 Thos. O. Selfridge, Grovesnor Tarbell of Lincoln, David Barnard, 
 Gershom Fay, Nathan Heald, Rufus Hosmer, Samuel Ripley, 
 Calvin C. Damon, Thomas Todd, Hartwell Bigelow, Samuel P. 
 P. Fay, (afterwards Grand Master), and many others, including 
 citizens of Acton, Lincoln, Carlisle, Stow, Bedford, Chelmsford, 
 Dracut, Weston, Sudbury, and other towns. For many years 
 the meetings were held in the hall of the building used for a 
 school house, and afterwards as an engine house, opposite the 
 Court House. In 1871, a new hall was erected on the Main 
 street in the village, near the public square, which was dedicated 
 on the 26th of Februarv, 1872, when a masonic address was de- 
 
VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 119 
 
 liverecl by R. W.William Willder Wheildon. The occasion was 
 honored by the presence of the officers of the Grand Lodge of 
 Massachusetts, M. W. John J. Heard, Grand Master. The 
 lodge is now in a prosperous condition. 
 
 Walden Koyal Arcli Chapter, which was organized in 1874, 
 holds its monthly convocations in the new masonic hall. 
 
 The Concord Bank was incorporated March 3d, 1832. 
 Daniel Shattuck w^as the first President, and John M. Cheney 
 Cashier. Mr. Shattuck continued in office until October 1860, 
 when he was succeeded by George Hey wood. The Bank re-or- 
 ganized under the National Banking Act, February 23d, 1865, as 
 the Concord National Bank of Concord, retaining iNIr. Hey wood 
 and Mr. Cheney. JNIr. Cheney died Feb. 13th, 1869, and was suc- 
 ceeded by Henry J. Walcott the present incumbent. Mr. 
 Heywood has held the office of President since the re-organiza- 
 tion, and John M. Cheney was Cashier of this bank from its in- 
 corporation until his death, thus holding the office for more than 
 thirty years. Mr. Cheney graduated in 1821 in tlie class with 
 R. W. Emerson, Gov. Kent, Judge Upham, Josiah Quincy and 
 other noted men. Before his appointment as Cashier Mr. 
 Cheney practiced law at Lexington and Concord. 
 
 Water Supply. Sandy Pond, from whence the water is 
 obtained which supplies Concord so abundantly, lies in the 
 neighboring town of Lincoln, two and a lialf miles from the 
 centre of Concord village. It is a beautiful sheet of water, 
 coverino- an area of one hundred and fifty acres at its mean 
 heio'ht, and varies onlv about two feet from its highest to its 
 lowest elevation. The pond is capable of furnishing half a 
 
120 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 million 'gallons daily — enough for ten thousand inhabitants, 
 allowing fifty gallons each per day. The character of the water 
 is remarkable for its extreme purity, containing as it does an 
 unusually small quantity of mineral and organic matter in solu- 
 tion, there being only one and three fourths grains of solid 
 matter in a gallon of the water. Prof. Goessmann says, so far 
 as he is able to determine, its analysis places the water of Sandy 
 Pond, as regards purity, first among all waters used in this or 
 any other country. The average impurities in the waters from 
 upwards of forty different sources in the United States and 
 Europe, is 5.07 grains per U. S. gallon, the range being from 
 1.77 for Concord to 16.38 for London. The mean elevation of 
 Sandy Pond above ^lain street is fully one hundred feet, and 
 when using hose, a stream can be thrown from a hydrant to the 
 top of any building in town. Of all the blessings which Con- 
 cord enjoj^s, this is certainly one of the purest and best. 
 
 The Concord Lyceum was formed December 31, 1828, and 
 the Debating Society which had been in existence six years was 
 united to it. Its organization consisted at first, of President, 
 two Vice Presidents (all clergymen), two Secretaries, a Treas- 
 urer and three Curators, but for many years it has been chiefly 
 managed by two Curators. 
 
 Every lecturer of note in New England and New York states, 
 has been heard before this organization, the most celebrated 
 orators having made frequent addresses here, including Beecher, 
 Curtis, Gough, Whii)ple, Phillips etc. On the occasion of its 
 centennial anniversar}'. Judge Hoar delivered a most eloquent 
 tribute to Emerson and others who had done much to sustain 
 
VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 121 
 
 and cany it on. In February of the present year, Mr. Emerson 
 delivered his one hundredth lecture before the Lyceum. The 
 hall was crowded with his towns-people, and strangers wlio 
 were attracted from Boston and other places, to listen to him, 
 all were delighted to hear him speak with great power, — 
 the lecture being by everyone considered as one of his best. 
 
 Among the peculiar institutions of Concord are the Clubs. 
 
 The Social Circle, the most venerable of these, was founded 
 about 1782, and probably grew out of the famous Committee of 
 Safety. It includes twenty-five of our most influential men, 
 who sup together twenty-five times annually on successive 
 Tuesday evenings. After the death of any member his memoir 
 is read to the others and then preserved in manuscript. There 
 has been only one instance of failure to do this, and the member 
 in question left town some time before his death. 
 
 The Farmer's Club, next in age, started about 1852, and 
 contains some of the ablest agriculturists in Eastern Massa- 
 chusetts. Essays are read and discussions held at the meetino-s, 
 which conclude with a supper when held in private dwellino-s. 
 At present the sessions take place in the Court House every 
 Friday evening. The collection of essa3^s and reports of dis- 
 cussions is large and valuable. 
 
 The Dramatic Club, which is the oldest to which both ladies 
 and gentlemen belong, Avas founded in 1875, has given several 
 excellent comedies and an operatta in the Town Hall, and now 
 occasionally reads plays at private houses to keep itself in train- 
 ing for future triumphs. 
 
 The Saturday Club. Among the most interesting of our 
 
122 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 literary and social meetings are those held by the Saturday 
 Club, which was founded by Mme. Nieriker, then Miss May 
 Alcott, on January 22d, 1876, and has continued ever since to 
 assemble on alternate Saturdays, usually in the evening, at the 
 houses of the ladies and gentlemen com]30sing it. There is a 
 large membership, and many guests have been invited to the 
 summer picnics, as well as to the so-called open clubs, before 
 which such visitors as Dr. Hedge, Dr.Peabody, Professor C. C. 
 Everett, Professor Davidson, Mr. C. D. B. Mills, and Rev. Wm. 
 J. Potter have read their essays. Memorial meetings were held 
 in January and February 1860, in honor of two of its mem- 
 bers recently deceased, one of these being its founder. 
 
 This lady designed this club originally for artistic study, and 
 as her plan failed to be carried out, she established a regular 
 Art Club which did much faithful work during the remaining 
 months of 1876. 
 
 The Shakespeare Club began its readings on January 29th, 
 1878, some months after the dissolution of an older club of sim- 
 ilar character. The ladies and gentlemen in the present club 
 meet every Monday evening during about nine months of the 
 the year. \\\ the summer vacation there have been some pleas- 
 ant picnics, for which original poems and other papers have 
 been contributed by the members and their guests. 
 
 The Amatsurs. Another Shakespeare Club, which calls itself 
 the Amateurs and meets every Saturday evening, was organized 
 in March 13th, 1878, by some young ladies who called in young 
 gentlemen as associates early in the autumn of 1879. 
 
 Soon after this, the Musical Association, which had held 
 
VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 123 
 
 meetings and given concerts in previous years, was re-organized ; 
 a Young Men's Supper Club, whicli meets on Tuesday evenino-s 
 was formed; the Frolic Club of young ladies, who play games on 
 the evenings of alternate Tuesdays, was started; and a number 
 of ladies and gentlemen came together for reading and talking 
 about their favorite authors on the Saturday evenings alternat- 
 ing with the meetings of one of the older clubs. The year 
 1879, in which all this was done, witnessed also the gathering in 
 February by Mr. and Mrs. Place, of a little band of students of 
 German who have read and acted dramas and played games in 
 that language almost every Thursday evening since. 
 
 The B. C. & W. Club has its room in Hey wood's 
 block on the Mill-dam. This Club was established in 1858, and 
 was " formed to promote social intercourse, and provide means 
 of pleasant recreation among its members.'' Any gentleman is 
 eligible for membership. The club is limited to forty m. em- 
 bers. The club-room is open, on week days only, from 9 A. 
 
 M. to 11 P. M. 
 
 To complete the list of societies it should be mentioned that 
 some admirers of Robert Browning began early in 1880 to read 
 his dramas together, as had been done two years previons, and 
 also that Concord, like other towns, hiis its Whist Clubs, Odd 
 Fellows and Good Templars, its Sewing Circles, and Young 
 Ladies'Bees, and its Afternoon Bible Classes. 
 
 The writer must say in conclusion, that he is satisfied that 
 the effects of the Concord Clubs on its social life and literary 
 culture is extremely beneficial. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The School of Philosophy. This is the newest institution 
 of Concord, and is now about begiuning its second year. It 
 was opened in 1879, at the Orchard House of Mr. Alcott, where 
 the sessions were held in Mr. Alcott's library, and in the room 
 adjoining, which had been the studio of IMa}^ Alcott, before she 
 went abroad in 1877, on that pilgrimage of art from which she 
 was never to return. In the coming summer, and in future 
 years, the sessions will be held in a new hall, just built on the 
 hillside west of the Orchard House, under the pine trees that 
 crown the slope. It is a plain little structure, called " The 
 Chapel," arranged for the convenience of the school, but with- 
 out luxury or ornament. Over its porch is trained Mr. Alcott's 
 
 124 
 
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 125 
 
 largest grape vine, and on either side of it siiady paths lead by 
 arbors to the hill-top 
 
 The history of the Concord School of Philosophy, though 
 brief, is interesting, and dates back farther than the year of its 
 opening. So long ago as 1842, when Mr. Alcott, (then living 
 at the Hosmer Cottage, where his daughter May was born) 
 visited England, he began to collect books for the library of a 
 school of tlie First Philosophy, to be established in some part of 
 New England. For this purpose Mr. James Pierrepont Greaves, 
 the English friend and disciple of Pestalozzi, who died in 
 March, 1842, bequeathed a collection of curious volumes, which 
 Mr. Alcott and an English friend, Charles Lane, brought over 
 from London and deposited in Concord. For many years they 
 have stood on the shelves in the Orchard House, and the}" are 
 now destined to form a part of the library of the Concord 
 School. In pursuance of his long cherished plan, Mr. Alcott in 
 1878 arranged with his neighbor, Mr. F. B. Sanborn, to make a 
 beginning, and early in the year 1879 a Faculty of Philosophy 
 w*as organized informally at Concord, with members residing, 
 some in that town, some in the vicinity of Boston, and others 
 at the West. \\\ course of the spring, the Dean of this Faculty, 
 Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, and the Secretary, Mr. Sanborn, 
 issued a circular calling the School together for a session of five 
 weeks in July and August. 
 
 Mr. Alcott, as Dean of the Faculty, opened the School on 
 the morning of July 15, 1879, with an address of welcome, and 
 closed it on the evening of August 16, with a valedictory 
 address. Between these two dates, the persons named be- 
 
126 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 low gave Lectures or Conversations on the following topics 
 — occupying for each exercise a period of above two hours on 
 the average ; — 
 
 Lectures by Mr. Alcott. i. Welcome, and plan of future conversations. 
 2. The Powers of the Person in the descending scale. 3. The same in the 
 ascending scale. 4. Incarnation. 5. The Powers of Personality in detail. 
 6. The Origin of Evil. 7. The Lapse into Evil. 8. The Return from the 
 Lapse (the Atonement). 9. Life Eternal. 10. Valedictory. 
 
 Lectures by Prof. IV. T. Ham's. i. How Philosophical Knowing dif- 
 fers from all other forms of Knowing ; the Five Intentions of the mind. 2. 
 The discovery of the First Principle and its relation to the Universe. 3. Fate 
 and Freedom. 4. The conscious and unconscious First Principle in relation 
 to human life. 5. The Personality of God. 6. The Immortality of the 
 Soul. 6. Physiological Psychology. 8. The method of study of Specula- 
 tive Philosophy. 9. Art, Religion and Philosophy in relation to each other 
 and to man. 10. The Dialectic. 
 
 Lectures by Mrs. E. D. Cheney. i. The general subject of Art 2. 
 Greek Art. 3. Early Italian Art. 4. Italian Art. 5. Michael Angelo. 6. 
 Spanish Art. 7. German Art. 8. Albert Durer. 9. French Art. 10. 
 Contemporaneous Art. 
 
 Lectures by Dr. H. K. Jones, i. General content of the Platonic Philos- 
 ophy. 2. The Apology of Socrates. 3. The Platonic idea of Church and 
 State. 4. The Immortality of the Soul. 5. Reminiscence as related to the 
 Pre-existence of the Soul. 6. Pre-existence. 7. The Human Body. 8. 
 The Republic. 9. The Material Body. 10. Education. 
 
 Lectures by Mr. D. A. Wasson. i. Social Genesis and Texture. 2. The 
 Nation. 3. Individualism as a Political Principle. 4. Public Obligation. 5. 
 Sovereignty. 6. Absolutism crowned and uncrowned. 7. Representation. 
 8. Rights. 9. The Making of Freedom. 10. The Political Spirit of '76. 
 
 Lectures by Prof. Benjamin Peirce. 1. Ideality in Science. 2. Cos- 
 mogony. 
 
A. BRONSON ALCOTT. 
 
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 129 
 
 By Mr. T. \V. lUtj^ginson. i^ The Birth of American Literature. 2. 
 Literature in a Republic. 
 
 By Mi'. Thomas Davidso7i. i. The History of Athens as revealed in its 
 topography and monuments. 2. The same, continued. 
 
 By Mi\ Emerson. I. Memory. 
 
 By Mr. Sanborn. I. Social Science. 2. Philanthropy and Public 
 Charities. 
 
 By Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol. i. Education. 
 
 By Mr. H. G. O. Blake. I. Selections from Thoreau's Manuscripts. 
 
 These subjects will give a general notion of the scope of the 
 School in its first year. The courses of lectures (with excep- 
 tion of Mrs. Cheney's, which were historical and biographical,) 
 were distinctly philosophical, while the single lectures and pairs 
 were either literary or general in their character. The conver- 
 sations accompanying or following the lectures took a wide 
 range, and were carried on by the students, the Faculty, and by 
 invited guests, among whom may be specially named Miss 
 Elizabeth P. Peabody and Mrs. R. W. Emerson, of Concord, 
 Rev. Dr. Kidney, of Faribault, Minn., and Mr. R. G. Hazard,, 
 of Rhode Island. By the courtesy of certain families in Con- 
 cord, evening Conversations and Receptions, eight in all, were 
 given at the houses of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Edward Hoar, Miss 
 Ripley, Mr. Fay Barrett, Mr. Edwin S. Barrett, Mr. R. N. Rice, 
 Mr. Alcott, and Judge Hoar ; thus testifying the hospitality of 
 the town, and bringing the School into social relations with its 
 people. The whole number of persons, (students, invited 
 guests and visitors,) who attended one or more sessions of the 
 School, was nearly four hundred, of whom about one-fourth 
 were residents of Concord. Others came from New Hampshire^ 
 
130 ' THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
 Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Colorado, California, Illinois, 
 Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. The 
 average attendance of students was about 40 ; of the students 
 and Faculty about 45 ; but at Mr. Emerson's lecture 160 were 
 present, and at several of the other sessions more than TO. 
 The receipts from fees and single tickets paid all the expenses 
 of the School, without leaving a surplus ; thus showing that the 
 scale of tuition and expense adopted was a reasonable one. 
 This will therefore be continued in the coming year. 
 
 So much for the details of this Academ}^ Its spirit can 
 best be learned from a morning or evening spent at the con- 
 versations — for its method of instruction, like that of its 
 founder, Mr. Alcott, is chiefly by conversation. In the session 
 of 1880 it has been thought best to make the school distinct- 
 tively one of Philosophy, using Literature only as its vehicle 
 or adjunct, and dispensing with Science, as commonly under- 
 stood. A few lectures, perhaps, will be given to show the 
 relation which natural science bears to philosophy, but the 
 whole field of empirical and phenomenal investigation will be 
 left for those who have a taste for it. Mr. Channing, the 
 nephew and biographer of Dr. Channing, who returns from 
 England this year for a visit to his native land, will introduce 
 a new feature, the religious philosophy of the Orient, which 
 has lately been set forth in one of its more popular forms by 
 Mr. Channing's kinsman, Mr. Edwin Arnold, author of "The 
 Light of Asia." It is not generally known that this poem, 
 
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 131 
 
 which has proved so popular in America, was introduced here 
 through the Concord School. On the 4th of August, Mr. 
 Channing sent an early copy of it to Mr. Alcott, accompanied 
 by a letter in which he said : 
 
 '' When your cheering programme for the ' Summer School of 
 Philosophy and Literature ' reached me, my wish was to bid 
 you God-speed in your most attractive enterprise of reviviug 
 the ' Academy ' on the banks of Concord river, under the 
 shadows of your elms. And now it is my happiness to have it 
 in my power to prove my sympathy with the brave effort of 
 you and 3'our compeers, by forwarding a book which will be in 
 harmony with the spirit and aim of your circle of ' seekers 
 after truth.' It is a poem called ' The Light of Asia,' in which 
 the effort is made to bring before our modern age in the west- 
 ern world that sublime embodiment of the finest genius of the 
 Orient, in its prince, whom we call Buddha, in living form, and 
 to trace the outline of his speculative and ethical system in 
 vivid pictorial representations. If it could be my delightful 
 privilege to join your group of fellow-students this summer, in 
 dear old Concord, my request would be to read this poem aloud, 
 book by book, with accompanying illustrations and comments, 
 drawn from the rich mines of Buddhistic literature; and then 
 to form a critical estimate of this ideal of Buddha, and his 
 doctrine of life, measured by the standard of our purest philos- 
 oplw, and by the Gospel, character, life, doctrine, precepts and 
 influence of ' The Beloved So]i.' This poem only serves to 
 deepen, enlarge and elevate my Christian faith. May that be 
 the result with the circle of Concord seers ! " 
 
1^2 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 The volume was taken by Mr. Alcott to his publisher in 
 Boston, and was soon reprinted in this country. It w ill, no 
 doubt be a text for some of Mr. Channing's lectures, next sum- 
 mer ; and this light from the East will be met by the Western 
 Orientalism of Thoreau, whose manuscripts will again be drawn 
 upon by Mr. Blake, for those refreshing fragments of liis pecu- 
 liar philosophy, which was especially religious in its character, 
 though not in accordance with any of the sects. 
 
 The Concord Summer School will open for a second term on 
 Monday, July 12th, 1880, at 9. A. M., and will continue five 
 weeks. The lectures will be arranged in courses of five or 
 three, in pairs, and by single lectures ; and in each week there 
 will be eleven. They will be given morning and evening, 
 except Saturday evenings, on the six secular days (in the morn- 
 ing at 9 o'clock, and in the evening at 7.30) at the Hllhide 
 Chapel^ near the Orchard House. The list of lecturers and 
 subjects will be found on the following page. 
 
 The terms will be ^3 for each of the five weeks ; but each 
 regular student will be required to pay at least $10 for the 
 terra, which permit him to attend during three weeks. The 
 fees for all the courses will be $15. Board may be obtained in 
 the village at from $6 to $12 a week — so that students may 
 estimate their necessary expenses for the whole term at $50. 
 Single tickets at 50 cents each, will be issued for the conve- 
 nience of visitors, and these may be bought at the sliop of H. 
 L. Whitcomb, in Concord, after July 1st, 1880, in packages of 
 twelve for $4.50, of six for $2.50, and of three for $1.25. It is 
 expected that the applications for course tickets will exceed the 
 
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 T -^^ 
 A -^ -^ 
 
 number which can be issued. Any one can engage tickets by 
 making application at once and sending ^b as a guaranty. For 
 those who make this deposit, tickets will be reserved till the first 
 day of July, 1880, and can then be obtained by payment of the 
 balance due. Course tickets at |15 will entitle the holders to 
 reserved seats, and $10 tickets will entitle to a choice of seats 
 after the course ticket holders have been assigned seats. 
 
 All students should be registered on or before July 1st, 1880, 
 at the office of the Secretary, in Concord. No preliminarj^ 
 examinations are required, and no limitation of age, sex, or 
 residence in Concord will be prescribed; but it is recommended 
 that 23ersons under eighteen years should not present themselves 
 as students, and that those who take all the courses should 
 reside in the town during the term. The Concord Public 
 Library of 16,000 volumes, will be open every day ft)r the use 
 of residents. Students coming and going daily during the 
 term, may reach Concord from Boston bv the Fitchburg Rail- 
 road, or the jNIiddlesex Central ; from Lowell, Andover, etc., by 
 the Lowell and Framingham Railroad ; from Southern Middle- 
 sex and Worcester Counties by tlie same road. The Orchard 
 House stands on the Lexington road, east of Concord village, 
 adjoining the Wayside estate, formerl}^ tlie residence of Mr. 
 Hawthorne. 
 
 LIST OF LECTURERS AND SUBJECTS. 
 
 Mr. A. Bronson Alcott. Five lectures on Mysticism, i. St. John the 
 Evangelist. 2. Plotinus. 3. Tauler and Eckart. 4. Behmen. 5. Sweclen- 
 
 borg. 
 
 Mr, Alcott will also deliver the Salutatory and Valedictory, and will have 
 general charge of the conversations of the School. 
 
134 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 Dr. H. K. Jones. Five Lectures on the Platonic Philosophy, and five on 
 Platonism in its Relation to Modern Civilization, i. Platonic Philosophy; 
 Cosmologic and Theologic Outlines. 2. The Platonic Psychology; The 
 Dcemon of Socrates. 3. The Two Worlds, and the Twofold Consciousness. 
 The Sensible, and the Intelligible. 4. The Eternity of the Soul, and its Pre- 
 existence. 5, The Immortality and the Mortality of the Soul ; Personality 
 and Individuality ; Metempsychosis. 6. The Psychic Body and the Material 
 Bodv of Man. 7. Education and Discipline bf Man ; The Uses of the 
 World w^e Live in. 8. The Philosophy of Law. 9. The Philosophy of 
 Prayer, and the '' Prayer Gauge." 10. Spiritualism, Ancient and Modern. 
 
 Prof. W. T.Harris. Five Lectures on Speculative Philosophy, viz: i. 
 Philosophic Knowing. 2. Philosophic First Principles. 3. Philosophy and 
 Immortality. 4. Philosophy and Religion. 5. Philosophy and Art. 
 
 Five lectures on the History of Philosophy, viz : i. Plato. 2. Aristotle. 
 3. Kant. 4. Fichte. 5. Hegel. 
 
 Rev. J. S. Kidney, D.D. Three Lectures on the Philosophy of the Beau- 
 tiful and the Sublime. 
 
 Mr. Denton. J. Snider. Five Lectures on Shakespeare, i. Philosophy 
 of Shakespearean Criticism. 2. The Shakespearean World. 2. Principles 
 of Characterization in Shakespeare. 4. Organism of the Individual Drama. 
 5. Organism of the Universal Drama. 
 
 Rev. W. H. Channing. Four Lectures on Oriental and Mystical Philoso- 
 phy. I. Historical Mysticism, 2. Man's Fourfold Being. 3. True Buddh- 
 ism. 4. Modern Pessimism. 
 
 Mrs. E. D. Cheney. Two Lectures, i. Color, 2. Early American Art. 
 
 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. A Lecture on Modern Society. 
 
 Mr. John Albee. Two Lectures, i. Figurative Language, 2. The Lit- 
 erary Art. 
 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn. Two Lectures on The Philosophy of Charity. 
 
 Dr. Elisha Mulford. Two Lectures, i. The Personality of God. 2. 
 Precedent Relations of Religion and Philosophy to Christianity. 
 
 Mr. H. G. O. Blake. Readings h'om Thoreau's Manuscripts. 
 
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 135 
 
 Prof. Benjamin Pierce. A Lecture. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Bartol. A Lecture — The Quandary. 
 
 Prof. Andrew P Peabody, A Lecture — Conscience and Personality. 
 
 Mr R. W. Emerson. A Lecture. 
 
 Dr. F. H. Hedge. A Lecture. 
 
 Prof. G. H. Howison. A Lecture. 
 
 Mr. D. A. Wasson. A Lecture . 
 
 A BRONSON ALCOTT, Dean. 
 S. H. EMERY, JR Director 
 F. B. SANBORN, Secretary. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 LAKE WALDEN. 
 
 Lake Walden. This pleasant and popular resort which lies 
 immediately on the line of the Fitchburg Railroad, is one of 
 the marked features of Concord, socially and geographically 
 speaking, and besides this, has something of history attached to 
 it. It was not prominent in the revolutionary war, but was, no 
 doubt, a favorite resort of the Musketaquid and Nashoba Indians, 
 and very likely, was frequently visited by the Hon. Peter 
 Bulkeley, the Rev. John Eliot of Roxbury, Simon Willard and 
 others — for these were all friends of the 'Spraying Indians," 
 who made a sort of Bible for them, one of the ordinances of 
 which was, that " no Indian shall take an Englishman's canoe." 
 Of this famous pond, a writer has said, " successive nations per- 
 
 136 
 
LAKE WALDEN. 139 
 
 chance, have drank it, admbed and fathomed it, and still its 
 water is green and pellucid as ever;" and Thoreau thinks, when 
 Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden, " Walden Pond might 
 have been covered with myriads of ducks which had not heard 
 of the fall, when such pure lakes sufficed them." From time 
 immemorial, Walden Pond has been a beautiful and retired 
 spot, and though the town has been a large contributor of terri- 
 tory to the adjoining towns of Lincoln, Bedford, Carlisle, etc., 
 it has never shown a disposition to part with Walden Pond. 
 But besides its own claim to quiet, to scenery and popularity, 
 whether ancient or modern, Henry D. Thoreau has added to its 
 histor}^ or mythology, and perhaps we may say, its literature. 
 He says, " The scenery of Walden Pond, is on an humble scale, 
 and though ver}^ beautiful does not approach to grandeur." It 
 is not mountainous, nor is it monotonous, but pleasant, beauti- 
 ful, lovely and always full of interest. " It is a clear and deep 
 green well, half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in 
 circumference : a perennial spring in the midst of a pine and 
 oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet except by the 
 clouds and evaporation." The surrounding shores are compar- 
 atively without beaches, and the land rises within a quarter of a 
 mile, to the height of forty to a hundred feet above the level of 
 the water ; and the level of the water is forty or fifty feet above- 
 the level of Concord River. 
 
 There is no end of talking about Walden Pond, if one is dis- 
 posed to keep up the conversation ; though there are some 
 Indian lef^ends not worth repeating. It is a picturesque sheet 
 
140 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 of water, and as tlie water-shed is insignificant, is undoubtedly 
 supplied from springs at a distance, and is not affected by any 
 drought of long continuance ; yet, according to Thoreau's 
 observations, it is subject to a rise and fall of five or six feet — 
 a statement which frequent visitors to the Pond at different 
 seasons of the year, are not able to realize. 
 
 One of the first public uses of Walden Pond and its sur- 
 rounding groves, was for a public celebration of the freeing of 
 the slaves in the British West India Islands, by the British 
 Government. On this occasion flags were thrown across the 
 railroad track in the vicinity, and the ground speciall}* deco- 
 rated with the flag of a free people. All the leading anti-slavery 
 men of the time were present, including Hon. Samuel Hoar 
 and Ralph Waldo Emerson, of Concord, Lloyd Garrison, 
 Wendell Phillips, and numerous other gentlemen of note. Since 
 this time. Lake Walden, as it is now called, has become one of 
 the most popular summer resorts in the neighborhood of Boston, 
 for the social meetings of associations, Sunday-schools, church 
 festivals, Fourth of July picnics, temperance meetings, spirit- 
 ualistic encampments, and latterly for the excursions of the 
 poor children of Boston, in which the people of Concord have 
 of recent years taken so much interest. The grounds are 
 furnished with seats, swings, dining-hall, dancing-hall, speaking- 
 room with seats, boats for excursions over the lake, bath houses, 
 etc., and is now to be provided with base ball grounds. The 
 walks are delightful and are occasionallj^ extended to Concord 
 village, only about one mile distant. The first picnic party of 
 
LAKE WALDEN. 141 
 
 the season passed a delightful day at Lake Walden, on the 8th 
 of May, this year, and in the coarse of the forenoon made a 
 visit in procession to the points of historic and literary interest 
 in Concord. The lake must be regarded in many respects as 
 a lustrous jewel in the coronet of the town. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE RIVER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 
 
 Concord River begins at Egg Rock where it is formed by 
 the junction of the Sudbury and Assabet; the former rising 
 in Hopkinton and Westborough, and the latter in Grafton. It 
 varies in depth from two to fifteen feet, and from one hundred 
 to three hnndred feet in width. In oklen time its waters 
 abounded in shad and salmon, which were so plentiful that it is 
 stated in tlie records of the colony that " no apprentice can be 
 compelled to eat salmon more than five days in the week/' but 
 now only miserable little perch, pout, and breams reward the 
 constant anglers who frequent the banks. Skilful fishermen can 
 secure pickerel of from half a pound to four pounds in weight, 
 and the black bass with which the bay was stocked, occasionally 
 
 142 
 
THE RIVER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 145 
 
 surprise them. The Assabet or North Branch, having a fall of 
 about thirty feet, manages to partially carry 011 ]\Ir. Damon's 
 cotton factory at Westvale, and to assist a little at the pail fac- 
 tory, but the Concord River proper is fortunately too sluggish 
 for work, and for that reason affords the perfection of boating 
 which is its chief charm, and thus gives amusement to hun- 
 dreds in the town and state. The Sudbury or South Branch 
 runs nearly in a line with Main street, and forms a canal which 
 in the pleasant season is even more used than the street. Every 
 family has its boats, over seventy being kept between the old 
 and new stone bridges, a distance of about two miles, and on a 
 pleasant evening one is more likely to meet friends on the 
 river than on the roads. Children of ten j^ears sometimes man- 
 age a boat alone, and old men with white beards seem still to 
 enjoy a quiet roAV. Friends from nearly every state in the 
 Union find their way up the Assabet in the course of a summer, 
 and views of the quiet scenery are carried with them to their 
 busy homes. The town has no attraction to compare with it, as 
 nearly every day some trip is made by a picnic party to some of 
 its lovely spots. Space forbids much description of the roman- 
 tic places with which the river abounds, so the reader is referred 
 to the series of articles in the Wide Awake magazine, called 
 " Concord Picnic Days," in which they will be fully illustrated 
 with pen and pencil. Brief mention will be made of them in 
 sketching the chief routes of the river trips which are short 
 enough to be enjoyed by the summer day sojourner, starting 
 from Egg Rock, which is the meeting place of the boats from 
 up and down river. The mouth of the Assabet, as has been 
 
146 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 stated is at Egg Rock, and ascending it on the left bank are the 
 old hemlocks of which Hawthorne speaks in the *' Mosses from 
 an Old Manse," and of which every poet, philosopher and story 
 teller of Concord has delighted to sing the praise. Before the 
 Lowell R. R. destroyed man}" of these trees, one could row in 
 eight minutes from the bridge near the village, into the grand 
 solitude of the forest, and since tender hands have planted wil- 
 lows to mourn over the fallen giants, and hide the railroad bank, 
 it is beautiful even in desolation. Half a mile farther and the 
 river seems again shut in like a lake, and the vines tangled 
 among the trees and graceful black willows seem as wild as 
 when the Indians knew them. This romantic spot is the sup- 
 posed scene of the following lines, copied from Poems of Places. 
 
 FLOATING HEARTS. 
 
 One of Indian summer's most perfect days 
 Is dreamily dying in golden haze. 
 Fair Assabet blushes in rosy bliss. 
 Reflecting the sun's warm good-night kiss. 
 Through a fleet of leaf-barques, gold and brown. 
 From the radiant maples shaken down. 
 By the ancient hemlocks, grim and gray 
 Our boat drifts slowly on its way ; 
 Down past Egg Rock and the meadows wide, 
 'Neath the old red bridge we slowly glide, 
 Till we see the Minute-man, strong and grand. 
 And the moss-grown Manse in the orchard land. 
 
 " The boat is as full as a boat should be, 
 Just nobody in it but you and me." 
 
THE RIVER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 147 
 
 As brown as the leaves are her beautiful eyes, 
 And as graceful her hand on the water lies 
 As she catches the leaves which languid float 
 On the lazy current along the boat. 
 Now she asks its name as she tears one apart — 
 " Fair lady that is a * floating heart.' " 
 
 Sad wrecks of years have drifted down 
 In the dreamless ocean to sink and drown 
 Since the beautiful eyes saw that lovely night 
 And haloed the river with visions bright, 
 But the floating heart that was caught that day 
 Has never been able to get away. 
 
 In order to show that the river worship is not confined to 
 natives of the town, this graphic sketch by Mrs. Dehmo Godd- 
 ard is copied here : 
 
 "Concord itself is like no other town; it seems utterly un- 
 disturbed by the turmoil and agitation of life, utterly free from 
 worldly ambition or petty rivalries of any sort. The hospitality 
 of its people is boundless ; and so is their refined kindness, and 
 the beautiful village seems the one spot where there is abiding 
 " peace on earth and good will to men." Besides its historic 
 associations, its monuments, its library, and best of all, its peo- 
 ple, Concord has its slow, lovely river, of which Thoreau wrote: 
 ' Concord river is remarkable for the gentleness of its current. 
 I have read that the descent of an eighth of an inch in a mile 
 is sufficient to produce a flow. Our river has, probably, very 
 near the smallest allowance. The story is current, at any rate 
 though I believe that strict history will not bear it out, that the 
 
I4S THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 only bridge ever carried away on the main branch, within the 
 limits of the town was driven np stream by the wind. The 
 sluo'o-ish arterv of the Concord meadows steals thus unobserved 
 througli the town, without a murmur or a pulse-beat, its general 
 course from southwest to northeast, and its length about fifty 
 miles ; a huge volume of water, ceaselessly rolling through the 
 plains and valleys of the substantial earth, with the moccasined 
 tread of an Indian warrior, making haste from the high places 
 of the earth to its ancient reservoir." 
 
 The main street of the town is parallel with the river, and the 
 comfortable row of old houses which face the street have gardens 
 at the back sloping down to the water. The numerous land- 
 ings, each with its little fleet of boats, dories, canoes, wherries 
 or other small outriggers, make the river very picturesque and 
 add greatly to tlie charm of boating in it. The morning we 
 were there we idled for hours on the stream, guided by one who 
 knows every inch of its windings ; we rowed across the sunny 
 reaches, floated ' mid lucid shallows, just eluding water-lily 
 leaves,' pushed under the trees and drank of the spring of liv- 
 ing water, which gushes out there in some sylvan hiding-place ; 
 and let the boat rest in the very spot that Hawthorne describes 
 in his*' Mosses from an Old Manse," where " there is a lofty 
 bank on the slope of which grow some hemlocks, declinino- 
 across the stream with outstretched arms as if resolute to take 
 the plunge." Only a few are left now ; some as our friend said, 
 bent every year closer and closer to the water, and the quiet 
 stream lapped the earth at their roots, till one by one they 
 silently dropped into tlie river, and floated away. Otliers did 
 
THE RIVER AND 17 S SURROC/NDINGS. 
 
 149 
 
 not have that peaceful death, but were cut clean away to make 
 room for the new raih'oad which lias replaced tliem by a staring 
 " ^jt- -""".^i:^^^^^^^^^ ^;r' . . bank of yellow sand, mak- 
 ing a long, aggressive scar 
 i'^^r' <^i^ the beautiful 
 shore. Heal- 
 ing hands of 
 
 artist 
 
 THE HEMLOCKS 
 
 and poet 
 have set 
 willows 
 tliick in tlie 
 sand, and 
 ^oon the unsightly 
 )ank will be green 
 soft, though tlie 
 •'~^^?-^^fa. hemlocks can never 
 _a a grow again. It might 
 
 liave been our day on the 
 river that Hawthorne wrote about. 
 For us, too, '' the winding course of 
 
T^o THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 the stream continually shut out the scene behind us and revealed 
 as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth to depth, 
 and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy kingfisher flew 
 from the withered branch close at hand to another at a distance, 
 uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had been 
 floating there since the preceding eve were startled at our ap- 
 proach, and skimmed along the grassy river, breaking its dark 
 surface with a bright streak. The turtle, sunning itself upon a 
 rock or at the root of a tree, slid suddenly into the water with 
 a plunge.' But we saw one congregation of seven turtles on a 
 fallen tree out in the river, and they went on sunning them- 
 selves and never minded us at all, but disappeared in a flash, or 
 rather in seven flashes, \\ hen a boat load of boys paddled up to 
 them with a whoop of delight. 
 
 Like Hawthorne, we too found in July the prophecy of 
 autumn. A few tall maples were the color of the purple beech, 
 a rare color for maples to take, on, and fallen crimson leaves 
 flecked the water here and there, and the golden rods were 
 marshalled in stately ranks just ready to unfold tlieir superb 
 yellow plumes ; and with all the peace and beauty came, too, 
 the 'half-acknowledged melancholy,' tlie feeling ' tliat Time 
 lias now given us all his flowers, and that the next work of his 
 never idle fingers must be to steal them one by one away.' 
 
 Concord is rich in wild flowers and meadow grasses ; and 
 wlien one sums up its charms of philosophy and literature, art 
 and nature, in a.ldition to some of the most delightful people in 
 the woi-ld, the story seems a little fabulous ; but it is all true, 
 
THE RIVER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 151 
 
 •and yet is not half the truth, for that would require better and 
 warmer words than mine to tell." 
 
 Passing Gibralter we come to pleasant meadows on the right 
 bank, and glimpses of a quiet country road. Here again the 
 railroad spans it witli a bridge, opposite which are the Barrett 
 houses previously described. The navigation is here somewhat 
 obstructed by the rocks and great trunks of fallen trees, and 
 the river winds around until the road is reached which usu- 
 ally concludes the trip toward the West. At this point is 
 the field where in 1859 Gen. Banks held his famous muster of 
 ten thousand militia. This large sandy tract known as the 
 Cook farm was afterwards purchased b}^ the State for the site of 
 a prison to take the place of the one at Charlestown. Fine 
 buildings have been erected, and in June 1878 the convicts were 
 established in their new quarters under the able wardenship of 
 Gen. S. E. Chamberlain, who has a high record for bravery in 
 the ^Mexican and Civil wars. From this eistablishmeut and the 
 junction of the Fitchburg, Framingham and Lowell Middlesex 
 Central, and Nashua and Acton Railroads, and the extensive 
 pail works of ]\Ir. Warner, the village of Warnerville or Con- 
 cord Junction, has rapidly grown to such dimensions as to be al- 
 most a town of itself, and shows signs of great enterprise and 
 progress in the future. 
 
 Sailing down the Concord river near the Red bridge, we pass 
 River Cottage, the home of G. Keyes, Esq.. formerlv the farm of 
 Hon. Simon Brown, Lt. Gov. of the State, and Librarian of the U. 
 S. House of Representatives at Washington for years. Mr. Brown 
 was editor of the Xew England Farmer, and by his tongne and 
 
152 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 pen has given an impetus to the higher branches of Agriculture. 
 He was honored in life and mourned in death, as only those of 
 Christian worth and manly dignity of character deserve. The 
 next place on the bank is "Battle-Lawn," the home of Edwin S. 
 Barrett, Esq., which is a model of architectural beauty in its out- 
 side and interior finish. One of the high antique fire places 
 built in part of wood from the Old North Bridge bears a line 
 of Emerson's famous verse " Here once the embattled farmers 
 stood," as the old road down which the soldiers marched to 
 battle crossed this very spot. Here the large tent was pitched 
 in which Mr. G. W. Curtis delivered his eloquent oration on the 
 Centennial Anniversary of Concord Fight, April 19th, 1875. A 
 vast concourse of citizens of note, including Gen. Grant and 
 his cabinet were present. The procession which contained over 
 thirty thousand people, was marshalled by Gen. Francis C. Barlow 
 who spent his boyhood in the town before the beginning of his 
 military record, which was one of the most brilliant in the 
 history of the war. Mr. Curtis lived in Concord for two years, 
 and she is proud to claim him also as a native, and he looks back 
 upon his village life with great pleasure, and is always glad to 
 visit the town. 
 
 Mr. George Keyes was chairman of the committee wliich so 
 successfully carried out the details of the great centennial cel- 
 ebration, a full account of which has been published. 
 
 The next field is the battle ground owned by the Buttrick 
 family, with the monuments and the Manse fully described 
 in another place. After leaving the boundaries of the Buttrick 
 farm we pass under a handsome low stone bridge designed by 
 
 J 
 
THE RIVER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 153 
 
 Hiram W. Blaisdell, Esq., and enter on the race course, quarter of 
 a mile long, in which every 4th of Jul}^ the village races are held. 
 
 Half a mile below are the meadows of Minot Pratt, so full of 
 sweet surprises with which his love for all growing things 
 prompted him to adorn his beloved river. The yellow Iris, the 
 Marcillia, Quadrifolia, the Trappa Natans, and other botanical 
 curiosities greet the astonished botanist as he goes on through 
 the horse shoe curves to Dakin's Hill and its noble oak, the 
 living beacon of the river, to pine crowned Ball's Hill called by 
 Thoreau the '' St. Ann's of Concord Voyageurs." 
 
 Going up the Sudbury river, on the right is Lee's hill, on the 
 river side of which C. Henry Hurd, Esq., and his enterprising 
 brother, (who has done so jiiuchto improve the town) are laying 
 out fine house lots, which, when a new bridge is built, will 
 doubtless form the West End of Concord. It is the plan of 
 these gentlemen to place their lots within the reach of all who 
 will agree to build on them houses worth}^ of the location, and 
 there is certainly a need of new houses in Concord, for many 
 look forward to its quiet life with its simple tastes as a Mecca 
 for their declining years. Opposite is the handsome house ofR. 
 N. Rice, who after conducting large railroad interests, has re- 
 turned to his native village in affluence. 
 
 The old liouse and splendid garden of the late Moses Pritchard, 
 Esq., for years a sheriff of the county and an lionored and respect- 
 ed citizen is next on the left bank, and the estates of Hon. Samuel 
 Hoar and his son Judge E. R. Hoar, alread}^ described, betw^een 
 which is the estate of Calvin C. Damon, Esq., a successful and 
 highly esteemed manufacturer. Next beyond the estate of the 
 
154 
 
 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 late J. M. Cheney is that of Frederic Hudson, the former editor 
 of the New York Herald, whose knowledge of the shipping of 
 that port, and on many literary matters was never surpassed, 
 and whose contributions to literature were many and varied, and 
 whose character exerted grea-t influence over the community 
 wlio loved and depended upon him. Rev. Mr. Reynolds estate 
 comes next on the river, which is thickly settled along its left 
 bank for half a mile with pleasant homes one of which is occu- 
 
 MR. F, B. SANBORN'S HOUSE, LEE's HILL. 
 
 pied by F. INI. Holland the scholar and author. Great credit is 
 due to Mr. W. F. Hurd for the energy and skill by which he 
 has converted the waste places along the river into comfortable 
 and picturesque estates. j\Ir. Sanborn's new house is at tlie 
 bend opposite the old home of Simon Willard, one of the found- 
 ers of the town. 
 
 After passing under the Stone Bridge and the old South 
 Bridge, where a guard was placed on the day of the Fight, and 
 near which arc the Wood and Hosmer houses previously de- 
 
THE RIVER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 155 
 
 scribed, the next land on the left is that of the Middlesex 
 Agricultural Society ; adjoining which Is the extensive farm of 
 the lion. II. F. French, formerly a distinguished lawyer in pa- 
 tent and other great cases, a Judge of the Courts of New 
 Hampshire, and a prominent writev on Agricultural and otlier 
 subjects, having -been President of the Agricultural College of 
 ]Mass. He is at present Assistant Secretary of the Treasur\', an 
 office which he has held with marked ability under two admin- 
 istrations. 
 
 After passing the French and Hubbard farms the river winds 
 along through green meadows for two miles, by Heath's swamp 
 so rich in botany, to the beautiful cliffs which give a hint of 
 grandeur to the placid loveliness of the river. At ^Nlartlia's 
 Point, Avhere the rare milk weed grows, and the Fall picnics fill 
 tlie air w^itli tlie steam of boiling corn and roasting potatoes, 
 Fairhaven bay gradually widens out into a great lake, covering 
 an area of over seventy acres. 
 
 On the left side of the bay is Baker Farm celebrated in song 
 and prose by Emerson, Thoreau, Channing and Lathrop, above 
 which is INIount Miser}-. Opposite is Conantum tlie crown of the 
 river, the place beloved of Thoreau and his disciples, and by the 
 many picnic devotees from far and near who have climbed its 
 cliffs, lunched under its great pines, or sentimentalized on Sunset 
 Rock from which for miles the windings of the river can be 
 traced past Mine Hill and Lee's Bridge to Bound Rock where 
 four towns join. 
 
 As no account of Concord river would be complete without 
 mention of the annual fourth of July festival which originated 
 
156 THE CONCORD GUIDE BOOK. 
 
 upon it, we copy from the Wide Awake Magazine an account of 
 the 
 
 CARNIVAL OF THE BOATS. 
 
 '' At the appointed time the bridges and banks were covered 
 with anxions spectators, as the boats promptly assembled and 
 took their appointed places in the line. On they came, down the 
 open Sudbury and from beneath the leafy arches of the Assabet 
 where the great hemlocks reach over to see their reflections in 
 the black water. 
 
 "Mr. J. L. Gilmore had been selected as marshal, and meeting 
 liis aids in their light wherries or birch canoes, he led off the 
 glittering train promptly and without confusion. The new 
 moon was fortunately obscured by a heavy cloud, and dense 
 blackness lumg over the river until the procession drew near 
 when sky and water were lighted up with ten thousand rain- 
 bows. Many of tlie hirge boats carried lanterns of red and 
 green hung over the bow, close to the water. All had high 
 frames from which Chinese lanterns of many hues dangled and 
 danced with the motion of the oars. 
 
 " One graceful Whitehall boat was ornamented in truly Jaj^an- 
 ese style, as a long bamboo rod projected from stem to stern 
 hung with lanterns of graduated sizes. One blue and white 
 dory was adorned with twenty-seven brilliant lanterns, and was 
 rowed by a young lady, while the owner sat in the bow and 
 burned gold fire in a large pan. A great black and yellow dory 
 bore a huge transparency representing the old bridge and the 
 
THE RIVER AND ITS HURROUNDIXGS. 157 
 
 Liberty Bell, while a neat boat from tlie ITudsoii had a great 
 crj'Stal shield with appropriate deviee. The cedar wherry, the 
 pride of the river, was as graceftd as ever in its adornineiit, and 
 the boats from the Xoith Bridge, were perfectly gorgeons with 
 lanterns of gelatine and paper, Roman candles and brilliant fires 
 of many hues. The place of honor in the front was, however, 
 allotted to a low white boat having a handsome boy in costume 
 at the bow, and a lovely blonde from the South at the helm, 
 with tri-colored gelatine lanterns surrounding her fair head. 
 
 "Thus led, they glide solemnly under the dark bridge and 
 turn around a sharp bend till they see in surprise the bridge 
 between the two monuments appear in lines of colored light, 
 as its graceful outlines have been closely decorated by lanterns 
 of many kinds ; and as the marshal's boat passes under it, 
 a volley of rockets spring up from Honeysuckle island, and 
 fireworks of varied kinds follow until the long array of boats 
 has countermarched through the new stone bridge, and as- 
 sembled in a crlitterino" crowd below the INIinute Man which 
 stands out from the darkness in its wondrous strength and 
 grace, by the fitful glare of the changing light. 
 
 " The spectators who crowd the high banks on each side pro- 
 nounce the spectacle unsurpassed by anything they have seen, 
 as at a little distance the boats are only distinguished by the 
 outlines of light, and the reflections above and below seem to 
 blend together in rainbows." 
 
 L 
 
Volumes. 
 
 THE RAIL-CAR, THE VERANDA, 
 
 lac j^ nyc im: o o ic 
 
 The Spare Minute Series 
 
 Elegant Cloth Binding. $i.ooeach. Free of Postage. 
 
 "The signilicance of the name of the new series is seen fro 
 the fact that 'Thoughts that Breathe,' for instance, has 300 pag< 
 and contains 373 st-parately numbered and independent extract 
 Thus a person can read one or more of tliese at a time, and p 
 the book down without breaking the train of thought." 
 
 THOUGHTS THAT BREATHE. 
 
 From Dean Stanley, with an introduction by Phillips Brook 
 
 " This volume is the cream of all Dean Stanley has written, so f 
 as it is possible for that cream to be gathered thus into a single boo 
 It is a bright and pithy and soul-stirring volume, quickening the int 
 lect of the reader and warming the heart. 
 
 CHEERFUL WORDS. 
 
 From George MacDonald, witli an Introduction by Jas. T. Fiele 
 
 " This charming volume is in evei'y way worthy of its place 
 the ' Spare Minute Series.' It is happily selected, felicitously name 
 and worthily introduced." 
 
 THE MIGHT OF RIGHT. 
 
 Selections from the works of the Right Hon. Wm. E. Gladston 
 with an inti'oduction by rion. John D. Long. 
 
 Idle Hour Series. 
 
 Paper, 50; Cloth, $1.00, each. 
 
 ^11.— WHAT SHE SAID AND WHAT SHE 
 
 MEANT. 
 
 By Pansy, Illustrated by Lewis. 
 
 ^I. — PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T TIME AND 
 
 CANT AFFORD IT. 
 
 By Pansy, Illustrated by Lewis. 
 
 -UP AND DOWN THE MERRIMAC. 
 By Pliny Steel Boyd. 
 
 IV. — MY DAUGHTER SUSAN. 
 By Pansy, Illustrated by Miss Humphrey. 
 
 HOW TWO GIRLS TRIED FARMING. 
 
 V. 
 
 HI. 
 
 By Dorothea Alice Shepard, Illustrated by 
 F. T. Merrill. 
 
 II. — MISS PRISCILLA HUNTER. 
 By Pansy, Illustrated by Miss Humphrey. 
 
 I. — POOR PAPA, I ^ 
 
 /■l- By Mary W. PorterJJ [t Av 
 
 D. LOTHROP & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 Out of School Series, 
 
 Paper. 30; Cloth, 75. 
 Each vol. Illustrated. 
 
 VI. — BARK CABIN ON KEARSARGE^ 
 By Edward A. Rand, 
 
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 By Rose Hawthorn Lathrop, and other favor^ 
 authors. 
 
 IV. —THE FORBES DOOLAN AFFAIR. 
 By W. H. Bishop, and other favorite authors. 
 
 III. — A NARROW ESCAPE. 
 
 By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, an^ other favorite 
 
 authors. 
 
 II. — JESSIE'S NEIGHBORS. 
 
 By Louisa Chandler Moulton, and other favorit 
 authors. 
 
 I. — BOYS OF BRIMSTONE COURT. 
 B^nfi^ABEZi^^VART Phelps, and other favorite 
 f r\ 1 ^B authors. 
 
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