r f. .11 "^kX) ^^^^^^^K. ''.Jir=^4S^^J t i 1 ■ <:?_g"^-'^" J^ Qy^^^ ^#-z-^ C^ y^ ^.^ .^*c^ '^ , ^;^^«jM^U^22r yiy^^^-'^ ^'^^ Tlu-lam-lolhr \. The Ban: 1 rnularsjir... Mtni,l,-.\i... i;AI"ri.]'; LAXE '|0 OID XoRIII BRiDCK ' ;; .,■ Ly-rncuLiuisa main lii-huuy in i/.c Jytl. uj J{;,1, i;js, ichcn llu "Coiuutd I'rJ.t'' luvk pta,,: inlly fiiibU in the Joliage at the end vj the road, mark.' the position J'rovi which the British -Men, advancing to the defense of their homes. At the other end oj the bridge stands the statue ofth, tmbattled farmers stood" in firing the return volley, "the shot heard round the world." Back tish fled in disorderly retreat toward the main body of Redcoats in the center of the town. CONCORD ^ T^ilgrimage to THE HISTORIC AND LITERARY CENTER OF AMERICA Illustrated hy reproductions ot photographs which show the natural beauty ol Concord and its historic landmarks together with i! brief history of the toic/i and an account of the incidents and people th^t have made icta^ous PUBLISHED BY Terry JValton Boston ^Mass. Copyright 1922 All Rights Reserved ACI OI nil 1 IR^I I R()\ |\( I \T tO\(,Rl s^ The First Parish Ml I n, is really modern III I t in iyi2, 'housed the I r I i 1/ (> 1 1 i i I John Hancoikat pr, idiiil III ( iir an I ih S „,/ thi h adi iirn.d < i h U iir d,i\ l,ur,th (in rd I ijil pro vide d j or the colleition of 'lores o/jood and ammunition, the eapture of ahich aas thi dinct ohjtct ol the Brituh iint to Concord, April IQ, IJTS- CONCORD CELY as is the iiatui'al beauty of Concord, with its wide streets and winding river, and its elms more ancient than the oldest homes, the town has most to give of interest and beauty to the traveler who comes to it familiar with its history. To such a visitor, houses become more than "the residence of Emerson from 1835 to 1882," or "the first home of the Alcotts in Concord." He sees what the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson saw from the upper window of the Old Manse on the morning of the 19th of April in 1775; he sees Louisa Alcott as a little girl, running and singing in the woods before the dew is off the grass; he seems to come upon Bronson Alcott, happily engaged in building rustic arbors and fences for Orchard House, and his friend Emerson; perhaps he imagines he catches the kindly smile of Hawthorne as that shyest of authors vanishes into the woods above the Wa}'side; most clearly, perhaps, the well-prepared visitor, who knows the "Mosses from an Old Alanse," visualizes Emerson "in the wood paths, with that pure intellectual gleam diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining one." It is the purpose of this book to help the visitor to view Concord with a "seeing eye"; to guide him to its places of interest and to point out some of the natural charms; to help him to appreciate how Concord came to occupy the place it holds in history and literature; and also to understand something of the character of Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Alcott, and those other rare spirits who have given so much to the world. This little book is also an effort to embody all this with sufficient charm of format to make it worth preservation. Fortunately for the stranger, the places of interest lie so near each other that they all may easily be reached in less than a day, even if one goes on foot. Just as there are two principal periods in Concord's history, the Revolutionary and the literary era of the mid- nineteenth century, so are there two streets radiating from the central square, along which lie the most important places connected with those two periods. The trail of the "Concord Fight" takes the visitor out Monument Street to the battle-ground, passing the Old Manse and the Elisha Jones House on the way. Along the borders of Monument Square are a number of places with historical associations, such as the Colonial Inn, the Old Hill Burying-Ground, Wright Tavern, the First Parish Meeting-House, the D. A. R. Monument Square is the itarting- poinl joT many historic pil- grimages. In this vicinity was concluded the amicable pur- chase from the Indians of six square miles of land in l6j6. It is probable that John Eliot and George IVhileJield preached here in the open air. The mon- ument is a memorial to the men of the town who died in the Civil IVar. Chapter House, and a short dis- tance away, the Antiquarian Society House. In eacli case the text accompanying the pictures gives a full explanation. Much of the literary interest lies along Lexington Road, in the houses of Emerson, the Alcotts, and Hawthorne. Just beyond them is the home of Ephraim Bull and the trellis containing his original Concord grapevine. It is possible to take a lane across the fields from this section of Lexing- ton Road to Walden Pond, where Thoreau had his hermitage for two years and wrote "Walden," which has made him one of "America's Immortals." More visitors, perhaps, prefer first to go back to the Square and out Bedford Street to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to find the graves of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts. Walden Pond can later be reached by way of Walden Street, a mile and a half down the road. The scattered places of interest, such as the Dove Cote, first home of the Alcotts in Concord, the Main Street Burying-Ground, the Thoreau-Alcott House, and Egg Rock can easily be located by the map and pictures. D. A. R. CHAPTER HOUSE ./ Colonial house sixty-seven years old at the time of the Concord fight very appropriately become the home of the Concord Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. THE BEGINNINGS OF CONCORD kEFORE it became Concord l~^ Indians as Musketaquid, or Grassy-ground. 1 J on Nashawtuck Hill near Egg Rock. In th corn, in the woods they ranged for hunting, and in the Mill Brook, which flows under the town's main street, they had their fish weir. Tahattawan, their chief, was sub- ordinate to the great sachem of the A-Iassachusetts tribe of which they were a part, who in this case was Squaw Sachem, the widow of a former chief. The original grant of territor)', "hereafter to be called Concord," was made in 1635 to Rev. Peter Bulkeley, Simon Willard, and others. These, with several fami- lies, came from England for the very purpose of settling Concord, and making the difficult journey from Boston through the un- tracked forest, settled in rude shelters against the hillside during the home of white men, the town was kntn\n to They had their principal settlement meadows below they planted their \NTIQU\RIAN SOCIETY HOLSE liitijuanaii So iet\ Howe on Lexttflon Rnnd titiie ,J ll ninina oj the Redcoat uuc Concord _ 7 ' ' . II r, R ul n :h a patriot, lutd in i-y-, Tl I r iim, ,\anpl,-: of Colonial jurnitur m i oti r r I Ui\ On [6 " •^H'-'tSr' ^JK^Ll^' ^' H^' Jk^ '^ K /^'^Jli m ■ ^4^^ 'J ^Ei Mr^ m i w4 ^1 -.# ^u ; paa :.: - f^ 1 ilu- fall <>{ 1635. Later ihcy omi- cluded the purchase of the land from the Indians. According to the custom of the time, the land had already been granted by the (leneral Court. The bargain for the sale of six square miles of territor)- with the present square as the center was made at the house of Rev. Peter Bulkeley, the site of which is marked by a tablet a short distance down the Lowell Road. The Indian partners to the bargain are variously named by eye witnesses, but Squaw Sachem and Tahattawan were certainly among them. Squaw ^.^^ ^_^ ,^^ ^^^^^ Sachem seems to have taken the -.ralk doxn opportunity to outfit her second husband, Wibbacowet, after the fashion of the English, for she secured for him, linen band, shoes, stockings, and a great coat." Efforts were gradually made to Christianize and civilize the Indians. Largely through the work of Rev. John Eliot, the "Apostle to the Indians," a group of Indians known as the Praying Indians, many of them from Concord, were granted a township near Naticlc and later another at Nashoba. There still exists an interesting set of rules drawn up by Simon Willard and Thomas Flint at the request of some of the Indians, in which the red men agreed to give up powwows, more than one wife, howling at mournings, and "hereafter to weare their haire comely as the English do," to "reform themselves in their former greasing them- selves," and to knock before entering an Englishman's house. In particular they desired "that they may be stirred up to seek after God." During King Philip's War (1675-76) Concord suffered much less than many other towns. Her soldiers, however, took part in various encounters elsewhere. There is a tradition that when, during a council of war among some Indian chieftains, the question of attacking either Sudbury or Concord arose, it was decided to attack Sudbury first, because the minister at Concord was supposed to have too powerful an infiucncc with the Great Spirit. "He great pra\-," said the chieftain. n^ton Road to the homes of Hawthorne and the Alcotts. >uit of cotton cloth. white THE CONCORD OF THE RE\OLUTIOX CONCORD is twenty miles from Boston. Although in the eighteentli century this was almost a full day's journey, it was not too far for the spirit of Concord to be materially influenced by the spirit of Boston, and the spirit that cast the tea into Boston Harbor was the same that inspired the minute-men. Sharing the general indignation against what was regarded as British oppression, Concord welcomed the First Provincial Congress to its meeting-house on October 11, 1775, and joined eagerly in the preparations for defense which the Congress ordered through its Committees of Safety and Supplies, during that fall and the following spring. In particular Concord was made a center of supplies in the general plan of preparedness. There were Tories, however, in Concord, as elsewhere; and information leaked through to General Gage as to what was going on. At the same time that patriot spies were watching his troops for the first suspicious movement in the direction of Concord, his spies were mingling with the patriots. 1/1 / / on II II B On the night of the i8th of April, 1775, about eight hundred British soldiers crossed Back Bay to Cambridge, and began their march toward Lexington and Concord, their purpose being the destruction of stores and the capture of the leaders among the patriots, including John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were in Lexington. Meanwhile, Paul Revere and William Dawes, each by a different route to Lexington, were making their daring rides of warning. Shortly after midnight both reached Lexington and had started for Concord. Not far along the way they were overtaken by Dr. Samuel Prescott, return- ing to Concord from a visit to his fiancee. British outposts, sent in advance to head off any patriot messengers, soon called the three to a halt. Dr. Prescott escaped by jumping a wall, and hurried on to Concord, where alarm by gun and bell was sounded at once. The first man to appear in the bright moonlight before sunrise is said to have been Rev. William Emerson, grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Some of the stores had been removed the day before; but there was still, under the supervision of Col. James Barrett, much to be carried away or concealed. Calls went out in every direction to the minute-men of neighboring towns. By early morning one hundred to one hundred and fifty men had assembled. It must be borne in mind that there was as yet no war between Great Britain and her colonies. Of the skirmish which occurred in Lexington, the people in Concord were unaware until later in the day. The minute-men and militia had no possible reason to attack the British unless attacked first. They had the much harder task of waiting for the turn of events. Between six and seven o'clock, Capt. David Brown's company of Concord minute-men marched down the Lexington Road about a mile and a half. About seven, they saw the British, and waited for them to come within a hundred rods. Then the Concord men faced about, and, according to the testimony of Amos Barrett, "marched before them with our l^ronis and fifes agoing and all so the B (British drums and fifes). We had grand i ^i 1 Musick." Surcl_\- it must have been irritating tu the British to be thus preceLled down the road! Another body of patriots under Capt. George Minot had taken a position on the ridge overlooking Lexington Road just about in tiie rear of the present Antiquarian Society House. There, according to tradition, Rev. William Emerson was eager to face the British, saying: "Let us stand our ground. If we die, let us die here." A superior officer. Col. Eleazer Brooks of Lincoln, decreed no, however, on the ground, "Jt will not do for us to begin the war." The overwhelming numbers of the British made it necessary for the patriots to move out beyond town and there wait for reinforcements. Accordingly the Americans, not yet more than a hundred and fifty in number, withdrew farther back along the ridge, and thence across the North Bridge to Punkatasset Hill, about a mile from the center of the town. The road they took beyond the bridge has lf)ng been discontinued — so the traveler finds who wishes to retrace their entire route. y\bout nine o'clock the American forces had increased to between four and ti\e hundred. Accordingly they moved nearer the bridge to the high land in front of Major Buttrick's house. A tablet on Liberty Street and another on the grounds of the Barrett homestead mark their general position. Lieut. Joseph Hosmer, appointed adjutant, formed the men in two lines, while Col. James Barrett called the leaders to a council of war. hi the mean time, the main body of the British, under Lieutenant-Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, were hunting for stores, being frustrated by clever ruses, and not finding much. One company had been dispatched to the South Bridge to cut off reinforcements coming to the Americans; and either five or six companies were sent to the North Bridge. Of these, three went on farther to hunt for stores known to be concealed at Colonel Bar- rett's. Only one company stayed directly at the bridge, and the rest scattered to the houses near by in search of refreshments which they sorely needed after the night's march. The material captured in the town was thrown into the water or burned. As the patriots on the hill above the bridge saw the smoke ascending, they were in an agony of anxiety to Th,' Clhdic Parish Ilnu 0] THF. RIGHT SIDF. OF THE SQUARF , ///,■ hrick Masonic lodge and the Christian Science Church l.order the as one stands in front of the Colonial Inn. ight side of Monun MKTI'.RY //if oldfst ilune marks ihe grair oj Thumas llarlshorn, who du;l at ', either the site or a portion of one oj the block houses to "vhich in. when an Indian attack threatened. know what it meant. Were their homes to be lost without a struggle? It was decided "to march into the middle of the town for its defense or die in the attempt." Strict orders were given to the men, however, not to fire unless fired upon. Every one knows what happened as the Americans drew near the bridge. The British fired first, killing Capt. Isaac Davis and Abner Hosmer, both of Acton. Instantly Major Buttrick gave the command to retaliate, "Fire, fellow-soldiers, for God's sake, fire!" For several minutes, volleys were interchanged. Then the British turned and fled toward the town and the reinforcements, coming rapidly at the sound of firing. The Americans pursued a short way and then mounted the hill back of Elisha Jones' house. From this point they could watch the British gathered in the center of the town, showing by their various changes of position their uncertainty as to their next best move. Eventually Colonel Smith decided that the safest course was to leave town. Part of the soldiers left, as they had come, by the ridge, and part by the Lexington Road. Meanwhile, a large number of the Americans hurried across the Great Meadows to intercept the enemy at Meriam's Corner, where a sharp engagement took place. There was now no regular organization among the Ameri- cans. They fought as individuals, from behind walls, trees, and even houses. The British were subject to constant sniping. In spite of Earl Percy's arrival with British reinforce- ments at Lexington, the Americans pursued their retreating foe to Charlestown. When, about seven o'clock on the evening of the 20th, the exhausted Redcoats reached Boston, they had no doubt that war had begun. The importance of the "Concord Fight" is to be gauged, not by the number but by the temper of the men who fought, and the swiftness of their response to the first summons of libert\-. Yet another bit of interest in the Revolutionar\- Concord lies in the fact that it was the abode of Harvard College in the winter of 1775, when the college buildings in Cambridge were required for the use of the i^merican troops. Rev. Ezra Ripley, who married the widow of Rev. William Emerson, succeeded to his pastorate, and occupied the Old Manse, was a student in Har\'ard at the time. THE CONCORD OF LITER,\TURE IF superlatives were safe, it might be said that Concord has the most valid claim of any .\merican community to be called our literary Mecca. Here lived Emerson, whose international reputation is equaled, among American authors, only by that of Poe and Whitman. Hawthorne chose Concord as his home during the first and last years of his married life. Thoreau could never be lured long from the vicinity. The Alcott family, the most famous members being the father, Bronson Alcott, and Louisa May, lived in at least six houses in the town during the course of their many migrations. Here too lived Ellery Channing, the poet; Frank Sanborn, the last of the Concord School of Phi- losophy; "Margaret Sidney," whose "Five Little Peppers" is dear to the hearts of girls; and here grew to manhood Daniel Chester French, the American sculptor. In the homes of these writers man}- visitors to Concord find a background into which to fit the authors the\' lo\'e, and gain here an appreciation of the individual behind the book. 'I'lu- principal biuin,-is sec, 0} farlier days. The . [II] LOCALITY OF THE MILL DAM still called the Mill Dam, although the , ■ buildings now lie above the Mill Brook, meadozvs to join the Concord River. is left ojihe mill ami '.eath them out into the BLRYINC-CROUND The Old Hill Burying-Ground is a mi C.nncn! huill their Merting-Ihni> ■ of associations for th,> 'ih the history of Concord. "On this hill the^etlh ■i:s Ih,: Icihlrl on ihe street -wall. "On the southern ,■ summit stood the liarrell and II illuim Emerson, Mtafh. doted "God wills us free, man wills us slaves. I will as God wills, God's will he done The Old Manse retains, perhaps more than any other of the old houses, the atmosphere of earlier times. The house, built for Rev. William Emerson in 1765, wlu) shouldered his musket at the first alarm of the Concord Fight and died a chaplain in the Rcvolutionar\- service, sheltered a more famous grandson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, when the latter with- drew from the ministry and began his first great book, "Nature." In 1842 Hawthorne brought his bride, Sophia Peabody, to the Old Manse. He was thirty-eight; she, six years youngei". She had been an invalid for twelve years, now miraculously cured by the very strength of her love for her husband. He had been a recluse in a family of recluses. Their three years at the Manse was a period of almost ideal happiness. "Here all my dreams be- came realities," wrote Mrs. Hawthorne, and her husband ends the account in his journal of a quiet, happy day, "I had rather be on earth than in the seventh heaven just now." Time moved almost as placidly as the Concord River during these three years. Then the birth of a daughter and the need of more money than he could obtain from slow- paying magazines, drove Hawthorne back to Salein and to a political appointment as Surveyor of the Port. In 1852 he returned to Concord, famous through the publication of "The Scarlet Letter." The Hawthornes purchased their second Concord home, the Way- side, from the Alcotts, who had called it Hillside. The "Tanglewood Tales" were written there before the author went to Europe in 1853 as United States consul to Liverpool, appointed by his Bowdoin College friend, President Pierce. l!l!1lillS III lliis building arc many interesting prints, pic the books have been presented to the library by the authors themselves ll'.kARV d books which relate either to historic or literary Concord. Some of INTERIOR VIEW OF THE CONCORD LIBRARY und at the right is Mr. French's famous statue of Ralph Waldo Under the zcindmo at the left is ihe alcove in 'which are first editions of the Concord authors. Hawthorne did not return to Wayside until i860. He made many alterations in the house, including the addition of the central tower, in the top floor, where he had as secluded a study as an author could wish. "Mosses from an Old Manse" had been written at the Manse. At the Wayside, in addition to "Tanglewood Tales," "The Marble Faun," begun in Italy, was completed, "Our Old Home" was written, and several stories were com- menced, including the fragments of "Septimius Felton," "Dr. Grimshawe's Secret," and "The DoUiver Romance." Diminishing strength hindered the completion of these works. Hawthorne died in May, 1864, during a trip to New Hampshire for his health, with Franklin Pierce. Emerson, who is the most generally beloved of the Concord writers for his books, was equally the most beloved among them for himself. The other Concord authors enjoyed each other in varying degrees, but they were united in devotion to Emerson. Ellery Chan- ning once wrote to him, "I have but one reason for settling in one place in America; it is because you are there." Alcott, of whose "notions" most of the world was either skeptical or scornful, received from Emerson more than from any one else an understanding sympathy. "Only Emerson of this age," Alcott wrote in his diary, "knows me, of all that I have found." Louisa May Alcott, at fifteen, reading Goethe's "Correspondence with a Child," was "fired with a desire to be a Bettine," and chose Emerson for her Master. Hawthorne's daughter said that it was one of her happiest experiences to pass Emerson on the street. "A dis- tinct exaltation followed my glance into his splendid face." WRIGHT T.WERN ll'righl Tatvni, built in Ij4-y. -mis the headquaiters (or the patriots early in the morning oi April jg, i the British troops under Major Pitcairn. The major, who was to j allies s than two months later at liii:r remarL-rti. as he stirred hit hrandy with his finger and blustered about the tap-room, "I as I stir this, before night!" and later in the day, Ju ker Hill, is said to stir the damned Yankee bloo, 1 14 s .^■^-^,^.^ ^s£^ m^ The house in which Emerson Hved from the time of his second marriage in 1S35 until his death in 1882 stands not far from the Square, at the junction of the Lexington and Cambridge Roads. On the south side of the house, near the brook, Mrs. Emerson planted seeds and bulbs she had brought with her from Plymouth. Emerson himself did more or less gardening, but he did not love the work or else grudged the time from his writing and thinking, and was glad to hand it over to others, including Thoreau, who was at different times a member of the household. In the library at the right of the entrance, Emerson did the greater part of his writing. Sometimes, it is said, the press of visitors drove him to the Antiquarian Society House opposite, then a boarding-house. "The woods," however, according to his son, "were his best study during the years of his greatest spiritual activity." A record of Emerson's life is one of spiritual rather than physical events. He wrote his books, he edited the Dial, he gave innumerable lyceum lectures, he shared in the train- ing of his four children, the oldest of whom, little Waldo, died at the age of five, and he received an endless stream of visitors, from cranks to his choicest companions. In and through these incidents ran the current of developing thought and character. Those who wish to know Emerson in Concord must read not only his works, but also his journals, and the various reminiscences by his son and friends. Through the pages of Emerson's Journals run man\' references to Bronson Alcott, who was, for years, a Concord neighbor. A more picturesque personality than Alcott's it would be hard to find. He seems, as one reads of him, a character from fiction rather than from life. A Transcendentalist, a philosopher, he was, though born in Connecticut, totally lacking in the Yankee aptitude for making a living. Emerson, in the Journals, has sketched a portrait. "He will willingly talk the whole of the day and most part of the night and then again to-nioriDW, for days successively. . . . He seems to tliink society exists for this function. ... It must be conceded that it is speculation which he loves, and not action." Louisa told her mother on meeting her father returning from a trip, "He looked cold and thin as an icicle, but serene as Ciod." Alcott cared most for the spiritual side of man; the physical side he wished to reduce to a minimum. For this reason he became a vegetarian, and for a long time would alk)vv his family to eat nothing except the vegetables and fruits he could raise from their own soil. The interest in the spiritual he carried into his educational theories which he applied in schools which he conducted, first near Philadelphia, and later in the Masonic Temple in Boston. Louisa says that he taught "in the wise way which unfolds what lies in the child's nature." His theories proving too advanced for the public, his school failed. In 1840 Alcott took his family — his wife and three daughters — to live in the little Hosmer cottage on Main Street in Concord, about a mile from the center. This cottage Louisa later introduced into "Little Women" as the Dove Cote in which Meg lived after she was married. In this house the fourth Alcott girl, May, the Amy of "Little Women," was born. In 1843 Alcott moved his family to Fruitlands, a farm near Harvard, where with several others he tried an unsuccessful experiment in communism and vegetarianism. The failure so nearly broke his heart that he refused food, and would have died of grief and starvation, had not his wife, whose love for her impractical and high-minded husband never swerved, finally prevailed on him to make a fresh trial of existence. The family presently returned to Concord and stayed a short time in the Edmund Hosmer house on the Lowell Road. With a legacy and the aid of ^500 from Emerson, Mrs. Alcott, in 1845, bought Hillside, half a mile down Lexington Road from the center of the town. In this house and the barn, the Little Women had many happy times with the young Emersons, Channings, and Hawthornes. OlIICL Vi lllL CULUMAL L\.\ Coiu„rJ nmke the Colonial Inn their 'luiter home. Even the casual visitors of the dinner he of old Concord m the quamt old rooms, and linger longer than they had planned. I I^. Concord, iiowcver, was no field for such slight money-making abilities as the father possessed. In 1848 another move was made to Boston, where Louisa taught school, sewed, went out to service, and scribbled when she could. Her first story, for which she received $5, was published in 1852. Three years later the first book appeared, "Flower Fables." Success came gradually and stead- ily through the years, but by means of such hard work as drained her physical resources. Years later, she laments that she can no longer work fourteen hours a day. In 1857 the family returned n 1 1 1 r ll lo to Concord, purchasing Orchard ' /■ / / 1 n r House, next door to the former home. Hillside. While it was being renovated, they lived in a yellow house back of the Town Hall, in which the beloved sister Beth died. The first part of "Little Women" was written in 1861 in Orchard House. Lito the book were woven many of the e.xperiences S\\I\I\UK( 1 A VISTA OF MEADOW AND BATTLE-GROl //if Loudl RuuJ from ihe Colonial Inn, ihf viiitor lo Concord looks ain Bridge and the battle-ground. I„ lua-lyn,g [17: ELISHA JONES HOUSE iKg of ihe Concord fig!t Lluha ] concealed hi wife and t) at goes by his name atd stood iden then tehth five companies of I Street some of them stopping \j of musketry soui ded from ihe ly pr Id b\ tl entnatics < tl 1 I I p le taurted them. I I n by about ( m the ell marks II II is one of America's two most ^ original literary geniuses, was, like / l- p Alcott, an enigma to his fellow- y^ /j townsmen. They could not understand why a man who could make a good living prefer to live on very near nothing at all in a shack on LOOKING TOWARD THE BATTLE MONUMENT FROM THE MINUTE-MAN Ill-re the minute-men stood when they faced the British across the hndf,e The air seems to carrv a faint echo 'of Major Buttriik's reply In the British volley, "l-'ire, fellow-soldiers, for Cod's sake, /ire!" de of the road where \ are inevitably k ov I ometimes of II rpton manufacturing lead pencils should the shore of a pond. Probably most visitors who come to Concord in search of memorials oi Thoreau regard the shores of Walden as his home. In reality Thoreau lived there only two years and two months (1845- 47). But "Walden," the book for which he there gained his inspira- tion, has become one of the world's classics. The next two years he spent in the Emerson household, of which he had been a member a number of times, in no clearly specified capacity, but rather as friend and general assistant. The remainder of his life was passed with his father in the house they rebuilt on Main Street, known as the Thoreau-Alcott House. Tho- reau was only forty-four when he died as the result of a cold caught in counting the rings of growth on the stumps of some old trees. Consumption, the family menace, resulted. It is an error to think of Thoreau as a misanthrope or re- [21 clusc. lie wa.s ncitlRT. He liked people, hut nol the elutler of urdinar}- living. "My greatest skill," he said, "has been to want but little." He went often from Walden to see his friends, and his friends came often to him. He had the courage to live as he chose, a course which is never comprehensible to those of dissimilar tastes. The world, however, is indeed fortunate that he preferred to give it "Walden" instead of more lead pencils. Another intimate of the Concord group was Ellery Channing, the poet, not to be con- fused with his uncle, the famous preacher for whom he was named. After trying a variety of occupations, he married a younger sister of Margaret Fuller in 1842, and settled in Con- cord, largely because it was the home of Emerson. Later he moved opposite the Thoreau- Alcott House. Most of the last decade before his death in 1901 was spent in the home of his friend Frank Sanborn. Ellery Channing wrote several volumes of poetry and a Life of Thorcau, but he is probably better known to the world through the glimpses of his charm- ing, capricious character in the letters and journals of his friends than by his own works. 77„- Sudhiirv. on the Irfl. and ihr r,cuL< liir tchUt on llu rock. BEGINNING OF THE CONCORD RI\ ER ■(, on the right, unite at Egg Rock to form the Concord Rin-r meeting of the rivers and alons, the hanks, lived the India, heiorc the :fhile wen cawe." "On the hill Nashaa-lnclc. vners oj Musketa.nnd Frank Sanborn was the last member of the original Concord group. Through the influence of Emerson he was able to open a school in Concord in 1855, which flourished until 1863. His support of John Brown caused an attempt at his abduction which was only prevented by the efforts of indignant neighbors. Officers of the law seized him as he came to his door and carried him to the carriage, waiting in front, to convey him to Boston for trial. Being a man of extremely long limbs, he braced them against the door frame, so that his captors could not force him through the door. Meanwhile his lusty [22] A \ISTA FROM RED BRIDGE ON THE LOWELL ROAD tan' distinit z-ifu' nf the junclinn higher llwn llir level nl llie rn; entlin:iej. The CnunnI ami r.lle,x(:lun,,n,v^ Olthe .h<„i s/rnvly ihrmigh meadows hardly „e he Inu-'v -rhieh way the :■ -"I: fhoreauor cries for help brought to his assistance his sympathizing neighbors, who forcibly released him, and the minions of the law were obliged to depart without him. He served in many public offices, was an editor of the Springfield Republican, and wrote a number of biogra- phies and reminiscences of his Concord friends. In 1879 he aided Alcott in the establish- ment of the Concord Summer School of Philosophy. The build- ing in which the school was housed until its close in 1888 may still be seen on the grounds of Orchard House. Mr. Sanborn died in 1917. Not all of Concord's famous men were writers or soldiers. Several have been artists or sculptors, among them Daniel Chester French, who is undoubt- edly, since the death of Saint Gaudens, the dean of American sculptors. It was not until he was eighteen, while li\'ing with his family on a farm near Concord [23] „J old Concord hoiues with its (ringt :)NCORD GARDENS i Main Street slope )f iris and flags. im which tliey liad recently settled in 1868, that he showed any im- petus toward an artistic career. His first bit of sculpture, a frog in fashionable dress, was whittled out of a turnip, and was so lifelike that May Alcott, the artistic member of the Alcott family, promptly furnished him with clay and modeling tools to do some- thing more permanent. His first uninstructed work, particularly in the models of animals, showed re- markable ability. He could fairly be called self-trained, because he " ' ' ' 'V ,, :;:r ":rii,-. had SO Httlc pTofesslonal teaching. He attended lectures on anatomy by Dr. William Rimmer of Boston, and had a year and a half in the studio of Thomas Ball in Florence, but very little other instruction. His first important work was the Concord Minute-Man. He was so modest and so unknown that he offered to make the statue for the cost of the materials. It is to the credit of Concord that the prophet received honor in his own country to the extent of a thousand ^ ARHVWII ( K l;iMlH ,1 Xasl,aa:nick Bridge h;ui- homes in this s,;r panoramic view of C,.,..^ / ■ ■ ./ hill IS visible a ■ isr'rr, which almost Beautiful as is this turn of the Concord Ru.r. it i u of sympathetic companionship, perhaps Jrom Old Manse, shared in the search for the body 7/ made of the scene m il d \i ung schoul-tracher, perhaps from a lack ' ,rtclj Hawthorne, living then at the ade upon his mind, is shown by the use he h Romance." [24] HObMhR HOLSE mil, north oi Concord on the Loaell Road standi thi Edmund Normer Howe ut 1,200 acrts lo Oovernor Wwthrop in i6^S Lm r on Ila ilhnrn a Squire Hornier, uho>e talk "had a ort of fla or il ih Ir h irlli i uere the em i/r oj tin Ho^nurt lure lor a short lim iil i ih i n n hijor, Il 1 up, I 11,11 lit in l68o on land aihich was part oj a grant ThoT an hate iritten o} the pleasure ihey found ah rn ,n /nuriran \ nl Rooks ) The Alcotts xp r,m nl ,n nimnn, m at t ruitland'," dollars beyond his expenses. The list of his later work is remarkable even for a life of unusually constant activity. Examples of his work to be found in Concord are the bust and seated figure of Emerson in the Concord Public Library, and the Melvin Memorial in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. This last, a monument to three brothers who died in the Civil War, represents victorious self-sacrifice for a great cause. In and near Boston are many other works by French, — the statue of John Harvard in Cambridge, that of General Hooker in the State House Grounds, the monument to John Boyle O'Reilly in the Fenway, the bronze doors of the Boston Public Library, and the remarkable Martin Milmore Memorial in Forest Hills Cemetery, a bas-relief of Death arresting the hand of the Sculptor, for which Daniel French received a medal in the Paris Salon of 1891. A particularly lovely and suggestive piece of work is the Alice Freeman Palmer Memo- rial at Wellesley College, representing Knowledge, or perhaps Truth, guiding the young girl. Still other well-known works are the great figure of Alma Mater in front of the Columbia L^niversity Library, the groups representing the continents Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, in front of the New York Custom House, and the Lincoln Memorial figure at Lincoln, Neb. Mr. French now makes his home in New York and Stockbridge. Many other famous men and women have lived in Concord for varying lengths of time. Wanderers among the paths of Sleepy Hollow will stop again and again at familiar names. Writing of Concord, Thoreau says in his classic Walden: "After hoeing, or per- haps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I usually bathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its coves for a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my person, or smoothed (25 1 IRWk B S\\B()R\ HOLSE //( ri Sanborn, one of the Etntnon cinle, lived the last \iarj of his hfe Until he died, here also lived Ifilliam I Uir\ Channing, the Gentle Poet of Concord, who long 'lar Sanhoni'r gm 't ■.D BRIDGE TEA ROOM quaint little cottage near the site of the of the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, one of the founders of Concord, the wanderer along the Lowell Road may find rest and refresh mem. out the last wrinkle which study iiad made, and for the afternoon was absolutely free. Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs. As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction from my house (at Walden) there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under the grove of elms and buttonwoods on the" other horizon was a village of busy men, as curious to me, as if they had been prairie dogs, each sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running ov^er to a neighbor's to gossip." Concord will always occupy a conspicuous place in history and literature. the lUntl jrh in nalUi i r I llr , i and the youngest. May the imy of "Little IV omen was born in this house in 1S40. ,( n r I I i Vu, Mrs II It, aied her tlu ntxi year Louisa Ako" lived with her sister ai i father in this house only for brief intervals. [26] m^ ^ .%^ I wm^ ••"^* EMERSOX HOUSE Thr- Enu-rsoii House at the junction oj the Lexington and Cambridge Roads was the home of Ralph Jl'aldo Emerson from iSjj until his death in 1SS2. The fine simplicity of the architecture is siiggesli-'i of the chaiaclc, ,f the man. \'\ 111 1; \ I. Pli WALDO EMERSON •Jery much as Emerson left it, even the rocking-chair at the right being in le was wont to occupy. The books on the left, cover nearly the whole field of literature. On the table are his writing portfolio and ink bottle. ORCHARD HOLSr Ol 11 II \l i i I ..» :riii laenty fi I i i ' / Bronson Jkoti i i interior, il/fli / dslhfaulhrriiill i i j\t\ in , i i , i tlu puhlu would hii, o iinpU a jlon ' lilt /loiir IS now kept a! a memorial to the Alcott BRONSON ALCOIT'S LIBRARY Ellery Channing, the poet, wrote and May Alcott painted the epigra the /in-place in Bromon Alcott's study in Orchard Ilouse:- "The II, lis arc Reared, the Valleys scooped in vain, Ij Learning's Altars vanish from the Plain." WHERE THE ALCOri'S ENTERTAINED Edward Enu-rson, writing of his youth in Con- cord, tells of parties in the Alcott parlors with all sorts of simple merrymaking in the shape of dancing, singing and story-telling. ■ To ii^f^^^K m 1^^ wt .•.is!&^.^. . -, i iiAiiH LOUISA MAY ALCO'IT'S ROOM Louisa May Alcott as a child longed for a room of her own where she could go "and sing and think." Her desire was finally gratified in the previous Concord heme. Hillside, later Hawthorne's Wayside, and in this room in Orchard House. HAWTHORNE'S WAYSIDE Hau'lhorne called his second Concord home, If'ay- sidr. The .11, Otis occupied the house first, callii,, il iniluJc. from 1S45 to 184S. Hatclhunu- l.uir'lil ihc place in lSs2 and added the timer in order to have a workroom with complete seclusion. \ -j^^^jM SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY 'jnson Alcolt achieved one of the few realizations of the dreams with which his life was filled, when the School of Philosophy opened in this "Chapel" near Orchard House in iSSo. It closed with a memorial' service to the founder in iSSS. The building has been removed from its original position al the left of Orchard llcuse to the woods on the other side. the hill bthind it, callid by his family the "Mount of 1 1 ion " ^t tablet marks one such path. ^ ^' -^'■r-'M'-'t\i(WI^"^'m ^.^- j^Jm^,- "'^HHX'f ^^^^■■Hfnr^^H V ^^ --^ am^jj^T . >^ vv^H^^B^^H ^ : #•. SLt>^'i5*k.>. ^^^^jH^^HjI^HBH^^H .^5^ ^^S2! '^ 'vS'^^lBZl^^^^^^HEi ' «i^^^l ^^ ^^"^^E^^B ;i^^' r*^" T • [^^^K5i^r*f'^ ,^^pBfey>f^ia^^BBK^3^feii^^| P j;^^%^ ^,-^1 ''^^j^^Hm^^i b ^ -.y IfcL^^^^' '^^ia^SH^^HBiiillBRE^^^^^^^^^^^I KfeN»f A^Jr^ ^^ilt^^ """^^Sr^^^^RJHHiBJ^^Hilf^^H ^ ■ jm^ifasi mAj^^r*\;^ ,--<^ ^■.^^SMWS^K^WBmfSmm'-'SP^^M F^'lRiBl^E^'-^^^^^^ ^ E*i «^^^ m ^ \^^:-fi /*"^ia^EiSS^ ^S>.' ^^t*'-'^^;C^'S|Hi^Kff *fe*.*!i^' . 1 ■^ ^ ■■■R: ' ' ^ (Ac woods" he wrote, ''because I wished i it had to teach, and not, when I came to die. 0\LRL0UK1\G WALDEN FROM A HILL AT THOREAU'S COVE // (/ / /( /' lid atcordmg to Thoreau, 'ir a dear and deep green well half a mile long and a mile and three-quarters in circumfer- i II and lonlaiiir about