Transcendentalism Council of First Parish in Concord (MA)

05/28/2026

In his new book, Reverend Dr. Jim Sherblom gives a unique perspective on Concord history, examining the lives of people that previous historians ignored. Jim Sherblom is a transcendentalist, amateur historian, retired Unitarian Universalist minister, and resident of Concord.
Please join us in the Sanctuary of First Parish in Concord or on Zoom. For details and registration, go to tinyurl.com/ConcordStories2, click the Get Tickets button, and choose In Person or Online.

04/27/2026

Hot off the press, “Thoreau and Philosophy,” is a collection of essays co-edited by Prof. Marc Jolley. Marc will be in Concord to talk about this volume on October 25 for the Concord Festival of Authors—save the date. Watch the page for the Transcendentalism Council of First Parish in Concord where you’ll find complete details as the date draws closer.

Contributors to this book include Marc himself, Brent Ranalli, J. Drew Lanham, Henrik Otterberg, and many others familiar to the Thoreauvian community.

Congratulations, Marc!

04/26/2026

When President Ulysses S. Grant and his cabinet came to Concord in 1875 to celebrate the centennial of the "shot heard 'round the world," of course they visited the Town's most distinguished citizen, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar--U.S. Congressman, antislavery activist, preserver of the Wright Tavern, procurer of the bronze to make Daniel Chester French's Minuteman statue, and Grant's Attorney General.

Join Concord historian Richard Smith this Thursday, April 30, as he tells the multigenerational story of Judge Hoar and his remarkable clan. The lecture will be at First Parish in Concord at 7:00 p.m. For details and registration, go to https://tinyurl.com/HoarFamily and click the Get Tickets button.

[Left image shows President U.S. Grant in front of Judge Hoar's house, April 19, 1875, with members of his cabinet: George Boutwell, Zachariah Chandler, George M. Robinson, Hamilton Fish, and 2 unidentified others. Source: Ulysses S. Grant Cottage National Historic Site. Right image shows that house as it looks today on the campus of the Concord Academy. Source: Google Maps.]

02/11/2026

ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT TO REGISTER FOR KATE CULKIN'S LECTURE ON ELLEN EMERSON!
Ellen Emerson had a lifelong devotion to her home town of Concord, but she also had far-flung adventures in California, Europe, Egypt, and in the Azores. She took special delight in the last of these, and in 1876 she got a donkey from the Azores. She called the donkey Graciosa and declared she had “such a pretty face as no donkey ever had before." Ellen enjoyed riding her around town and even gave donkey rides to her Sunday School students.
Hear this and many more stories of Ralph Waldo Emerson's eldest daughter at Kate Culkin's lecture “'I Must Stay Where I Belong': Ellen Emerson, Faith, and First Parish in Concord" on Thursday, February 26. Go to tinyurl.com/ellenemerson for details and registration.

Image source: "The Letters of Ellen Tucker Emerson" edited by Edith W. Gregg, via the Concord Museum

01/28/2026

ONLY 4 WEEKS LEFT TO REGISTER

Kate Culkin's study of Ralph Waldo Emerson's family brings his eldest daughter, Ellen Tucker Emerson, out of the shadow of her celebrity father. Ellen edited Waldo's essays for publication, co-authored "A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson" (1887), and authored a biography of her mother, Lidian Jackson Emerson. Ellen taught Sunday school at First Parish in Concord for 40 years and was the first woman to serve on Concord’s School Committee.

Come join Kate Culkin on Thursday, February 26, as she examines this remarkable Concord woman at the meetinghouse of Ellen's beloved First Parish in Concord. See link below for details and registration (in person or livestreamed).

First Parish in Concord played a central role in the life of Ellen Tucker Emerson, the elder daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

07/21/2025

In this 2019 video, BBC’s Lucy Worsley visits First Parish in Concord at around the 3:00 mark. Our choir sings Emerson’s Concord Hymn around 3:10.

Could the United States have won the Revolutionary War without France?Join Lucy Worsley as she uncovers the forgotten truth behind the 1775–1783 American War...

07/19/2025

In the spring of 1850, Margaret Fuller wrote to friends in the U.S. that she planned to return to her home country. She had lived in Italy for three years, where she witnessed—and took part in—the rise and fall of the Roman Republic. She told them she would bring a “great history” she was writing of those events.

In May, she boarded a three-masted merchant ship, the Elizabeth, accompanied by her toddler son Angelo and the boy’s father, Giovanni Ossoli. They braced themselves for a voyage that could take two months or longer.

Things went badly from the beginning. A week out, the captain died of smallpox, and an inexperienced first mate assumed command. Angelo got smallpox, too, but he recovered.

175 years ago, on July 19, 1851, the Elizabeth broke up on the rocks in a storm within sight of Fire Island, New York. Margaret and Giovanni were lost, and only the drowned body of their son was recovered.

Margaret Fuller was only 40 years old, but in that short life she had earned an international reputation as an author, editor, journalist, educator, feminist, and influential voice for racial justice, native rights, and prison reform.

Image: “The Deaths Of Margaret Fuller Her Husband Marquis Angelo Ossoli And Their Child In A Shipwreck Off Fire Island New York 19 July 1850,” 19th Century engraving.

06/18/2025

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Richard Smith’s lecture, “Men and Women Good and True: Concord and the Civil War,” will not be presented on June 19. It will be rescheduled for a date to be announced. The Transcendentalism Council of First Parish apologizes for any inconvenience.

10/20/2024

10/14/2024

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day. One important figure in the story of the place now called Concord, MA, is the Saunksqua of Mystic. She was born around 1585 into a leading family of the Mystic clan of the Massachusetts nation. She married Nanepashemet, the supreme sachem of the Massachusetts tribe, and upon his death in 1619, she succeeded to the Massachusetts sachemship.

English records state that she was present in 1637 when English colonizers gave the people of Musketaquid some metal tools, English clothing, and other trade goods with the intent of purchasing the land and changing its name to Concord.

We know her only by her title, Saunksqua of Mystic. The English chroniclers never bothered to learn her name. They referred to her by the patronizing term “Squaw Sachem.” As a result, we know few details of her life. But we can infer the importance of her role in native society by reading what Amherst College Professor Lisa Brooks (whose own heritage is Abenaki) has written about another powerful native woman in 17th-Century New England.

“Weetamoo [also called Namumpum, was] recognized . . . as ‘true heir’ to the Pocasset sachemship . . . An influential Wampanoag diplomat, Weetamoo presented a political and cultural challenge to the Puritan men who confronted her authority . . . She played a key role and forged alliances during the infamous colonial conflict known as ‘King Philip’s War.’ One Puritan chronicler portrayed her ‘as potent a Prince as any round about her’ with ‘as much corn, land, and men, at her command as Metacom,’ insisting she was ‘much more forward in the Design and had greater success than King Philip himself.’” [King Philip was the name the English used for the sachem Metacom.]

The image shown here is a 1913 sculpture by artist Cyrus E. Dallin representing the Saunksqua of Mystic. The figure is part of the Robbins Memorial Flagstaff in Arlington, MA.