The Old Manse
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Old Manse
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The Old Manse, as seen from Monument Street
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| Location | Concord, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°28′6″N 71°20′58″W / 42.46833°N 71.34944°WCoordinates: 42°28′6″N 71°20′58″W / 42.46833°N 71.34944°W |
| Built | 1769 |
| Architect | Unknown |
| Architectural style | Georgian |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000775 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | December 29, 1962 |
The Old Manse is a historic manse in Concord, Massachusetts, United States famous for its American historical and literary associations. It is open to the public as a nonprofit museum owned and operated by the Trustees of Reservations. The house is located on Monument Street, with the Concord River just behind it. The property neighbors the North Bridge, a part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
The Old Manse was built in 1770 for the Rev. William Emerson, father of minister William Emerson and grandfather of transcendentalist writer and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson. The elder Rev. Emerson was the town minister in Concord, chaplain to the Provincial Congress when it met at Concord in October 1774 and later a chaplain to the Continental Army. Emerson observed the fight at the North Bridge, a part of the Concord Fight, from his farm fields while his wife and children witnessed the fight from the upstairs windows of their house.
Emerson died in October 1775 in West Rutland, Vermont, while returning home from Fort Ticonderoga. His widow, Phebe Emerson, remarried to the Rev. Ezra Ripley, who succeeded Emerson as the minister at First Parish Church in Concord. Their family continued to live in the Old Manse. Ripley served as Concord's town minister for 63 years.
In October 1834, Ralph Waldo Emerson moved to Concord and boarded at the Manse where he lived with his aging step-grandfather Ezra Ripley. He shared the home with his mother Ruth, his brothers Charles, and his aunt Mary. While there, he wrote the first draft of his essay "Nature", a foundational work of the Transcendentalist movement. Also while living at the Old Manse, on January 24, 1835, Emerson proposed in a letter to Lydia Jackson. After their marriage, they moved elsewhere in Concord, to a home he named "Bush", now known as the Ralph Waldo Emerson House.
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