The Old Manse

The Old Manse is an estate built in 1769-1770 in Concord, MA by the Reverend William Emerson (1743-1776), grandfather of writer Ralph Waldo Emerson. The home is known for three main reasons:
1. From the house the family watched the first battle of the Revolutionary War which took place basically in the backyard. The North Bridge is only a few hundreds yards away and is the location where "the shot heard round the world" took place.
2. This was the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson for a time and where he wrote Nature which was published in 1836.
3. In 1842 Nathaniel Hawthorne rented the home and gave it the nickname of "The Old Manse"('Manse' is a Scottish term for 'Minister's House'). He lived here for three years and wrote a collection of stories called "Mosses from an Old Manse".

The Old Manse is truly a piece of history. Preachers, painters, writers, and philosophers have called The Old Manse home since it was built. After the Hawthornes left the Manse relatives of the Emersons continued to live in the home until 1939 when it became a property of The Trustees of Reservations. The National Park Service designated The Old Manse a National Historic Landmark in 1966.

The Old Manse property consists of the main house, a wagon house that was converted into the 'visitor area/bookstore', a boathouse that was reconstructed in the late 1990's, and a garden that was recreated to replicate the original that was planted in 1842 by Henry David Thoreau to celebrate Hawthorne's marriage to Sophia Peabody. The property is very impressive in that over 90% of the items within the home are original to the estate. The only significant changes made to the inside of the home is recreating/replacing the wallpaper and some of the paint since they were lead based. They actually just received a $500,000 grant to continue with this process.

On the website for The Old Manse they have their management plan available for the public to view which was quite interesting. Below is the mission statement from the plan:
"First, The Trustees’ mission as set forth by founder Charles Eliot in 1891 and which currently reads:

The Trustees of Reservations preserves, for public use and enjoyment, properties of exceptional scenic, historic, and ecological value throughout Massachusetts and protects special places across the state."