Old Manse

Concord, MA

The Old Manse is ¼ of a mile from the Concord Bridge and its occupants witnessed the fighting there on 19 April 1775.

Built for the patriot minister William Emerson and his family in 1770, the Old Manse is historic not only for its connection to the Battle of Lexington / Concord, but also for its connection to later generations. For awhile Ralph Waldo Emerson, the grandson of William Emerson lived there with his family. Nathaniel Hawthorne resided there with his new bride, Sophia, during the years 1842 - 45. In fact, the current name of the house comes from Hawthorne’s collection of tales Mosses from an Old Manse (1846).

The outdoor vegetable garden is a recreation of the garden that Henry David Thoreau first planted for the Hawthorne’s, in honor of their wedding.

Monticello was a working plantation, and Jefferson was eager to make it pay. His slaves may have been members of his family, but they were units of production as well. Everywhere on his plantation he sought to eliminate pockets of idleness. If a slave was too old or too sick to work in the fields, he or she was put to tending the vegetable gardens or to cooking in the quarters. When one of his former head men named Nace became ill, Jefferson ordered that he be entirely kept from labour until he recovers; nevertheless, Nace was to spend his days indoors shelling corn or making shoes or baskets. Jefferson was willing to prescribe lighter work for women who were pregnant or raising infant children because they were actually breeding more property; thus, said Jefferson, a child raised every 2 years is of more profit than the crop of the best laboring man. This is one of the times, he said, when providence has made our interest and our duties coincide perfectly.

— Gordon S. Wood

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)