Great Minds in Concord

My 99th Posting! Thank you for following my Blog, dear Readers.

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Do you recognize the home of Little Women? Louisa May Alcott was the successful author who sold one million copies of her books during her lifetime. She lived here at Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts.

Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

It's so dreadful to be poor! sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all, added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

We've got Father and Mother, and each other, said Beth contentedly from her corner.

The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time. She didn't say perhaps never, but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.

Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone, You know the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we ought not to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

The Wayside in Concord, Massachusetts is a National Historic Landmark lived in by American Literary figures Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and the short story collections; Mosses from an Old Manse and Twice-Told Tales lived here from 1852 until 1870 and gave it the name by which it is still known.

While The Wayside is best known as the only home Hawthorne ever owned and the place where he wrote his last works, it has also been the home of several noteworthy women. The Wayside, called "Hillside" by the Alcott family, was one the childhood homes of Louisa May Alcott, the author of the 1868 classic Little Women. Louisa lived here with her parents and three sisters from April 1845 to November 1848 during her early teenage years.

The Wayside barn, which today serves as a Visitor Center and exhibit area, was used by the Alcott girls to stage the plays that were created when they lived at "Hillside"; including "Roderigo" from Little Women. The Wayside exhibit and tour make note of the many events that occurred at "Hillside" that are recalled in Little Women; as well as real life experiences that the Alcott family had here, such as their sheltering of a fugitive slave in early 1847.

The Wayside, a stone's throw from Orchard House, is closed for restoration until 2015.

"The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison."

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

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The Old Manse

The first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired nearby – and, less than a century later, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau spawned a revolution in American philosophy from here.

Built in 1770 for patriot minister William Emerson, The Old Manse, a National Historic Landmark, became the center of Concord’s political, literary, and social revolutions over the course of the next century. In the mid-19th-century, leading Transcendentalists such as Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller discussed the issues of the day here, with the Hawthorne and Ripley families.

From upstairs, you can look out over the North Bridge, where the famous battle of April 19, 1775, took place.

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne both called the Manse home for a time – and each found inspiration here. Emerson would draft his famous essay “Nature” from an upstairs room, and Hawthorne would write a tribute to the homestead called Mosses from an Old Manse.

Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia, started their married life here, and you can still see the poems they wrote to each other, etched on the Manse’s window panes. The heirloom vegetable garden, which has been recreated today, was originally planted by Henry David Thoreau in honor of the Hawthornes’ wedding.

While Ralph Waldo Emerson was preparing to marry Lydia Jackson (who he called "Lidian"), he told her he could not live in her home town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. "Plymouth is streets", he wrote to her, "I live in the wide champaign."

He had previously lived in Concord at The Old Manse, the Emerson family home, and hoped to return to that town. In July 1835, he wrote in his journal, "I bought my house and two acres six rods of land of John T. Coolidge for 3,500 dollars."He and Jackson married on September 14 and moved into the home the next day, along with his mother.

Emerson remained in the house for the rest of his life. In it he wrote his famous essays "The American Scholar" and "Self Reliance". He also entertained a host of notable neighbors and visitors including Bronson and Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. Beginning in July 1836, the home hosted the meetings of the Transcendental Club.

Now Emerson's study is in the museum across the street.

"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

Emerson's study.

The Great Minds in Concord Museum.

More Great Minds at Thoreau's house on Walden Pond.

Walden Pond - still beautiful.

Recent tributes to Thoreau - still loved.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden