The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1852-11-03

fields, river hills and streams that you see around
yeu hero, were those in the mind Of Emerson
When he wrete his q Nature" and other works offs
kindred character. Mr.. Hawthorne lives hero
cannot say that much admire his taste in changing
Lenox for Concord, though it is probable that the
long standing friendship between him and Mr..
Emerson had more than anything else to do with
the charge. Here he wrote his :" Life OF franklin
PIERCE" and here he finished the Blithedale
Romance" which, according to some persons who
sbsl be psmeless, contains great many real char
acteTs-Lenobia being no less parsonage than the
late Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Another notabiity is
Wiihsm Ellery Claiming, who is supposed to have
great powers but who lacks that gift of expression
without which all other gifts are given IN vain. If
Homer would only have thought the Iiliad, Of what
use would his genius have been to the xorld! Mrs.
Charming is q sister of Signora Ossoli. Mr. Alcott,
of Orphic Sayings memory, did reside here but he Is
now In the broad and unrom ante region elsewhere
Here be was incarcerated in Jail, by that imam
Of WRATH" Sam. Staples, because he would not pay
that intolerable imposition of tyranny-a poll
tax There are many queer visiters TO Concord, az
tracted by the fame of Emerson and by the charac-
ter Of the place "Never," rs Hawthorne said years
ago. 'was poor little country village infested with
such variety Of queer, strangely dressed, oddly be-
hayed mortals, most Of whom took upon themselves
to be important agents Of the worlds destinies, yet
were simply bores of very intense water.''
But it is not merely reformers of the queer stamp
that to be found here. Practical politicians are
very abundant doubt if there is another town in
the United States, of anything like the same size,
Wnlcn mas an equhl NUMBER puDIlc Objects Euu
ofice-holders. There is here an ex-member Of
Congress. an ex-Judge of the Common Pleas Court,
q Judge Of that Court Trial Justice, Eve ex-State
Senators. "a sixth died but q few weeks ago. the
a State Councillor. an ex-State Councillor, the
Chief Clerk Of the State Treasury, Custom house
officer, SC. One of the present candidates for
Congress resides here. Most Of the county and
district conventions are held here, by all parties
There were six political conventions held here last
week. The Middlesex County Agricultural and
Manufacturing Fair is held annually in Concord;
and the display of fruit at the last fair was the finest
ever made in New England. The etc Temperance men,
tions here The Court of Common Pleas sits here
several times in the course of the year The Su-
preme Court used to hold ono Of its terms in
Concord.
In politics, Concord is decidedly democratic, and
believe it has always been So In 1913 there were
but sixty-two wing votes cast here, the remainder
being divided between democrats and free sellers.
The democrats had plurality even during the
height of the free soil storm
Concord's historical place is DUE, as you well
know, to the fact that the war of the Revolution
commenced in her midst, and on the banks OF the
placid stream that bears her name. About quar-
ter of mile from the centre of the town stands o
small but very handsome granite obelisk, on which
is inscribed the important fact that here, on the
10Th of April, l775, was made the first forcibe re-
sistance to the British arms There has long been
dispute, which, presume, will last until the end of
time, whether resistance was first made to the
English in Concord or ut Lexington All that is
certain is, that the English fred first at the Amer
leans in Lexington, which fire the Lexington men
say was returned, while the Concord advocates say
it was not. A third party has come in, and claims
the honor for the town Of Acton, about five miles
above Concord 1t was an Acton man, Capt Davis,
who was first slain at Concord bridge by the Eng
lish. monument was last year erected to his
memory, ut Acton. by the State government. Hard
by the Concord monument, and close to the wall
that divides what is called :. the battle ground !"
from the Estate Of the Ripley family, is the grave Of
the first two British soldiers slain in the great
for our Independence g Soon," says Hawthorne,
"was their warfare ended-a weary night march
from Boston, rafting volley Of musketry across
the river-and then these many years Of rest In
the long procession of slain invaders who passed
into eternity from the battlefeds of the revolution
these two nameless soldiers led the way
That house on your left, ss you stand on the bat
tie ground with your face to the river, and which
mas SO quiet and eminently rural an appearance,
is destined to be- rather is famous. 1t stood there
at the time of the battle, and was then inhabited
by DR.. Ripley, who died there sixty seven years
after, having, like good Father Hooper, large con-
gregation in the church and = larger one in tho
chuTchyard. Emerson wrote of his finest things
in that old, gray, embowered parsonage. There
Hawthorne wrote ~The Christmas Banquet" and
several others Of his best tales and sketches which,
from the place Of their birth, and with quantness
that Fuller or Feltham nd not have surpassed, he
called "Mosses from an Old Manse." These Moses
will remain green and fresh long after many laures
shall have withered to dust. Mr. Bancroft once
thought of living IN the old manse. 1t is just the
place for q scholar, SO calm, so scquestered, and
dreamy is 1t.
An English gentleman, who was here lately, COM
pares Concord river to the Avon. You know that
Fuller, when speaking Of tho ashes Of Wicklife
8 This brook did convey his ashes into Avon Ayon
into Severn Severn into the marrow seas they into
the main ocean. And thus the ashes OF Wickliffe
the emblsms Of his doctrine, which now il dis
AL ~ - ~ L. ~~~k~
little more of the nature of fast stream than
the Concord, then must the ashes of the great Eng
lish reforner be far enough from having made the
circumference of the earth on the wings of the
ocean The delightful author from whom have
already more than once quoted, declares that he
positively lived for three weeks on the banks of the
Avon before he clearly ascertained in which direc
tion the current flowed. have watched it by the
hour, and oudpsrure myself were to swear that
lsknew from my own observation that it had any
current whatever. This utter want of power
the part pitts river has saved Concord from what
people consider the curse and others the nuis
ancs, of factories, and left it what it was seven-pnd
seventy years ago, when it burs. upon the world
through the baptism of blood-a calm, pleasant,
rural town, inhabited by farmers and other quiet,
virtuous, kiDd-heattcd people--above the average,
even OF New England, in point of intellect and IN
telligcace-l liberal in their ideas, but not rash or
prone to innovation in their action. No town that
] have seen is better provided with trees-the elm,
especially, Astounding. part of the main street
seems 10 DC perfectly dFSn9u over WIN towering
elms. There Ia in front of tho Court House q mag
niGcent tree Of this Kind, which, in the good old
times, was used whipping post, at which that
chosen vessel of Puritan legislation the constable,
used 10 scoug &c tho devil out of (porhaps | should
say into) offenders against public order. Tho
hsmadryads mast have all fed shrieking from thet
tree NJ the incoming Of Christianity into Concord
The revolutionary services Of Concord vero far
from being confined 70 the part that her people took
in the action of the 10Th of April. To say nothing
of what her inhabitants had done towards getting
up thst revolutionary war they really heroica
in their exertions throughout the contest During
the first year OF the war the town sent seventy
men to tie army with which Wasbin gton beseged
the Euglish in Boston, and had 100 minute men
ready for service. When Washington took posses
sion OF Dorchester Heights, thus driving the enemy
forever from Massachusetts, proper, Concord sent lbs
men to bis assistance. Of the five thousand men
raised by Massachusetts ia the last half Of l776,
Concord furnished sixty-seven She sent large
quantities Of wood and hsy to Washington's army,
beside contributing money, grain, wood, aud meat,
fer tao relief Of the people of Boston. Afterwards,
la,p e1 al