Egg Rock
| Egg Rock | |
| Historic Landmark | |
 View of Egg Rock around 1900, from "The History of Concord, Massachusetts", 1904
|
|
| Name origin: Located on egg-shaped intermittent island; rock outcropping may appear egg-shaped from some perspectives | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State | Massachusetts |
| County | Middlesex |
| Town | Concord |
| Landmarks | Old North Bridge, Old Manse |
| Rivers | Concord River, Sudbury River, Assabet River |
| Elevation | 39 m (128 ft) |
| Coordinates | 42°27′54.36″N 71°21′30.6″W / 42.4651000°N 71.358500°WCoordinates: 42°27′54.36″N 71°21′30.6″W / 42.4651000°N 71.358500°W |
| Lowest point | |
| - elevation | 32 m (105 ft) |
| Length | .1 km (0 mi), NE-SW |
| Width | .05 km (0 mi), NW-SE |
| Geology | Straw Hollow Diorite |
| Period | Silurian |
| Owner | Concord, Massachusetts |
| For public | yes, via small boat or 1-km round-trip walk on dirt path |
| Easiest access | From Nashawtuc Rd. in Concord, walk 200 m along Squaw Sachem Trail to path on right, then 300 m to Egg Rock; less accessible during high water periods |
  Location of Egg Rock in Concord, Massachusetts
|
|
Egg Rock is an outcrop of Silurian Straw Hollow Diorite at the confluence of the Assabet and Sudbury rivers, where they form the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts. The outcrop is located on a roughly oval intermittent island of about 100 by 50 meters. Egg Rock is usually accessible using foot trails over land, but during high river levels the island is separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. The highest point of Egg Rock is about 39 meters above mean sea level and about 6 meters above normal river level.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) includes Egg Rock as GNIS feature 617309, classified as an island. In the GNIS database as of February 2010, the listed position (latitude 42.4645383, longitude -71.3592266) is misplaced by about 125 meters to the southwest, and is not actually located on the intermittent island. A more correct position is latitude 42.4651, longitude -71.3585.
Egg Rock is perhaps most notable for the inscription carved into the rock in 1885 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the 1635 founding of Concord:
On the hill Nashawtuck
at the meeting of the rivers
and along the banks
lived the Indian owners of
Musketaquid
before the white men came
The significance of the inscription would have been clear to most people familiar with local lore at the time it was carved, although it may seem cryptic now to many people who are unfamiliar with Concord's history and geography. The native Massachusett tribe used the Algonquian name Musketaquid for the surrounding area and its riverside meadows; the Algonquian word for grass is muskeht. The Concord River and even the town of Concord were often called Musketaquid by writers in the nineteenth century, as may be noted in Henry David Thoreau's comment quoted below. The principal local settlement of the Massachusett tribe which remained in 1635 (after plague decimated the original population in the preceding two decades) was nearby on the gentle slopes of Nashawtuc Hill, whose crest is about 500 meters southwest of Egg Rock. Negotiations initiated by Simon Willard with leaders of the tribe gave English settlers the right to live in the area, which came to be called Concord.
...
Wikipedia