The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 | Page 5

one was
killed there. In Shay's Rebellion Job Shattuck of Groton attempted to
prevent the court, which assembled in Concord, from transacting its
business, by an armed force. In the war of 1812, Concord men served
well, and in the old anti-slavery days many a fierce battle of tongue and
pen was waged by the early supporters of the then unpopular cause.
John Brown spent his fifty-eighth birthday in the town the week before
he left for Harper's Ferry, and the gallows from which his "soul went
marching on." The United States officials who came to arrest Mr.
Sanborn for his knowledge of Brown's movements were advised by the
women and men of Concord to retreat down the old Boston road a la
British; and when the call came for troops to put down the late
Rebellion, Concord was among the first to send her militia to the field
under the gallant young farmer-soldier, Colonel Prescott, who at
Petersburg,
"Showed how a soldier ought to fight, And a Christian ought to die."
[Illustration: R. Waldo Emerson]
In memory of the brave who found in Concord "a birthplace, home or
grave" the plain shaft in the public square was erected on the spot

where the Minute-men were probably first drawn up on the morning of
the nineteenth of April. 1775 to listen to the inspiring words of their
young preacher, Rev. William Emerson, and ninety years after in the
same place his grandson R.W. Emerson recounted the noble deeds of
the men who had gallantly proved themselves worthy to bear the names
made famous by their ancestors at Concord fight. The Rev. William
Emerson in 1775 occupied and owned The Old Manse, which was built
for him about ten years before, on the occasion of his marriage to Miss.
Phoebe Bliss, the daughter of one of the early ministers of Concord. Mr.
Emerson was so patriotic and eager to attack the invaders at once, that
he was compelled by his people to remain in his house, from which he
is said to have watched the battle at the bridge from a window
commanding the field. He soon after joined the army as chaplain and
died the next year at Rutland, and his widow married some years after
the Rev. Dr. Ripley who succeeded him in his church and home, and
lived until his death in the Manse which has always remained in the
possession of his descendants. Dr. Ripley ruled the church and town
with the iron sway of an old-fashioned New England minister, and the
old Manse has for years been a literary centre. In the old dining room,
the solemn conclave of clergymen have cracked many a hard doctrine
and many a merry jest, seated in the high-backed leather chairs which
have stood for one hundred and twenty years around the old table. Here
Mrs. Sarah Ripley fitted many a noted scholar for college in the
intervals of her housekeeping labors before the open kitchen fireplace.
In an attic room, called the Saint's chamber, from the penciled names of
honored occupants, Emerson is said to have written Nature, and
perhaps other works, as much of his time was spent in the Manse at
various periods of his life. Here Hawthorne came on his wedding tour
and lived for two happy years and wrote the Mosses from an Old
Manse and other works. In his study over the dining-room, his name is
written with a diamond on one of the little window panes, and with the
same instrument his wife has recorded on the dining-room window
annals of her daughter who was born in the house.
[Illustration: Nathaniel Hawthorne.]
On the hill opposite, the solitary poplar, the last of a group set out by

some school-girls eighty years ago, still stands. Each of its companions
died about the time of the decease of its lady planter, and as the one
who set out the present tree has lately died, the poplar suffered last year
from a stroke of lightning which may cause it to follow soon.
Nearly opposite the Manse on the road toward the village is the well
preserved house, formerly the home of Elisha Jones, which bears in the
L the mark of a bullet fired into it on the day of Concord fight. On the
same side of the way a little farther down is a house, a portion of which
was built by Humphrey Barrett as early as 1640. As the route of the
retreating British from the bridge is followed for half a mile down this
road the common is reached, which is bounded on the Northern end by
the stores, from which the British took flour and other Continental
supplies, and at the opposite end stands Wright tavern which the gallant
Pitcairn immortalized by stirring his