USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Concord > Historic Concord, a handbook of its story and its memorials > Part 3
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The Emerson House. Turning the corner toward the left, one sees ahead on the right (at the fork where the Cambridge Turnpike leaves Lexington Road) the square white Emerson house under its pines. Here from 1835 till his death in 1882 Emerson exemplified his 'plain living and high thinking' [pages 74, 78]. With a patient kindness which rose from his belief that he could learn something from anyone, he al- lowed many cranks and oddities to break in upon his time. But here also he received many famous people, including most of the literary celebrities of his day. Thoreau, handy man and close friend, lived here with the family at different periods. Emerson worked in the room to the right of the front door. Though the contents of this study, even to the shutters, have been taken to the Antiquarian House across the road, the room has been fitted again with his belongings; the parlor has been untouched. The lower floor of the
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house is open to the public daily except Sundays from nine to eleven and one-thirty to three-thirty.
To the left of the house, beyond the orchard, once stood the arbor intended as a summer study for Emer- son. Designed by Alcott in his favorite style, of crooked branches of trees, it was not finished without the aid of Thoreau. When it was completed, Mrs. Emerson dubbed it the 'Ruin,' which it was in but a few years. Nor was it ever put to its intended use. being too drafty and full of mosquitoes.
The Antiquarian House. Across the Turnpike from the Emerson house, in the fork of the two roads, stands the house of the Concord Antiquarian Society, on Emerson land given by the family. The house, its col- lection, and its arrangement, are noteworthy. The furniture was gathered some seventy years ago by a poor man, in a time when taste was Victorian and earlier pieces could be picked up for little or nothing. Taken over by the Society and housed for many years in the Reuben Brown house, in 1930 the collection was put in the present fireproof building, designed by Harry B. Little. Besides the furniture, surprisingly complete in wood, glass, china, and brass, and of all periods, there is good wainscot from old demolished houses. The whole is assembled with correctness and taste in a series of period rooms, from the provincial to the early Victorian. In them the visitor can follow the development of styles in chairs, beds, bureaus, and other furnishings; he can see similar advances in utensils and in the fireplaces; while the wainscot, from crudest to finest, also shows the improvement in household art to the McIntire period and the begin- ning of the decline about 1840.
Often called the best small collection of American antiques, the museum is rather a display of the de-
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velopment of a New England town of but moderate wealth. The cabinetwork of the craftsmen who served Concord, simplified from the more elegant productions of the seaboard, shows a dignity and charm that is far from crudity. The lover of antiques in general will enjoy the collection as a whole, while the student of styles will find genuine examples on which to base his theories.
Apart from this purely cultural interest, the house holds reminders of Concord's history. The Society owns the one remaining of the two Paul Revere lanterns; various weapons used at the North Bridge; and some of the gunflints of the minute-men, dis- carded when they changed them in preparation for the Fight. It has also, in a diorama or model of the Fight, a dramatic representation of it. It has the clumsy old chair in which Emerson wrote 'Nature,' his first book [page 74]. There are also Emerson and Thoreau rooms. The former contains, in a room built to the exact dimensions, the furnishings of Emerson's study - the pictures, the rocker in which he used to write with his portfolio on his knee, and the calendar with the leaves torn off to the month of his death. The Thoreau room, intentionally small, bare, and simple, contains much of the furniture of his hut at Walden [pages 28-29, 87], portraits, and books. [For the diorama, see footnote to page 64.]
Thus the little museum sets forth, in very large part, the social, martial, and literary history of Con- cord. It is open to the public from April 19th to November IIth: admission twenty-five cents, children fifteen cents, with separate arrangements for large groups.
A special feature is the courtyard of the house, closed by the ancient exterior of the oldest wing, and
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made picturesque by the lilac from the Thoreau farm on the Virginia Road. Here too is the most charming of herb gardens, quite in the old style, much studied and imitated by modern gardeners.
'Orchard House.' Leaving the Antiquarian grounds on the opposite side from the Emerson house, the visitor proceeds along Lexington Road until he finds on the left (about three hundred yards), slightly set back behind a widening of the road, and within its own fence, the large and comfortable 'Orchard House,' long the home of the Alcotts (1858-1877), and the one most closely associated with their fame [pages 8 1 ff.]. The land was once the site of the home of John Hoar and his workshop for Christian Indians in 1675; probably the old frame is a part of the present Alcott house [page 45]. In this a large part of 'Little Women' was written. The great elm in front, which long lent picturesqueness to the grounds, is now gone, with most of the old apple trees that stood on the left, in which the children played. But the house is very much as it used to be when Louisa humorously called it 'Apple Slump.'
It is more visited than any other house in Concord. Here the fictional characters of 'Little Women' come again to life, and by the aid of the furnishings of each room, and the costumes in the cases, seem to re-enact the scenes of the book. Yet here too is Alcott life as described in our later pages, with much self-denial and hardship, serenely borne by the philosopher, and more bravely, if sometimes grimly, by his wife and daugh- ters. Art is present in the drawings by May Alcott ('Amy') on the walls, fortunately preserved down to the present. Here is a splendid record of family life maintained on a high plane, and handing down to later times the lesson of love and perseverance.
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The School of Philosophy. To the left of the house stands the bare building of the summer School of Philosophy, the darling of Alcott's later years (1879- 1888), not without a little ridicule from his gifted daughter. It was much attended, during its brief life, by the lessening group of transcendentalists, whose earnest discussions failed to produce any notable re- sults.
'Wayside.' The next house, while it was Alcott's 'Hillside' and afterward Hawthorne's 'Wayside,' has a still earlier interest as the home of Samuel Whit- ney, Revolutionary patriot, who here housed some of the military stores before the British came. The building has some structural reminders of that early period. Alcott, coming in 1845, found the house, ac- cording to Hawthorne, 'a mean-looking affair, with two peaked gables .... He added a porch in front and a central peak, and a piazza at each end .... Mr. Alcott expended a good deal of taste and some money (to no great purpose) in forming the hillside behind into terraces, and building arbors and summer-houses of rough stones and branches of trees, on a system of his own.' Alcott was a devotee of what he called the Sylvan style. Fortunately none of his creations sur- vive [page 32], though his terraces remain. Up these the Alcott children used to plod in their childish play of 'Pilgrim's Progress,' dropping their burdens at the top, like Christian in the story. In the house Haw- thorne himself made extensive changes, the most noticeable of which, built for his second period in the house, is the so-called 'tower.' This is a three-story addition, the top floor of which provided a study in which he could have the seclusion which was essential to him. It contains the standing desk at which he liked to write.
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Hawthorne's 'Wayside'
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Because of his many years abroad [pages 92-94] Hawthorne occupied the house only in 1852-1853 and 1860-1862. Yet as the only house he ever owned he took in it particular satisfaction, and when he began his life in it he wrote, 'I felt myself, for the first time in my life, at home.'
The house has been well preserved, largely through the care of Mrs. Daniel Lothrop, 'Margaret Sidney' [pages 22, 95]. Her husband, a Boston publisher, bought it as a summer home for his family, and Mrs. Lothrop occupied it at intervals until her death in 1924. Here she wrote many of her books, the 'Five Little Peppers' and others. The 'Wayside' is now maintained by her daughter, who opens it to the pub- lic during the summer. (Season April 19th to October 3Ist. Admission twenty-five cents.)
The house and its furnishings present mementos of its literary inhabitants, of whom more have dwelt or made long visits here than in any other house in Con- cord. In his first period at the 'Wayside' Hawthorne wrote his 'Tanglewood Tales' and the biography of Franklin Pierce; but his second period was not suc- cessfully productive, in spite of all his efforts.
In the barn adjoining the house the Alcott children held some of their youthful plays. On the wooded ridge behind the buildings Hawthorne used to sit in meditation, or walk up and down. Here, in his 'Sep- timius Felton,' he laid the scene of his hero's duel with the British officer. And here he had his interview with the youthful William Dean Howells, after which he introduced him to Emerson with the statement that he found the young man 'worthy.' The spot was un- fortunately sadly devastated by the hurricane of 1938.
Grapevine Cottage. The next house, on the same
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side of the street, is the Grapevine Cottage, where in 1849 Ephraim Wales Bull produced the Concord Grape. A goldbeater with a taste for horticulture, he came to Concord in 1836, and devoted himself more to his hobby than to his trade. Discovering that the best grapes of his day often were spoiled by early frosts, he tried to breed an early and hardy variety. Beginning with a wild grape, he crossed it with others, until eventually, after years of experimentation, he found a seedling which satisfied him. This he named the Concord. Its commercial success was enormous, but others profited instead of Bull, which embittered him. At one time he was in the Legislature, which he served usefully in agricultural matters. At that time he dressed elegantly, so much so that Emerson once,
Grapevine Cottage
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at a distance, mistook him for Alcott. His son said that it was Bull. '"Oh, well, Bull," said Emerson. "That is quite another matter. I thought Alcott looked more like a gentleman and less like a philoso- pher than usual."' But when Bull retired he laid aside his top hat and wig, let his own white hair and beard grow long, and loved to putter among his plants in his dressing-gown and silk skull cap. He grew older, feebler, and poorer, and finally died (1895) in Concord's Home for the Aged. Trusting no one in business after his reverses, he never would put on the market four other grapes which, out of some twenty- two thousand seedlings brought to maturity, he con- sidered equal to the Concord. His tombstone says truly that he sowed, but others reaped [page 23].
Meriam's Corner. A half mile farther along Lexing- ton Road, one comes to Meriam's Corner, where the Old Bedford Road comes in from the left. A tablet in the wall records the event which happened here, when the British quitted Concord [page 70]. The head of the column of grenadiers reached the corner, to the left of which was the Meriam homestead, still standing. At the same time the light infantry flankers marched down from the ridge, and the minute-men of Reading and Billerica approached on the Old Bedford Road. The British joined, and marched across a little bridge then existing on the road to Lexington, where now is but a culvert. The regulars marched 'with very slow, but steady step, without music, or a word spoken that could be heard. Silence reigned on both sides.' After crossing the bridge the rear guard turned and fired, though by one account the Americans fired when the bridge was full. Next, as the firing became general, ap- peared the men from the North Bridge, coming round the ridge. Wrote one of them, 'a grait many Lay dead and the Road was bloody.'
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Here began the running fight which drove the Brit- ish all the way back to Boston [page 70].
Thoreau's Birthplace. From Meriam's Corner the Thoreau-lover will go on to the Thoreau birthplace. Following the Old Bedford Road, which leads to the left, and taking the Virginia Road, the first road to the right, he will pass on the left (about a third of a mile from the turnoff) the original site of the Thoreau house. Here now stands a later house, with the sign, 'Thoreau Farm.' The original house was moved many years ago to its present position, the next be- yond the newer house, on the same side of the road. While it has been considerably changed, the room of the birth can still be seen, if convenient to the owner, at a moderate fee.
Retracing his steps, the visitor returns to the vil- lage, and may revisit anything that has specially in- terested him. There are more places to be seen in Concord than those listed in this Guide, and more is to be learned of its events and people. These can be followed up, at least in part, in the History which fol- lows, and more completely by the aid of the Bibli- ography at the end of the book, which will provide much reading matter concerning a town which, for its size, is one of the most interesting in the United States.
HISTORY : A brief study of the first two hundred and fifty years
COLONIAL PERIOD
CONCORD's history divides itself naturally into three periods: the founding, with the early struggles to sur- vive; the Revolutionary, with the reason for and the facts of Concord Fight; and the literary, with the local story of some of the country's greatest writers. These follow each other in order of time but in the same scene, for Emerson walked where his ancestor Bulkeley made the treaty with the Indians, and Hawthorne dwelt but a furlong from the North Bridge. It is worth noting that through the whole story the geo- graphy of the town connects itself with the events of its history.
Where a little stream, centuries ago, ran straight through level land, the Indians made a fishweir to trap the spring run of shad and herring. On broad meadows, farther away, they cultivated, here and there, patches of maize. On two rivers which joined and made one they paddled their canoes, and along the banks they hunted waterfowl. A certain ridge which entered their territory from the east, and twice turned till it ran northerly, probably was of no use to them. So too with the three hills which rose from the plain, unless their woods could be hunted for game. At one spot the Indians held their feasts of river clams, and the shells remain to tell of it. At others the savages made and abandoned and made again their cobbled fireplaces. If the region was the scene of Indian war-
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fare, there is no record of it. But where they hunted they lost their arrowheads, and where they worked they left their mortars and pestles, axes and awls. They still occupied the area in 1635, and to this day the soil renders up the stone tools that tell of them.
When white men came they saw that the brook, if dammed, would run a mill. The rivers were unim- portant: they led to the wrong place by the sea.I But the meadows they liked, especially those spots where Indian hoes and clearance-fires had prepared the way for better cultivation. (The English had yet to learn that the rivers would overflow the lower spots.) And the ridge would be of use, for it would hold their meetinghouse and their homes in a place suited for defense. So they bargained for a six-mile square, and built the church and dam and dwellings, poor houses, half dugouts in the hillside. Their first road began at a spot, at the first rise of the ridge, where many years later would begin the running fight with the retreat- ing British. Following on below the ridge, the road passed the place where one day would be bred the Concord Grape, and others where yet would dwell the Alcotts, and Hawthorne, and Emerson. The road turned a corner, and running straight for a while, passed the future sites of the best pre-Revo- lutionary houses, of the church of the original parish, and of the Townhouse in what is now the Square. Again the road turned, and seeking a site to cross the river, found one that was used for many years, where
I The rivers are the Sudbury and the Assabet, which at Egg Rock meet and form the Concord, which empties into the Merrimac. Though never useful for navigation, they were formerly a great means of recreation, as proved by George Bartlett's guidebook of 1885; he addressed his book not merely to Concord pleasure seekers, but also to tourists coming by water from farther away.
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the British met their first defeat. All this is still the main artery and the heart of modern Concord. It is true that other important places in Concord lie farther away, also that many changes have oc- curred. The millpond is gone, and the millbrook is all but hidden. But the old dam, now a busy street, is still called the Milldam; and the simple geography of plain and brook and ridge still influence the daily ways of man.
The first man to map the region was William Wood, who did it crudely in his book of 1634. Probably the first to examine the place with an eye to settling was Simon Willard, 'Kentish souldier,' who came to the colony in the same year. A fur trader, he doubtless learned of the place from the Indians, and led here the group of 'planters.' Chief among these were the min- isters, Peter Bulkeley and John Jones, both 'silenced' in England for their Puritanism. Their families, and those that accompanied them, amounted to perhaps sixty-five in all. The founders bore names long known in Concord history: Hosmer, Buttrick, Hunt, Ball, Meriam, Flint, and still others. Their grant from the General Court was dated September 12, 1635.
An equally necessary step was the treaty with the Indians. Tradition says that it took place under a great tree, the site of which is still marked on the Square. The white men 'on the one party, and Squaw Sachem, Tahattawan, Nimrod, Indians, on the other party,' came to an agreement. The white men gave tools, knives, cloth, and shirts, and fitted out the medicine man, husband to the female sachem, with 'a suit of cotton cloth, an hat, a white linen band, shoes, stockings, and a great coat.' Then 'Mr. Simon Willard, pointing to the four quarters of the world, declared that they had bought three miles
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from that place, east, west, north, and south; and the said Indians manifested their free consent there- unto.'
It was this free consent of the Indians, some have said, that gave the name of Concord to the town. Others, however, have believed that the name, first mentioned in the Boston grant, signified the perfect agreement among the settlers themselves. At any rate, in the summer of 1636 their crops were planted on the meadows, and their first crude houses were completed, not far from the equally simple church which stood on the ridge above the present Square.
Life in Concord during its first years was hard. Bulkeley had brought money with him, and estab- lished various members of the town on farms, cutting down his own resources. But the soil was harsh, the trees many, wolves ate the swine, the meadows flooded, and most of the settlers were unskilled in the new life. They 'cut their bread very thin for a long season,' said their historian. 'Thus this poore people populate this howling Desart.' They felt their isola- tion, being the only ones away from tide-water, miles from the nearest whites, and fearful of the sav- ages. At length some of them, led by the minister Jones, went away to Connecticut, leaving Bulkeley and the remainder more lonely still. It was only after another few years that Concord began to prosper.
Fear of the Indians, freely admitted by the settlers, was not justified in these earliest times. The tribes- men of that generation helped the settlers, bringing them game, and teaching them how to plant the In- dian corn - with a few herring, caught in the spring run, in every hill as fertilizer. It was not until 1675 that the fear of Indians was justified. Then Meta-
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comet, 'King Philip,' led the Indians against the whites. One raid came too near the town, when the two brothers Shepard, working their farm in what is now Littleton, were ambushed and slain, and their sister Mary carried off. She escaped, however, and came to Concord with the alarm. Concord men were in the famous fight at Brookfield, where various of them were killed, and where Captain Thomas Wheeler was brought out of the skirmish by his son Thomas, both of them wounded. The party, besieged in a house, was at length rescued by men under Simon Willard, then in his old age.
Concord village was spared an attack by the reputa- tion of its pastor, Edward Bulkeley, for when the In- dians consulted whether the town should be raided, a chief declared, 'We no prosper, if we go to Concord. The Great Spirit love that people - they have a great man there - he great pray!'
Two incidents during this war give honor, if not to Concord, at least to one of its citizens. Among the Indians there were converts to Christianity, who re- mained peaceful while their tribe went to war. Yet they were under strong suspicion by the whites; therefore to keep them from either doing or receiving harm they were brought together in Concord by John Hoar, who housed them and built them a workshop on his own land, where now stands the 'Orchard House' of the Alcotts. Feeling against them ran high, however; Hoar's humanity and protection were thought not to be enough. The Indians were taken from him by the forceful intervention of soldiers and herded together on an island in Boston Harbor, where they suffered much hardship till the end of the war.
Hoar's spirit was better appreciated, however, when
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a new need arose. The Indians raided Lancaster, and carried away Mrs. Rowlandson, the wife of the minis- ter. It was believed that she could be ransomed; yet no one dared to go among the Indians with the money until Hoar offered to go. He went, was received with hatred and threats, yet his steady courage brought success, and he returned with the woman.
The peace which followed King Philip's War was presently disturbed by the coming of Governor Andros, who expressed doubt as to the citizens' titles to their land. To satisfy him were made the deposi- tions as to Concord's bargain with the Indians from which we have already quoted. Yet to the protests of the various towns Andros declared that he valued an Indian's mark upon their treaties no more than the scratch of a bear's claw. Chiefly for this the colony rose against him, seizing the opportunity offered by the news that in England William of Orange had landed to expel King James. In this little revolt Concord took its share, on the first of the town's three historic Nineteenths of April. On that day, in 1689, Concord's company was mustered in the Square, and marched to Boston to take its part in the impris- onment of Andros.
In England, William was successful; yet he brought to an end one period of Massachusetts history. Be- lieving the colony to be too independent, he changed its form of government. From a colony it became a province, with stricter supervision from the mother country. Under the new charter Massachusetts flourished; there were other wars, but more distant. And Concord was peaceful and prosperous until there loomed the struggle against England itself.
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THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
The Stamp Act of 1765 made no outward disturb- ance in Concord, but by it the minds of the towns- people must have been prepared for further trouble. For the tea controversy, on the question of taxation, brought from the town in 1774 the declaration, char- acteristic of the times, that while the people would risk their fortunes and lives in defense of the King, they would equally risk them in defense of their charter rights. But the King's authority and the people's liberties proved to be deeply opposed. The town entered wholeheartedly into the struggle against new laws; its meetinghouse held the earliest sittings of the First Provincial Congress; and when the province began to gather munitions for an army, Concord be- came the most important storehouse for those means of war. Cannon and their carriages, powder, bullets, camp kettles, and other necessaries, were assembled in the town. The Massachusetts leaders believed that in such a patriotic place these stores could be safely kept; and it was for this reason that Concord, and Lexington on the road to Concord, saw the opening scenes of the Revolutionary War.
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