The Old Manse was built by Concord's patriot minister William Emerson in 1770. Emerson both responded to, and wrote about, the alarm of April 19, 1775, which sent colonists and British regulars to their historic encounter on the adjacent North Bridge.

Six decades later, the reverend's grandson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, began writing Nature, for his second floor study here, overlooking the site of the North Bridge. While at the Old Manse, Emerson wrote The Concord Hymn, which lyrically recreated the opening scenes of the battle at North Bridge and "the shot heard round the world."

Emerson was not the only author to live at the Old Manse. Young writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia Peabody spent what they claimed were the "three happiest years" of their lives, from 1842 through 1844, in the home. Hawthorne wrote sixteen works here, including Mosses from an Old Manse, in which he immortalized this beloved home.

The Old Manse
269 Monument Street
Concord, MA 01742
(978) 369-3909
Website: www.thetrustees.org/theoldmanse.cfm

Hours: Mid April - October: Monday-Saturday, 10:00 - 5:00; Sunday and holidays, 12:00 - 5:00.