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Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2000 Census, the town population was about 17,000. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature. History
Concord was first settled in 1635 and was officially incorporated in that same year. The Battle of Lexington and Concord was the initial conflict in the American Revolutionary War. On April 19th, 1775, a force of British Army regulars marched from Boston to Concord to capture a cache of arms that was reportedly stored in the town. Forewarned of the British troop movements, colonists from Concord and surrounding towns repulsed a British detachment at the Old North Bridge and forced the British troops to retreat. The battle was initially publicized by the colonists as an example of British brutality and aggression. A century later, however, the conflict was remembered proudly by Americans, taking on an almost mythical, patriotic quality in works like the Concord Hymn and Paul Revere's Ride. Concord has a remarkably rich literary history centered in the mid-nineteenth century. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), whose father Rev. William Emerson (1769–1811) grew up in Concord before becoming an eminent Boston minister, moved to the town in 1835 and became one of its leading citizens. Emerson, a successful lecturer and philosopher, lured many like-minded Transcendentalists to Concord. Among them were the authors Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) and the philosopher Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), the father of Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). A native Concordian, Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), was another notable member of Emerson's circle. This substantial collection of literary talent in one small town led Henry James to dub Concord "the biggest little place in America." Emerson's many essays, including Self-Reliance (1841), Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women (1868), and Hawthorne's story collection Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) were among the products of this intellectually stimulating environment. Thoreau famously lived in a small cabin on nearby Walden Pond, where he wrote Walden (1854); after being imprisoned in the Concord jail for refusing to pay taxes in political protest, Thoreau penned the influential essay Civil Disobedience (1849). Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Alcott are buried on Authors' Ridge in Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. The Wayside house, which was occupied by scientist John Winthrop (1714–1779) when Harvard College was temporarily moved to Concord during the Revolutionary War, was later the home of Bronson and Louisa May Alcott (when it was called Hillside), who sold it to Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1852 and named it The Wayside. Nathaniel Hawthorne had previously lived in The Old Manse. The Alcotts moved into The Orchard House in 1858. Today, The Wayside and The Orchard House are both museums. Ephraim Bull developed the now-ubiquitous Concord grape at his home on Lexington Road, where the original vine still grows. Welch's, the first company to sell grape juice, maintains a small headquarters in Concord. Research Tips
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