Richard Smith

Spring is a time of rebirth, and with the melting of snow we begin to think about the blooming of flowers and the budding of trees as nature reawakens after her winter slumber. But in Concord, the arrival of spring brings to mind more warlike notions, and the sights and sounds of marching redcoats and militiamen fill the town as Concord commemorates the April 19, 1775, Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Winters can be long and harsh in New England, but at least we have hope every year that, soon enough, spring and then summer will make their return. But what if warmer weather never returned? That’s exactly what happened in 1816, The Year Without a Summer. 

On July 9, 1842, a small wedding took place at the bookstore of Elizabeth Peabody at 13 West Street in Boston. After a highly secretive three-year engagement, 38-year-old struggling novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne married 33-year-old Sophia Amelia Peabody, the younger sister of the bookstore owner.

Henry David Thoreau loved springtime. While it’s true that he had something to say about every season, he seemed to wax more poetic not only in the spring but about the spring. When the earth came alive after a long cold winter, Thoreau’s observations came to life as well. 

The list of Concord abolitionists is long, and the names of Thoreau, Alcott, Bigelow, and Brooks are assured in the town’s history. But for every famous name involved in abolitionism, many more remain forgotten. One of Concord’s heroes, while not exactly lost to history, is certainly not a household name: he was the Reverend Daniel Foster. 

It’s that time of year again when we start to think about holiday gift giving. And what’s better than giving or getting a book as a present? So let’s talk about books! Since this is a magazine dedicated to Concord, let’s focus on books about that most important day of days in Concord history, April 19, 1775. 

In the summer of 1842, Concord was like any other New England town. Sitting 18 miles west of Boston, the town of 2,000 souls was still very rural. The railroad wouldn’t come through for another two years, and there was no telegraph yet; only the daily stagecoach and the post office connected Concord to the rest of the world.  

On May 8, 1859, John Brown was back in Concord. The tall, humorless abolitionist had grown a flowing white beard, making him look like an Old Testament prophet. Like he did during his first visit in 1857, Brown spoke on his anti-slavery activities in Kansas to a large crowd at the Town Hall; he had come east in the hope of raising money for those activities. As in 1857, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau were again in the audience, and they supported Brown; intellectually, philosophically, and monetarily.  

January 1, 1863. As the Civil War entered its third bloody year, President Abraham Lincoln signed his Emancipation Proclamation. With a stroke of his pen, Lincoln ensured that the war now took on a bigger objective. It was not just a fight to save the Union; the lives — and freedom — of nearly four million enslaved African Americans now depended on the success of the Federal armies. 

With the Emancipation Proclamation, nearly 200,000 Black men, many of whom had been slaves, now joined the Union Army to fight in a war that had already taken the lives of tens of thousands of white men. This sudden surge of manpower would help tip the balance to Union victory in 1865. 

Hundreds of soldiers marching from the North Bridge in Concord, through Lexington, and onto the Bunker Hill battlefield in Charlestown — this sounds like a scene from the Revolutionary War. But this event didn’t take place in 1775; this march took place in 1971, and the men were American soldiers. More specifically, they were Vietnam veterans.