06/17/2026
🏡 Places to Go: The Old Manse | Concord, MA
Few houses in America have witnessed quite so much. Built in 1770 by Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandparents, Rev. William and Phebe Bliss Emerson, the Old Manse stood just 150 yards from the North Bridge, where its residents witnessed the "shot heard 'round the world" in 1775.
The house's literary legacy runs just as deep. Emerson lived here in 1834-35 and wrote his groundbreaking essay "Nature" within its walls, the very essay that inspired a young Henry David Thoreau to begin keeping a journal after Emerson posed the simple question, "Do you keep a journal?" In 1842, Thoreau and his Black neighbor John Garrison planted a kitchen garden at the Old Manse as a wedding gift for its new tenants, Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, with whom Thoreau struck up a lasting friendship.
The house also welcomed Mary Moody Emerson, born here in 1774, who returned decades later to share spirited conversations on nature, women's rights, and abolition with Thoreau, who called her "the wittiest and most vivacious woman that I know."
Since 1939, the Old Manse has been preserved by The Trustees, who welcome visitors to explore its rich history today.
📍 269 Monument Street, Concord, MA
Plan your visit at freedomsway.org
