The Old Manse

Built in 1770, for the Rev. William Emerson (1743-1776), Minister of Concord and Chaplain of both the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the Continental Army. He died just six years later and in 1780 his widow, Phoebe Bliss, remarried the Rev. Ezra Ripley (1750-1841) who moved into the house with her and her children and served as Minister to Concord for 63 years. In 1834, the household was joined by William's distinguished grandson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who briefly lived here before purchasing the Emerson House, also in Concord. After Ripley died, Ralph's great friend the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne rented the Old Manse for $100/year, living here for three years with his wife, the artist Sophia Peabody. Henry David Thoreau dug their vegetable garden....