Mr. Emerson’s Discourse was printed soon after its delivery, and with it,
in an Appendix, the following notice of the celebration of the second
centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town, sent to him by
“a friend who thought it desirable to preserve the remembrance of some
particulars of this historical festival.”
“At a meeting of the town of Concord, in April last, it was
voted to celebrate the Second Centennial Anniversary of the
settlement of the town, on the 12th September following. A
committee of fifteen were chosen to make the arrangements. This
committee appointed Ralph Waldo Emerson, Orator, and Rev. Dr.
Ripley and Rev. Mr. Wilder, Chaplains of the Day. Hon. John
Keyes was chosen President of the Day.
“On the morning of the 12th September, at half past 10 o’clock,
the children of the town, to the number of about 500, moved
in procession to the Common in front of the old church and
court-house and there opened to the right and left, awaiting
the procession of citizens. At 11 o’clock, the Concord Light
Infantry, under Captain Moore, and the Artillery under Captain
Buttrick, escorted the civic procession, under the direction of
Moses Prichard as Chief Marshal, from Shepherd’s hotel through
the lines of children to the Meeting-house. The South gallery
had been reserved for ladies, and the North gallery for the
children; but (it was a good omen) the children overran the
space assigned for their accommodation, and were sprinkled
throughout the house, and ranged on seats along the aisles. The
old Meeting-house, which was propped to sustain the unwonted
weight of the multitude within its walls, was built in 1712,
thus having stood for more than half the period to which our
history goes back. Prayers were offered and the Scriptures read
by the aged minister of the town, Rev. Ezra Ripley, now in the
85th year of his age;—another interesting feature in this scene
of reminiscences. A very pleasant and impressive part of the
services in the church was the singing of the 107th psalm, from
the New England version of the psalms made by Eliot, Mather,
and others, in 1639, and used in the church in this town in the
days of Peter Bulkeley. The psalm was read a line at a time,
after the ancient fashion, from the Deacons’ seat, and so sung
to the tune of St. Martin’s by the whole congregation standing.
“Ten of the surviving veterans who were in arms at the Bridge,
on the 19th April, 1775, honored the festival with their
presence. Their names are Abel Davis, Thaddeus Blood, Tilly
Buttrick, John Hosmer, of _Concord_; Thomas Thorp, Solomon
Smith, John Oliver, Aaron Jones, of _Acton_; David Lane, of
_Bedford_; Amos Baker, of _Lincoln_.
“On leaving the church, the procession again formed, and moved
to a large tent nearly opposite Shepherd’s hotel, under which
dinner was prepared, and the company sat down to the tables, to
the number of four hundred. We were honored with the presence
of distinguished guests, among whom were Lieutenant-Governor
Armstrong, Judge Davis, Alden Bradford (descended from the 2d
governor of Plymouth Colony), Hon. Edward Everett, Hon. Stephen
C. Phillips of Salem, Philip Hone, Esq., of New York, General
Dearborn, and Lieutenant-Colonel R. C. Winthrop (descended from
the 1st governor of Massachusetts). Letters were read from
several gentlemen expressing their regret at being deprived of
the pleasure of being present on the occasion. The character
of the speeches and sentiments at the dinner were manly and
affectionate, in keeping with the whole temper of the day.
“On leaving the dinner-table, the invited guests, with many of
the citizens, repaired to the court-house to pay their respects
to the ladies of Concord, who had there, with their friends,
partaken of an elegant collation, and now politely offered
coffee to the gentlemen. The hall, in which the collation
was spread, had been decorated by fair hands with festoons
of flowers, and wreaths of evergreen, and hung with pictures
of the Fathers of the Town. Crowded as it was with graceful
forms and happy faces, and resounding with the hum of animated
conversation, it was itself a beautiful living picture.
Compared with the poverty and savageness of the scene which the
same spot presented two hundred years ago, it was a brilliant
reverse of the medal; and could scarcely fail, like all the
parts of the holiday, to lead the reflecting mind to thoughts
of that Divine Providence, which, in every generation, has been
our tower of defence and horn of blessing.
“At sunset the company separated and retired to their homes;
and the evening of this day of excitement was as quiet as a
Sabbath throughout the village.”
Within the year, Mr. Emerson had come to make his home for life in
the ancestral town, and had become a householder. Two days after the
festival, he drove to Plymouth in a chaise, and was there married to
Lidian Jackson, and immediately brought his bride to her Concord home.
His aged step-grandfather was the senior chaplain at the Celebration, and
his brother Charles, who was to live with him in the new home, was one of
the marshals.
In preparation for this address Mr. Emerson made diligent examination of
the old town records, and spent a fortnight in Cambridge consulting the
works on early New England in the College Library. I reproduce most of
his references to his authorities exactly, although there are, no doubt,
newer editions of some of the works.
[4] _Page 30, note 1._ This story is from Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History_
(chapter xiii., Bohn’s _Antiquarian Library_). Mr. Emerson used it in
full as the exordium of his essay on Immortality, in _Letters and Social
Aims_.
[5] _Page 30, note 2._ The poem “Hamatreya,” wherein appear the names of
many of these first settlers, might well be read in connection with the
opening passages of this address.
Mr. Emerson’s right of descent to speak as representative of Peter
Bulkeley, who was the spiritual arm of the settlement, as Simon Willard
was its sword-arm, may here be shown: Rev. Joseph Emerson of Mendon (son
of Thomas of Ipswich, the first of the name in this country) married
Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Edward Bulkeley, who succeeded his father,
the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, as minister of Concord. Edward, the son of
Joseph of Mendon and Elizabeth Bulkeley, was father of Rev. Joseph
Emerson of Malden, who was father of Rev. William Emerson of Concord, who
was father of Rev. William Emerson of Harvard and Boston, the father of
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
[6] _Page 31, note 1._ Neal’s _History of New England_, vol. i., p. 132.
[7] _Page 31, note 2._ Neal, vol. i., p. 321.
[8] _Page 31, note 3._ Shattuck’s _History of Concord_, p. 158.
[9] _Page 32, note 1._ On September 2, 1635, the General Court passed
this order:—
“It is ordered that there shalbe a plantac̃on att Musketequid & that
there shalbe 6 myles of land square to belong to it, & that the
inhabitants thereof shall have three yeares im̃unities from all publ[ic]
charges except traineings; Further, that when any that plant there shall
have occac̃on of carryeing of goods thither, they shall repaire to two
of the nexte magistrates where the teames are, whoe shall have the power
for a yeare to presse draughts, att reasonable rates, to be payed by the
owners of the goods, to transport their goods thither att seasonable
tymes: & the name of the place is changed & here after to be called
Concord.”
[10] _Page 32, note 2._ Shattuck, p. 5.
[11] _Page 33, note 1._ In his lecture on Boston (published in the volume
_Natural History of Intellect_) Mr. Emerson gives an amusing enumeration
of some troubles which seemed so great to the newcomers from the Old
World: he mentions their fear of lions, the accident to John Smith from
“the most poisonous tail of a fish called a sting-ray,” the circumstance
of the overpowering effect of the sweet fern upon the Concord party, and
the intoxicating effect of wild grapes eaten by the Norse explorers, and
adds: “Nature has never again indulged in these exasperations. It seems
to have been the last outrage ever committed by the sting-rays, or by the
sweet fern, or by the fox-grapes. They have been of peaceable behavior
ever since.”
[12] _Page 34, note 1._ Johnson’s _Wonder-Working Providence_, chap.
xxxv. Mr. Emerson abridged and slightly altered some sentences.
[13] _Page 35, note 1._ Mourt, _Beginning of Plymouth_, 1621, p. 60.
[14] _Page 35, note 2._ Johnson, p. 56. Josselyn, in his _New England’s
Rarities Discovered_, speaks with respect of “Squashes, but more truly
squontersquashes; a kind of mellon, or rather gourd; ... some of these
are green; some yellow; some longish like a gourd; others round, like an
apple: all of them pleasant food, boyled and buttered, and seasoned with
spice. But the yellow squash—called an apple-squash (because like an
apple) and about the bigness of a pome-water is the best kind.” Wood, in
his _New England Prospect_, says: “In summer, when their corn is spent,
isquotersquashes is their best bread, a fruit much like a pumpion.”
[15] _Page 36, note 1._ Nashawtuck, a small and shapely hill between
the Musketaquid and the Assabet streams, at their point of union, was a
pleasant and convenient headquarters for a sagamore of a race whose best
roadway for travel and transportation was a deep, quiet stream, the fish
of which they ate, and also used for manure for their cornfields along
the bluffs. Indian graves have been found on this hill.
[16] _Page 36, note 2._ Josselyn’s _Voyages to New England_, 1638.
[17] _Page 36, note 3._ Hutchinson’s _History of Massachusetts_, vol. i.,
chap. 6.
[18] _Page 36, note 4._ Thomas Morton, _New England Canaan_, p. 47.
[19] _Page 37, note 1._ Shattuck, p. 6.
The old Middlesex Hotel, which stood during the greater part of the
nineteenth century on the southwest side of the Common, opposite the
court- and town-houses, had fallen into decay in 1900, and was bought
and taken down by the town as an improvement to the public square to
commemorate the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of Concord
Fight. It is probable that Jethro’s Oak, under which the treaty was made,
stood a little nearer the house of Rev. Peter Bulkeley, the site of
which, about one hundred paces distant on the Lowell road, is now marked
by a stone and bronze tablet.
[20] _Page 38, note 1._ Depositions taken in 1684, and copied in the
first volume of the Town Records.
[21] _Page 39, note 1._ Johnson’s _Wonder-Working Providence_.
[22] _Page 39, note 2._ _New England’s Plantation._
[23] _Page 39, note 3._ E. W.’s Letter in Mourt, 1621.
[24] _Page 40, note 1._ Peter Bulkeley’s _Gospel Covenant_; preached at
Concord in New England. 2d edition, London, 1651, p. 432.
[25] _Page 41, note 1._ See petition in Shattuck’s _History_, p. 14.
[26] _Page 41, note 2._ Shattuck, p. 14. This was the meadow and upland
on the Lowell road, one mile north of Concord, just beyond the river. On
the farm stands the unpainted “lean-to” house, now owned by the daughters
of the late Edmund Hosmer.
[27] _Page 42, note 1._ Concord Town Records.
[28] _Page 43, note 1._ Bancroft, _History of the United States_, vol.
i., p. 389.
[29] _Page 44, note 1._ Savage’s _Winthrop_, vol. i., p. 114.
[30] _Page 44, note 2._ Colony Records, vol. i.
[31] _Page 44, note 3._ See Hutchinson’s _Collection_, p. 287.
[32] _Page 46, note 1._ Winthrop’s _Journal_, vol. i., pp. 128, 129, and
the editor’s note.
[33] _Page 46, note 2._ Winthrop’s _Journal_, vol. ii., p. 160.
[34] _Page 48, note 1._ Town Records.
With the exception of the anecdotes in this and the following sentence,
almost the whole of this account of the theory and practice of the New
England town-meeting was used by Mr. Emerson in his oration, given in
December, 1870, before the New England Society in New York. The greater
part of the matter used in that address is included in the lecture on
Boston, in the volume _Natural History of Intellect_.
The New England Society of New York recently published the Orations
delivered before it previous to 1871, including Mr. Emerson’s, as far as
it could be recovered from the scattered manuscript, and the newspaper
reports of the time.
[35] _Page 50, note 1._ Hutchinson’s _Collection_, p. 27.
[36] _Page 51, note 1._ Shattuck, p. 20. “The Government, 13 Nov., 1644,
ordered the county courts to take care of the Indians residing within
their several shires, to have them civilized, and to take order, from
time to time, to have them instructed in the knowledge of God.”
[37] _Page 52, note 1._ Shepard’s _Clear Sunshine of the Gospel_, London,
1648.
[38] _Page 52, note 2._ These rules are given in Shattuck’s _History_,
pp. 22-24, and were called “Conclusions and orders made and agreed upon
by divers Sachems and other principal men amongst the Indians at Concord
in the end of the eleventh Month (called January) An. 1646.”