Concord, Massachusetts

“ A town in Middlesex County, Mass., 20 miles northwest of Boston; on the Concord River and on the Boston and Maine Railroad (Map: Massachusetts, E 3) . It has manufactures of rubber goods and harness. The Massachusetts Reformatory is situated here. The government is administered by town meetings, held annually and at special call. Population, in 1890, 4427; in 1900, 5652. Concord, settled in 1635, is the oldest interior town in Massachusetts, and by the time of the Revolution had come to be “one of the great centres, not only of intellectual life, but also of political influence and power.” ”

“ The Assembly of Massachusetts was in session at the time, and voted to raise thirteen thousand men in the Colony, and ask the other New England Colonies to increase the number to thirty thousand. There was scarcely any need of such action by the Legislature, however, for the patriotism of the people was unbounded. The Concord fight obliterated the last vestige of apathy, and drew forth a spirit of heroism before unknown. From every quarter men rushed to arms voluntarily, ready to sacrifice even life in the common cause. ”

“ CONCORD, the capital of New Hampshire, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Merrimack county, on both sides of the Merrimac river, about 75 m. N.W. of Boston, Massachusetts. Pop. (1890) 17,004; (1900) 19,632, of whom 3813 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 21,497. Concord is served by the Boston & Maine railway. The area of the city in 1906 was 45.16 sq. m. Concord has broad streets bordered with shade trees; and has several parks, including Penacook, White, Rollins and the Contoocook river. ”

“ The sentiments that brought those humble men to the little green at Lexington, and to the bridge at Concord, which carried them up the slope of Bunker Hill, and which drove forth the British troops from Boston, never again to press the soil of Massachusetts,—that sentiment still governs the councils of Massachusetts, and rules in the hearts of her people. The feeling which governed the men of that glorious epoch of our history is the feeling of the men of Massachusetts of to-day. ”

“ The inhabitants of Concord are not prepared to stand by one of their own bridges, but talk only of taking up a position on the highlands beyond the Yellowstone River. Our Buttricks and Davises and Hosmers are retreating thither, and I fear that they will leave no Lexington Common between them and the enemy. There is not one slave in Nebraska; there are perhaps a million slaves in Massachusetts. ”

“ On the 12th of September, 1835, Emerson delivered an "Historical Discourse, at Concord, on the Second Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town." There is no "mysticism," no "transcendentalism" in this plain, straightforward Address. The facts are collected and related with the patience and sobriety which became the writer as one of the Dryasdusts of our very diligent, very useful, very matter-of-fact, and for the most part judiciously unimaginative Massachusetts Historical Society. ”

“ None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.’ ”
The first event in the history of Massachusetts was this planting of a territorial democracy. The colony of Concord was granted by Winthrop and his legislature in September, 1635, to Peter Bulkeley, a Puritan minister, from the little parish of Odell or Woodhill (colloquially called “Wuddle”) in English Bedfordshire, and to Simon Willard, a merchant, from Hawkshurst in Kent. ”

“ I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it. I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the American, out of my head and be sane a part of every day. ”

“ CONCORD, a town of the United States, in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, is 20 miles north-west of Boston by railroad. It is a quiet place of 2400 inhabitants, containing a good public library. The interest attached to the town arises from the prominent part its citizens took in the early revolutionary war. ”

“ As the British proceeded to Concord the whole country was rising, and at Concord about 500 minute-men confronted the British regulars who were holding the village and searching for arms and stores. Volleys were exchanged, the British retreated, the minute-men hung on their flanks and from the hillsides shot them down, driving their columns on Lexington. A granite obelisk, erected in 1837, when Emerson wrote his ode on the battle, marks the spot where the first British soldiers fell ”

“ It flows southward through New Hampshire into Massachusetts, turning northeast to the ocean. The river passes near Salisbury, where Daniel Webster was born in 1782; then, seventy-five miles northwest of Boston, comes to Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, which has a fine Capitol building and quarries of excellent granite; and eighteen miles below, it reaches Manchester, the chief city of New Hampshire, having sixty thousand people and many large mills owned by wealthy corporations. ”

“ Tell them, Massachusetts has three hundred towns, and Concord is one; that in Concord are five hundred ratable polls, and every one has an equal vote.
About ten years after the planting of Concord, efforts began to be made to civilize the Indians, and “to win them to the knowledge of the true God.” This indeed, in so many words, is expressed in the charter of the colony as one of its ends; and this design is named first in the printed “Considerations,” [35] that inclined Hampden, and determined Winthrop and his friends, to come hither. ”

“ But the spirit which led to these mischiefs in other regions of Massachusetts and Connecticut was all about us; and it narrowed the minds and the opportunities of Concord before the Revolution. It was chiefly in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, where ecclesiastical domination was less rigid, that mental freedom manifested itself. In the other colonies of the North, wealth and culture were apt to be on the side of England, when our troubles began; in Virginia and the Carolinas, and to some extent in New Hampshire and Maine, wealth took the colonial side. ”

“ He then returned to the east, took up his residence in Concord, and became connected with the “Middlesex Freeman.” In 1852 he was a member of the Massachusetts senate, and in 1853 represented Concord in the constitutional convention. Leaving the “Freeman,” he formed an editorial connection with the Boston “Atlas,” then with the “Times,” and in 1857 became an editorial writer on the “Traveller,” remaining with it until his death. ”

“ I find in obscure anecdotes like this sufficient evidence that if John Hampden had emigrated to Massachusetts when he had it in mind, he would have found [Pg 108] men like himself tilling their own acres in Concord. ”

“ President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain for ever. ”

“ They took part early in favor of independence. In every town men sprung up equal to the crisis which existed. Our local histories will bear to posterity resolutions as immortal in sentiment and principle as the Declaration of Independence itself. The resolutions of the neighboring towns of Concord express the views of Massachusetts towns. They say: "As men we have a right to life, liberty and property ”

“ Benefactors like Munroe, who built the Public Library, Dr. Ripley, who for half a century filled the pulpit and took pastoral care, and John Tileston, who brought the public schools to their present useful form; soldiers of the Civil War, like Colonel Prescott and Lieutenant Ripley, and hundreds of unnamed soldiers in the battle of life,—women no less than men,—have given their innumerable touch of vigor{297} and grace to the ever-building structure of Concord life. Painters of our own have added color, and sculptors like French, Elwell and Ricketson have adorned the town with art. ”

“ Public Interests.—The city is well laid out with finely shaded streets, is lighted by gas and electricity, and has an extensive waterworks plant. The noteworthy buildings include the State Capitol, a fine building of Concord granite, the City Hall and Court House, the State Prison, State Insane Asylum, and the United States Government buildings. There is an excellent system of public schools, and several private schools, including St. ”

“ Concord is like no other place in New England. There may be other places as beautiful in their way, there are others, perhaps, of more importance in the Commonwealth and we know there are hundreds of places where there is more active life to the square foot, but with all these admissions Concord still remains a place of special charm, the result and consequence of more causes than we care to analyze. ”

“ ADDRESS TO KOSSUTH
Sir,—The fatigue of your many public visits, in such unbroken succession as may compare with the toils of a campaign, forbid us to detain you long. The people of this town share with their countrymen the admiration of valor and perseverance; they, like their compatriots, have been hungry to see the man whose extraordinary eloquence is seconded by the splendor and the solidity of his actions. But, as it is the privilege of the people of this town to keep a hallowed mound which has a place in the story of the country; as Concord is one of the monuments of freedom ”

“ Concord is too far from Boston to rival in garden cultivation its neighbors, West Cambridge, Lexington, and Waltham; nor can it boast, with Brookline, Dorchester, and Cambridge, the handsome summer homes of city wealth. But it surpasses them all, perhaps, in a genuine country freshness and feeling, derived from its loneliness. If not touched by city elegance, neither is it infected by city meretriciousness; it is sweet, wholesome country. ”

“ The town contains also a city hall and three public libraries; while in the neighbourhood there is the State asylum for the insane, with a farm attached for the employment of the inmates. Concord is well supplied with water, and, having both railroad and canal communication, is advantageously situated for the development of its manufactures. These consist chiefly of carriages, dry goods, leather goods, and furniture. Granite of a superior quality is also quarried in the neighbourhood; and a large trade is carried on in dressed and undressed blocks. ”

“ The real architecture of Concord was not in private or public edifices, but in its magnificent elms, whose branches spanned the streets like the arches of a Gothic cathedral. The largest of them stands in front of the town hall, and its trunk measures just sixteen feet in circumference; though Doctor Holmes has failed to enumerate it in his list of the great trees of the State. Another on the road to Lexington is remarkable for its straight stem and perfect wineglass form. In autumn the scarlet maples set between the elms are no bad substitute for stained-glass windows. ”

“ Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, 25 May, 1803, gathered into himself the very quintessence of what has been called the Brahminism of New England, as transmitted through the Bulkeleys, the Blisses, the Moodys, and the direct paternal line. Peter Bulkeley, preferring the wilderness of Satan to Laudian conformity, founded Concord in 1636; William Emerson, his descendant in the fifth generation, was builder of the Old Manse in the same town and a sturdy preacher to the minute-men at the beginning of the Revolution ”

“ Among the hills at one side we see the town, about a mile away; and a wide horizon all around, which Elizabeth Hoar tells me she has learned is the charm of Concord scenery. The summit of the hill on which we are is crowned with woods, and from a clearing commands a grand prospect. Wachusett rises alone upon the distance, and takes the place of the ocean in the landscape. There is a limitation in the prospect if one cannot see the sea or mountains. The Blue Hill, in a measure, supplies that want at West Roxbury. Otherwise the landscape is a garden which only pleases. ”

“ The place in which Emerson passed the greater part of his life well deserves a special notice. Concord might sit for its portrait as an ideal New England town. If wanting in the variety of surface which many other towns can boast of, it has at least a vision of the distant summits of Monadnock and Wachusett. It has fine old woods, and noble elms to give dignity to its open spaces. Beautiful ponds, as they modestly call themselves,—one of which, Walden, is as well known in our literature as Windermere in that of Old England,—lie quietly in their clean basins. ”

“ A stranger in Concord is at first most impressed by its natural beauties, enhanced by the foresight of the fathers of the town. Nature and art are rarely combined. Beautiful shade trees are on every hand, as they are in many other of the favored cities of the Union. Concord is distinctively attractive in its perfection. ”

“ To no one, however, is the city of Concord more indebted for its material advancement and internal improvement, during the first quarter century of its municipal existence, than to its esteemed citizen, Hon. John Kimball. The name is a household word in Concord. It conveys a meaning to the present generation peculiar to itself. It is the name of a man who, springing from the sturdy yeoman and artisan stock,—from the people,—has won his way, by tireless industry, unblemished integrity, sterling honesty, and sound good sense, to positions of responsibility and prominence. ”

“ Some of these brave men never again left the village where they were so kindly nursed. Concord, with its thirteen hundred inhabitants, supplied Washington's army with wood and hay, and suffering Boston with grain and money, with a generosity that shines in American annals. Washington's headquarters were at Craigie House, so long the home of Longfellow, and the Harvard buildings being used as barracks, the university was transferred to Concord.
No mere literary estimate of Emerson's writings can adequately report the man or his work. ”