You see the names all over town: Musketaquid, Nashawtuc, Nashoba, Squaw Sachem. These words invite us to learn the stories of the people who lived in this place for thousands of years before English settlers arrived.
The English named this place Concord in 1635, but it had long been known by the region’s first peoples as Musketaquid. In the Algonquian language, the name means “grassy river” or “grassy island,” and the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord Rivers have always been the lifeblood of the land. As Lemuel Shattuck recounts in his 1835 History of Concord, the local people lived “[by] planting, hunting, or fishing . . . and few places produced a supply more easily than Musketaquid.” 1
Travel books love to include tips on how to experience a place “like a local.” But if you’re lucky enough to be a local, how often do you actually experience the fun that’s right in front of you?
When family or friends come from out of town, we show them the North Bridge, Author’s Ridge, and Walden Pond. We take them to our favorite restaurants and shops, and maybe go canoeing on the river. But why wait for visitors? Even if you’re a townie, Concord’s Visitor Center might surprise you with some of the experiences you can enjoy here.
A week before Thanksgiving 1917, the Concord Enterprise printed a letter from a young Maynard man named Hugh Connors. The United States had entered the First World War seven months earlier, and Connors had shipped out with New England Sawmill Unit No. 3, a team of American lumbermen stationed in Scotland.1 “I am writing this letter in bed,” he wrote, “as I have been laid up for a week with the grippe. Over here they call it influenza,” he added, as if translating a foreign word. “I am not at the hospital, but have engaged a room about five minutes’ ride by bicycle, from our camp.”2
Concord is a favorite destination for visitors from all over the world: literary pilgrims, Revolutionary War buffs, and nature lovers crowd our streets all summer long, right through foliage season.
But in 2020, many travelers want to steer clear of crowds, so we Concord-area residents have the place pretty much to ourselves. There was never a better time to enjoy the local attractions. In the words of our favorite townie,1 Henry David Thoreau, “It is worth the while to see your native village . . . as if you were a traveler passing through it.”2 The summer has brought ideal weather for fresh-air fun, and outdoor spaces are now welcoming visitors.
Imagine regiments of heavily armed men marching past your front door with grim determination—almost 800 of them, half the population of Concord in 1775. That was the scene that greeted the residents of the town on the morning of April 19th of that year.
If you weren’t one of the well-trained Minutemen loading your musket at the North Bridge, what was it like to be in Concord on the morning of that historic day?
It’s that time of year, when Concord bids farewell to pumpkin spice as our homes fill with the aroma of pine boughs and gingerbread. These smells evoke images of the distant past, but our colonial forbearers might be surprised—if not downright scandalized—to see the “profane and superstitious customs” that we enjoy at midwinter.
