We went to Concord and Lexington to see where the American Revolution started. What we had not realized was that a second American Revolution also started here - a literary revolution.
As mentioned in a previous post, this is "The Old Manse" where Rev. William Emerson, the Father of Ralph Waldo Emerson watched the Battle of Concord. It was also home to Nathaniel Hawthorne for a period. To the left of the house, not shown in this photo is a small vegetable garden. The original garden was planted for Hawthorne by Henry David Thoreau.
As we drove along the Concord Turnpike, we passed this house once belonging to Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that he considered Emerson to be the author of America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence".
Emerson once asked his friend Henry David Thoreau if he kept a diary. That conversation was, perhaps, the inspiration for Thoreau's best known work On Walden Pond. This is a reproduction of Thoreau's Walden Pond cabin.
Penny has always been fascinated by intellectual people. Here, she tries to get better acquainted with Thoreau. He seems to be trying to explain some great principle to her.
This is Walden Pond. It's easy to see why Thoreau was so taken by it. Wonder what he would think today. It was full of families swimming and boating.
One of the pillars of the Concord intellectual community was Amos Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott. He is often called the father of transcendentalism in America. This is his Concord School of Philosophy.
This is the house of the Alcott family. Nathaniel Hawthorne helped them purchase it after the failure of Bronson Alcott's Utopian community "Fruitlands".
If only walls could talk. This is the Wayside. Nathaniel Hawthorne purchased it from Bronson Alcott when the Alcotts moved to Fruitlands. Alcott called the house Hillside. Here, Louisa May Alcott and her sisters lived while she formulated, from their lives, the characters in her best known work Little Women. Other famous residents were Samuel Whitney, Muster Master of the Concord Militia, and John Winthrop, not the governor of Massachusetts, but his great-great-grandson, the scientist, called by some the father of seismology. It was eventually purchased by Daniel and Harriett Lothrop who later donated it to the National Park Service. Harriet Lothrop is better known by her nom-de-plume, Margaret Sidney, author of several children's books including The Five Little Peppers.
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery lies just outside of town. The locals will tell you that it was named after Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York, inspiration for Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. A little research, however indicates that the area had been called Sleepy Hollow at least twenty years prior to its development as a cemetery. One section of the cemetery is known as Author's Ridge. Here on Author's Ridge is the grave of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Not far from Emerson's grave is the Thoreau family plot. Penny commented that Henry David Thoreau would have appreciated the simplicity of his headstone.
Almost directly across the walking path from Thoreau's grave is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. This is his footstone. His headstone is identical. Note the coins, shells, etc. on his stone.
Also here is the Alcott family plot. This is Louisa May Alcott's grave. Also buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery are Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the Concord Minuteman and several other well known statues, and designer of the Pulitzer Prize gold medal. In addition, to famous authors and artists, Sleepy Hollow is also the final resting place of Ephraim Wales Bull who developed the Concord grape from native grape varieties. Maybe a teacher told us that Concord was a hotbed of intellectualism, but that tidbit didn't stick, so discovering all this history was a nice surprise.
While Mark Twain's work came upon the American literary scene several years later, it was revolutionary in its own right. A few days after our Concord trip, we journeyed to Hartford, Connecticut. This was what we came to see. No, this statue of Samuel Clements, AKA, Mark Twain, is not out of focus. It was made of Legos. Eat your hearts out Brent and Tyler. 
This is the Clements home in Hartford. Here, he was at his most productive, penning his best known works. Many considered its flamboyant architecture a poke in the community eye, but Clements loved it. The interior is no less interesting and flamboyant than the exterior, but photographs were not allowed there.
To the right is the carriage house of the Clements family. To the left is that of Harriett Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
This photograph of Harriet Beecher Stowe's house was taken from the Clements' carriageway. Unlike the rich interaction within the Concord authors' community, Stowe, forty years Samuel Clements' senior, was only a friend and neighbor. This community, known as Nook Farm, was, however, a great center of intellectual thought and discussion. This atmosphere undoubtedly contributed to Mark Twain's productivity while he was living here.
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