Sketches from Concord and Appledore

Sketches from Concord and
Appledore

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Appledore
by Frank Preston Stearns #3 in our series by Frank Preston Stearns
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Title: Sketches from Concord and Appledore
Author: Frank Preston Stearns
Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8641] [Yes, we are more than

one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 29,
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[Illustration: Concord Elms, on Main Street.]
SKETCHES FROM CONCORD AND APPLEDORE
CONCORD THIRTY YEARS AGO; NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE;
LOUISA M. ALCOTT; RALPH WALDO EMERSON; MATTHEW
ARNOLD; DAVID A. WASSON; WENDELL PHILLIPS;
APPLEDORE AND ITS VISITORS; JOHN GREENLEAF
WHITTIER
BY FRANK PRESTON STEARNS

TO A JACQUEMINOT ROSE.

CONTENTS.
PREFACE
CONCORD THIRTY-ODD YEARS AGO
HAWTHORNE
LOUISA M. ALCOTT
EMERSON HIMSELF
MATTHEW ARNOLD'S LECTURE
DAVID A. WASSON
WENDELL PHILLIPS
APPLEDORE AND THE LAIGHTONS

WHITTIER

ILLUSTRATIONS.
CONCORD ELMS, ON MAIN STREET
THE CONCORD RIVER, NEAR BATTLE GROUND
HAWTHORNE, AFTER AN ENGRAVING FROM THE PAINTING
BY C. G. THOMPSON
THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY
LOUISA ALCOTT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1868
THE ALCOTT HOUSE
KING'S BUST OF EMERSON, MODELLED IN 1854
AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM MATTHEW ARNOLD
DAVID A. WASSON IN 1878, FROM A PORTRAIT BY HIS SON
GEORGE
WENDELL PHILLIPS AS HE APPEARED BEFORE THE PHI
BETA KAPPA
TWILIGHT AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS
CELIA THAXTER, PHOTOGRAPHED BY MISS ANNIE
RICHARDS IN 1890
WHITTIER'S HOUSE AT AMESBURY
JOHN G. WHITTIER IN HIS SEVENTY-SECOND YEAR, FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMPSON
THE MERRIMAC RIVER, NEAR AMESBURY, BY MOONLIGHT

PREFACE.
A volume of reminiscences is commonly the last book that an author
publishes, if indeed he does not leave the task to his literary
administrator. There are not wanting, however, instances to the
contrary; and in the present case my object is more especially to attract
public attention to the lives and works of two distinguished men, one of
whom has hitherto been little appreciated, and the other, as it seems to
me, greatly misunderstood. My position in regard to David A. Wasson
has already been challenged, but I have faith that it will endure the test
of time. If these pages shall also succeed in restoring to Wendell
Phillips a portion of the fame which he lost by the wayward course of
his declining years, they will not have been written in vain. The other

characters that I have brought upon this stage are such as both the
writer and the public have long taken an interest in. To the few living
personages who have been introduced, I would apologize, and excuse
myself on the ground that the picture would be imperfect without them.

SKETCHES FROM CONCORD AND APPLEDORE

CONCORD THIRTY YEARS AGO.
To one looking westward from Boston State House there appears a line
of rugged, precipitous hills extending across the country from
southwest to northeast. Having ascended these heights, we perceive
beyond them an irregular line of pale blue mountains, of which
Wachusett is the most southerly peak, and which is in fact a portion of
the White Mountain range extending through New Hampshire and into
the northern part of Maine. The watershed between these two forms the
valley of the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, which is the first military
line of defence in New England west of the sea-coast. It is for this
reason that the first struggle for American independence took place on
the banks of the Concord River, and not elsewhere; a fact that might
have been predicted, though not of course with certainty, when Boston
was first settled.
One would like to know how this rural community with martial destiny
before it happened to obtain the name of Concord. Did the Rev. Peter
Bulkley, descendant of the Plantagenets, who first organized society in
that valley,