Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-07-21
IN H|STOR|C CONCORD
Many Revolutionary Houses
Still Preserved.
HOME OF NOTED WRITER'S
Interesting Places on the Road From
Worcester.
WAYSIDE INN RESTORED
WAYSIDE INN RESTORED
Chronicles of the Town Related by
Licensed Guides, Only Instance
of the Kind in America.
BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence OF The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.

Special Correspondence OF The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.
CONCORD. Mass, July II, 1911.
You can go from Worcester to Boston
by automobile over two or three routes.
The distance is forty-flve miles by the old
New York post road, which the state
highway commission has covered with
a mixture of crude petroleum and crush
ed stone until it has a surface like rub
Der, as smooth as a floor. By that route
you pass through Milbury, where the an
cestors of President Taft lived and -four
ished and where his Aunt Della Torrey
still occupies the family mansion. You
can also visit Natick. where Henry VIII
son, cobbler's son, who became senator
and Vice President OF the United States,
was born and reared. You can visit
Wellesley and see the Women's College
III it's glorious setting of foliage and lawn,
and Brookline, the most aristocratic and
beautiful suburb of Boston, or you can
go around by way Of Concord, a lovely
little town, which has more historic and
literary associations than any other in
the United States, and has an abiding
interest to everybody, because it was the
scene of the first battle of the American
revolution, and the home Of Hawthorne,
Emerson, Thoreau and the Alcotts, and
the scene of the story Little Women
which every girl of the last generation
could repeat from memory.
The Concord route Is about ten miles
longer. The journey can be made in two
or three hours either way. but everybody
ought to take an entire day for it, there
are so many interesting places to see.
In no part of the country can you find
so many interesting things In so short a
distance. Everybody notices the resem-
blance OF the nomenclature to that of
England. Every village has an ancient
English name because 1t was the habit of
the first settlers to call the new town
after the old one they had come from.
Shrewsbury Is the first place Of interest
east Of Worcester and 1t Is famous,
with other things, as tho birthplace of
a certain Levi Pease. whose epitaph,
written by some irreverent old punster,
says that che burst his SHELF and went
to his reward.
Eli Whitney, the Yankee schoolmaster.
who went down to Augusta, Ga, and
there invented the cotton gin.
Southboro is the center of one of
the richest agricultural sections of New
England. The township contains two
hundred fertile farms. Nowhere is farm
ing carried on with such comfort and lux
ury; nowhere are the farm homes SO at
tractive in their spotless white paint and
their dark, cool green blinds; nowhere
the mows SO we'll filled with scented hay.
The Wayside Inn.
Just beyond Sudbury, which Is one Of
string of lovely little villages. Is 1.-The
Wayside Inn,' immortalized by Long
fellow in book Of poems. When he was
in his prime the coterie of poets and
authors who made a rendezvous Of the
to go there to spend their vacations,
travelling by stage from Cambridge, and
there they found rest and congenial sur
roundings, and during the cool autumn
evenings sat by the fresdde and told the
stories that Longfellow has related in
his Tales of Wayside Inn."
The inn Is twenty Eight miles from
Boston 1t was built by David Howe as
a tavern in 1856. and was kept in sue
cesson by four generations of Howes-
David, Ezekiel, Adam and Lyman-thirty
or forty years by each of them. But
when Squire Howe, as Lyman was gen
orally known, died, in 1851. there was no
one to take his place. The civil war
had denoralized things SO much that
there was little to attract either a land
lord or guest and the inn was closed
for thirty-five years. In 1898 the proper
ty was purchased and repaired and busi-
ness was resumed by r. r.. Lemon. who
Is keeping 1t still. Mrs Lemon has fur
fished the house In colonial style, very
much as it must have been 125 years
ago. when Washington spent several
nights there and Ezekiel Howe. the sec
ond of the landlords. was colonel in the
Massachusetts militia.
From Sudbury to Concord the road.
shaded by tall elms and other trees, runs
through series of gardens and farms
that grow vegetables. berries and fruit
for the Boston market You enter Con-
cord through a tunnel of foliage. and 1t
is the best plan to turn off the power OF
the automobile in front OF Wright's Tav
ern, facing the common, where the Brit
ish officers were quartered the night be-
fore the Concord fight. You will scarce
ly have shaken the dust off your Shout
ders before a licensed guide of solemn
pore, will appear and offer his services
to show you about the town and give
you a lecture in American history that
Is we'll worth hearing.
Licensed Guides Of Concord.
Concord is the only place In America.
so far as | know. where licensed guides
are furnished guaranteed to be learned
and accurate and to preserve that deco
rum which the traditions Of the place
demand. In the European cities the IL
censed guides have one story, and II
they depart from it they are immedi-
ately submerged in the sloughs of their
own ignorance, but Concords guides are
SO thoroughly Informed as to the history
OF their town and the careers of the
men who have made 1t famous that they
will stand a cross-examination better than
any expert witness l have ever seen in
court.
European guides, as rule, can tell you
nothing beyond a certain statement which
has been prepared for and committed to
memory by them. They cannot give you
any further information, because they
haven't 1t to give.
1t is favorite pastime Of American
tourists in Europe to nag the guides they
find In every city. by asking irrelevant
questions on all sorts of subjects, serious
and ridiculous. ! once heard an American
in the beautiful Cathedral Of st. Marks
in Venice arguing with his guide as to
the cause Of the undulations in the tile
floor. which is very irregular. The guide
mad explained that 1t was due to the fact
that the earth upon which the tiles were
laid was softer in some places than 1t was
in others, but the American commended
that the contrary was the case; that it
was because the earth was harder in GER
tain spots than it was In others. The guide,
who hadn't the slightest comprehension
Of the digerence in terms. insisted upon
his theory and declared that he had the
authority of scientific men who had
given the subject years Of study. but the
American drove him almost into hys-