Concord Museum

The Concord Museum (in Concord, Massachusetts, naturally) is a small local history museum, in an area rich in local history. Concord has earned a place on the map for both our country’s political history and our literary history. The museum’s collection was started around 1850 by Cummings Davis, though the museum wasn’t founded until 1886.

Concord, along with Lexington, was the scene of the conflicts that triggered the American Revolution in April 1775 (though whether Concord or Lexington is where the first official shot was fired has been a matter of debate for a great number of years, now).

Louisa May Alcott used this copper kettle while nursing soldiers during the Civil War. She wrote about her experience in *Hospital Sketches,* a best-selling serialization she wrote based on her letters home. Alcott gave the kettle to Cummings Davis, whose collection initially formed the Concord Museum.

A sampling of items once belonging to Henry David Thoreau. The rocking chair and bed frame were used at his home in Walden Pond. Thoreau made the boxes to house Reverend Joseph Osgood’s geological specimen collection. Along the frame on the left is his flute.

In the mid-19^th century, Concord was home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau. Alcott’s Little Women, Emerson’s Self-Reliance and Nature, and Thoreau’s Walden and Civil Disobedience were all written in Concord. The museum had quite a few artifacts related to these authors, including the world’s largest collection of Thoreau possessions (over 250 objects).

The cover photo is Emerson’s study, which is made up entirely of items original to Emerson’s time, moved in its entirety to the museum in 1930. Emerson did much of his writing while sitting in the rocking chair at the table. The arrangement is as he left his study upon his death in 1882.