EMERSON Bridging Concord’s Past and Future
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BY TAMMY ROSE
Have you found yourself wandering around Concord and wondering exactly how Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is connected to the central story of the town? The philosopher’s name is everywhere, his name connected to every story somehow. He has a connection to the Revolutionary War and was also central to planting Transcendental roots deep in Concord, anchoring it as a movement, acting as the intellectual bridge to both the past and the future. Here is a quick rundown on how his own life connects Concord’s past to its future.
A BRIDGE TO THE PAST
The Old Manse and North Bridge Emerson was born in Boston, but his family had deep ties to the Old Manse, and he would spend time there as a child. His aunt, Mary Moody Emerson (1774-1863), witnessed the “shot heard round the world” as her mother held her, watching the fight on the North Bridge from the window. She would be an influential intellectual figure in Emerson’s life, an independent scholar, and prolific letter writer herself. Emerson was educated at Harvard, where he graduated at the exact middle of his class. He became a minister, got married, and was, sadly, widowed shortly after. This shook him to his core. He had come from a long line of ministers but no longer believed in acting the role of the religious go-between for people’s spiritual needs. He left his formal religious ministry in Boston in 1832 and, like many people pondering a life crisis and career switch, he traveled around
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Ralph Waldo Emerson by Frederick Gutekunst, 1875
America and Europe. In October of 1834, his wanderings led him back to his origins, and he moved to the Old Manse in Concord, where his new life would begin. He was living with his elderly stepgrandfather, Ezra Ripley, as he began to write his first major work, Nature. Emerson put into words the idea that the divine can be found in the natural world and did not need the intervention of traditional religious ceremonies or appointed holy people. It would form the basis of thought behind the movement of Transcendentalism, and so the second Concord revolution would begin, on hallowed ground, in view of the base of the North Bridge.
The Emerson Residence When he chose to establish his home with his second wife, Lidian, he bought the house called Bush in 1835, centrally located across the street from the building that now houses the Concord Museum. The Transcendental Club began meeting in 1836, just as Nature was being published, and continued at various locations, including Emerson’s house, until 1840, when the members transitioned more into publication and formed the magazine The Dial to join their thoughts together in print. Emerson hired Margaret Fuller (18101850) to edit the magazine, although she was never paid for her work. He would soon get to know the locals, including an eager young Harvard graduate who was well on his way to becoming a Townie. Emerson asked him if he kept a journal, and Henry David Thoreau would go on to write two million words in the journal alone, as well as several books and essays. Emerson’s presence attracted other intellectuals, including the Alcotts who moved to Concord in 1840 and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who took up residence at the Old Manse in 1842. Emerson and Walden Woods Even though Thoreau’s vision of Walden seems to be the one in the spotlight today, Emerson was key in granting him the use of the land and in preserving the land itself. Emerson was in the habit of walking out to Walden once or twice a week and reading on its shore. He took inspiration for his early Transcendental writings from those walks.
