The Old Manse Totally Explained

Everything about The Old Manse totally explained

The Old Manse is an historic house famous for its American literary associations. It is located beside the North Bridge over the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts, and now owned and operated as a nonprofit museum by the Trustees of Reservations.

History

The Old Manse was built in 1770 by Rev. William Emerson, father of noted minister Rev. William Emerson and grandfather of famous transcendentalist writer and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson. The builder was the town minister in Concord, chaplain to the Provincial Congress when it met at Concord in October 1774 and later a chaplain to the Continental Army. Rev. Emerson observed the fight at the North Bridge, a part of the Concord Fight, from his farm fields while his wife and children witnessed the fight from the upstairs windows of their house.
Rev. Emerson died in October 1775 in West Rutland, Vermont, while returning home from Fort Ticonderoga. His widow remarried, to the Rev. Ezra Ripley, and the family continued to live in the Old Manse. Rev. Ripley served as Concord's town minister for 63 years.
In 1842, the famous American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne rented the Old Manse. He and his new bride, transcendentalist Sophia Peabody, moved in as newlyweds. Friend Henry David Thoreau created a vegetable garden for the couple. The Hawthornes lived in the house for three years. In the upstairs room that Hawthorne used as his study, one can still view affectionate sentiments that the two etched into the window panes. The inscription reads:

Man's accidents are God's purposes. Sophia A. Hawthorne 1843
Nath Hawthorne This is his study
The smallest twig leans clear against the sky
Composed by my wife and written with her diamond
Inscribed by my husband at sunset, April 3 1843. In the Gold light.
SAH

Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) contains his description of the house as well as a number of short stories he wrote while living there.
The house remained in use by the Emerson-Ripley family until 1939, and was donated to the Trustees of Reservations in 1945. The house was donated complete with all its furnishings, and contains a remarkable collection of furniture, books, kitchen implements, dishware, and other items, as well as original wallpaper, woodwork, windows and architectural features.
The Old Manse was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and a Massachusetts Archaeological/Historic Landmark the same year.

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