The Old Manse is a historic

manse A manse () is a clergy house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other Christian traditions. Ultimately derived from the Latin ''mansus'', "dwelling", from '' ...

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, United States, notable for its literary associations. It is open to the public as a nonprofit museum owned and operated by the

Trustees of Reservations The Trustees of Reservations is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the oldest land conservation nonprofit orga ...

. The house is located on Monument Street, with the

Concord River The Concord River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed October 3, 2011 tributary of the Merrimack River in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. The river drains ...

just behind it. The property neighbors the North Bridge, a part of

Minute Man National Historical Park Minute Man National Historical Park commemorates the opening battle in the American Revolutionary War. It also includes the Wayside, home in turn to three noted American authors. The National Historical Park is under the jurisdiction of the Nat ...

History

Emerson years

The Old Manse was built in 1770 for the Rev. William Emerson, father of minister William Emerson and grandfather of transcendentalist writer and lecturer

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...

. The elder Rev. Emerson was the town minister in Concord, chaplain to the Provincial Congress when it met at Concord in October 1774 and later a chaplain to the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

. Emerson observed the fight at the North Bridge, a part of the Concord Fight, from his farm fields while his wife and children witnessed the fight from the upstairs windows of their house. Emerson died in October 1776 in West Rutland, Vermont, while returning home from

Fort Ticonderoga Fort Ticonderoga (), formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain, in northern New York, in the United States. It was constructed by Canadian-born French mi ...

. His widow, Phebe Emerson, remarried to the Rev.

Ezra Ripley Ezra Ripley (1 May 1751 – 21 September 1841) was an American minister of Concord's First Parish Unitarian Church. Biography Ripley graduated from Harvard in 1776 where he taught and subsequently studied theology. In 1778 he was ordained to the ...

, who succeeded Emerson as the minister at First Parish Church in Concord.Richardson, Robert D. Jr. (1995). ''Emerson: The Mind on Fire''. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 182. Their family continued to live in the Old Manse. Ripley served as Concord's town minister for 63 years. In October 1834, Ralph Waldo Emerson moved to Concord and boarded at the Manse where he lived with his aging step-grandfather Ezra Ripley. He shared the home with his mother Ruth, his brother Charles, and his aunt

Mary Moody Emerson Mary Moody Emerson (August 23, 1774May 1, 1863) was an American letter writer and diarist. She was known not only as her nephew Ralph Waldo Emerson's "earliest and best teacher", but also as a "spirited and original genius in her own right". Ralph W ...

. While there, he wrote the first draft of his essay "

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

", a foundational work of the

Transcendentalist movement Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...

. Also while living at the Old Manse, on January 24, 1835, Emerson proposed in a letter to Lydia Jackson. After their marriage, they moved elsewhere in Concord, to a home he named "Bush", now known as the

Ralph Waldo Emerson House The Ralph Waldo Emerson House is a house museum located at 18 Cambridge Turnpike, Concord, Massachusetts, and a National Historic Landmark for its associations with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. He and his family named the home Bush. ...

Hawthorne years

In 1842, the American writer

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

rented the Old Manse for $100 a year. He moved in with his wife, transcendentalist Sophia Peabody, on July 9, 1842, as newlyweds. Peabody had previously visited Concord and met Ralph Waldo Emerson while working on a

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

portrait medallion of his brother Charles Emerson, who had died in 1836. She praised the town to Hawthorne, who responded, "Would that we could build our cottage this very now amid the scenes. My heart thirsts and languishes to be there". Prior to their arrival at the Manse,

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...

created a vegetable garden for the couple. The garden, intended as a wedding gift, included beans, peas, cabbages, and squash. The Hawthornes lived in the house for three years. In the upstairs room that Hawthorne used as his study, one can still view affectionate sentiments that the two etched into the window panes. The inscription reads: :Man's accidents are God's purposes. Sophia A. Hawthorne 1843 :Nath Hawthorne This is his study :The smallest twig leans clear against the sky :Composed by my wife and written with her diamond :Inscribed by my husband at sunset, April 3 1843. In the Gold light. :SAH On the first anniversary of his marriage, Hawthorne and his neighbor, poet Ellery Channing, searched the neighboring Concord River for the body of Martha Hunt, a local woman who drowned. Hawthorne wrote of the incident, "I never saw or imagined a spectacle of such perfect horror... She was the very image of death-agony." The incident inspired the climactic scene in his novel ''

The Blithedale Romance ''The Blithedale Romance'' (1852) is a novel by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is the third major "romance", as he called the form. Its setting is a utopian farming commune based on Brook Farm, of which Hawthorne was a founding member and ...

'' (1852). Concord, the Old Manse, 1766

The Hawthornes hosted several notable guests while living here. In May 1845, future President of the United States

Franklin Pierce Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. He was a northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity ...

visited along with their mutual

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

friend

Horatio Bridge Horatio Bridge (April 8, 1806 – March 18, 1893) was an officer of the United States Navy who, as Chief of the Bureau of Provisions, served for many years as head of the Navy's supply organization. Appointed by his former college mate, President F ...

. Peabody recalled the meeting fondly and recorded her first impression of Pierce as "loveliness and truth of character and natural refinement." Another visitor was

Margaret Fuller Sarah Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850), sometimes referred to as Margaret Fuller Ossoli, was an American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movemen ...

, whose sister Ellen had married another Concord writer named Ellery Channing in 1842. Upon hearing of her engagement, Fuller had written to Sophia Peabody, "If ever I saw a man who combined delicate tenderness to understand the heart of a woman, with quiet depths and manliness enough to satisfy her, it is Mr. Hawthorne." During his time in the Old Manse, Hawthorne published about twenty sketches and tales, including "

The Birth-Mark "The Birth-Mark" is a short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The tale examines obsession with human perfection. It was first published in the March 1843 edition of ''The Pioneer'' and later appeared in ''Mosses from an Old Manse'', a ...

" and "

Rappaccini's Daughter "Rappaccini's Daughter" is a Gothic short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne first published in the December 1844 issue of ''The United States Magazine and Democratic Review'' in New York, and later in the 1846 collection ''Mosses from an Old Manse'' ...

", which would be included in the collection ''

Mosses from an Old Manse ''Mosses from an Old Manse'' is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846. Background and publication history The collection includes several previously published short stories, and was named in honor of The Old Mans ...

'' (1846). In the introduction to that collection, he described the Old Manse: "Between two tall gateposts of roughhewn stone... we behold the gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black ash trees." Apocryphally, the Hawthornes were forced out of the home for not paying their rent. In actuality, the Ripley family wanted to reclaim the home for themselves. The Hawthornes moved to Salem in 1845. Returning to Concord seven years later, by then living on the other side of town at

The Wayside The Wayside is a historic house in Concord, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott and her family, who named it Hillside, author Nathaniel Hawthorne and ...

, Sophia Hawthorne visited the Old Manse on October 1, 1852, and referred to it as "the beloved old house".McFarland, Philip (2004). ''Hawthorne in Concord''. New York: Grove Press: 181–182. .

Modern history

After the Hawthornes, the home was occupied by

Sarah Bradford Ripley Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley (July 31, 1793 – July 26, 1867) was an American educator and noted scholar at a time when women were rarely admitted to universities. She acquired most of her knowledge of the classics, philosophy, modern languages, ...

for several years. The house remained in use by the Emerson-Ripley family until 1939, and transitioned to the Trustees of Reservations on November 3, 1939. The house was conveyed complete with all its furnishings, and contains a remarkable collection of furniture, books, kitchen implements, dishware, and other items, as well as original wallpaper, woodwork, windows and architectural features. The Old Manse was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1966 and a Massachusetts Archaeological/Historic Landmark the same year. The Manse is open seasonally for guided tours given by the Trustees of Reservations. The garden, originally created by Thoreau, has been recreated. The on-site book store in the house specializes in the American Revolution, women's history, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Transcendentalism, and sustainability.

References

External links

The Old Manse
The Trustees of Reservations
Property map

National Park Service

at ''Hawthorne in Salem'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Old Manse, The Houses completed in 1770 The Trustees of Reservations Historic house museums in Massachusetts Houses in Concord, Massachusetts National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts Museums in Concord, Massachusetts Literary museums in the United States Nathaniel Hawthorne Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Concord, Massachusetts 1770 establishments in Massachusetts Protected areas established in 1939 1939 establishments in Massachusetts Homes of American writers Clergy houses in the United States