St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1892-03-24
Written for the CALEDoNIAN.1
A GLIMPSE AT CONCORD.

Like most people who have read
good deal, | had long wanted to
visit Concord, the Concord of historic
fame, the Concord of Emerson, Haw-
thorne, Thoreau, the hlcotts, and a
score of lesser literary lights.
In that wish 1 was not alone, for
of all the villages of New England
there is not another whose fame is
so wide; while the number who have
read its literature is so vast that only
a minority ever succeed in seeing the
place for themselves.
But one day in the long Indian
summer of last year, when mild,
warm haze filled the landscape with
mellow light, my friend and | set
out from Boston and were carried
past the hills of Arlington and the
fields of Lexington, into a region far
enough from the city to be farming
country still, with wide meadows,
large barns, orchards and farm
houses, some of the latter of modern
style, others of various dates for a
century and half. We were left at
small station on the outskirts of
Concord, with the houses and spires
of the village rising from among the
trees south of us, quiet slum bering
place, where we thought to wander
and let its famous dwellings, so
familiar in pictures, surprise us in the
new setting of their reality. We had
not gone far when we came to tab
let set in the stone wall which en-
closed garden, and it told US of
some colonial event. There are sever
al such memorial stones in Concord,
for this is a place with a history to
be proud of, and point to. But aside
from it's history and associat tons it
is prosaic place, not worth going
far to see, and its surroundings are
not interesting to one used to the
wide Out-lOoks of Vermont villages
A wide open space where a green
enclosure surrounds a soldiers monu-
ment, here an obe1isk, in the centre of
the village, and around it are churches,
a court house, a school building,
large tavern, which seemed to be
empty, and near it another, square
rooted and weather-worn, whose
huge chimney bears the date of its
erection, 1715. This is an ancient
landmark, Wright's Tavern, famous
for century and three-quarters for
its good cheer, where Pitcairn made
merry with his officers on that April
day which gave the village half it's
fame. Almost pushing into the
square from the south is long ridge
and behind the houses the hillside is
set thickly with ancient grave stones
as if they had grown up there like
grain.
Of the five or six roads which turn
off at various points from the COM
mon, we chose the Boston road"
which goes southwark, skirting the
ridge. Here are the older homes,
some half buried in the hillside,
fronting the road with it's double row
of elms, looking across it to the wide
fields west. Many of them seem to
have altered little since their d wellers
looked out from them upon the march
of the red coats. One of these,
which seemed to have settled into the
ground with weight of years have
sign which indicated some sort Of
antiquarian collection. and so we
piled the fashioned knocker and
were welcomed by Mr.. c. E. Davis,
the Concord antiquary. An ancient
house it is, with winding passages
and stairways steep and crooked,
low ceilings crossed by beams over
head; and with some of its rooms a
step lower or higher than the other on
the same floor. l have seen a good
many collections OF relics, but no.
where else quite such an assemblage
of waits and stravs from colonial
times as Mr.. Davis has gathered into
these rooms; every article of domestic
use in those days seems to be repre-
sented here Crockery enough to
stock a store covers the tables and is
displayed in curious corner cupboards
some of the pieces are very rare,
others are valued from their associ-
ations. Here are tables and chairs,
still firm and solid in their old age,
and on the walls among the pictures
hang portraits of men and women,
famous in Concord once There were