The Home Of The Concord Grape & The "Shot Heard Around The World" In Terms Of The American Revolutionary War
... and other things as well ...

If you have never been to a nice laid back attitude town with a special aura to it then you just may enjoy a trip to Concord, Massachussettes. This isn't your typical small town feeling ... once you drive into the downtown district you will feel that you are entering a Norman Rockwell painting scene. Mom & Pop shops line the streets (if you want to go to a chain store or grab a Big Mac^tm then you have to go to the next town over) and the Mom & Pop stores added to the charm of the town. You entered one of them and the clerks or the owner themselves greeted you as if you went into their shop everyday - saying hello and asking how you been doing and other small chat offerings of conversation. What a nice change of pace!!

Now Concord is a more famous town than I knew it to be. Before I left Pennsylvania to follow FP- on one of his job assignments to be honest, I didn't think much about going to Concord outside of the fact than it might afford me an opportunity to go traipse a little tiny bit more in Salem. *shrug* That alone should tell some folks just how closely I paid attention in school during history lessons huh? *giggle* I was more so mainly concerned about how Robby would react to a 12+ hour drive in the car at the age of 10 months ... he did great by the way, only one fussy spell that lasted less than 20 minutes in duration during the entire drive!

It is here that the Old North Bridge is located and thus the start of the American Revolutionary War started here in this little laid back town outside of Boston. At the foot of the bridge is the graves of the British soldiers killed during the skirmish in this town, with a lone stone placed by it saying

"They Came Three Thousand Miles And Died
To Keep The Past Upon Its Throne
Unheard Beyond The Ocean Tide
Their English Mother Made Her Moan.
April 19, 1775"

By the time the British soldiers entered Concord, it was already an established town of almost 150 years in age. In The Hill Burying Ground is a tombstone that is of unique qualities for the time period most folks were buried in that cemetery and that is the grave of a former slave named John Jack who passed away in 1773. On the tombstone is an epitaph written by Daniel Bliss, Jr. (John Jack's former owner) that reads:

God wills us free. Man wills us slaves.
I will as God wills God's will be done.
Here lies the body of
John Jack
A native of Africa who died
March, 1773 aged about 60 years
Tho' born in a land of slavery,
He was born free.
Tho' he lived in a land of liberty,
He lived a slave.
Till by his honest, tho' stolen labors,
He acquired the source of slavery
Which gave him his freedom:
Tho' not long before,
Death the grand tyrant,
Gave him his final emancipation.
That set him on a footing with kings
Tho' a slave to vice.
He practiced those virtues,
Without which kings are but slaves.

In the center of town is another cemetery surrounded by public parking access where some other earlier residents and Revolutionary War vets are buried. It isn't a large cemetery at all, more like maybe slightly less than a half an acre.

On the backside of the town is Sleepy Hollow cemetery, In here you will find some other tombstones dating back to the early 1700's and a touching monument carved by Daniel Chester French (the same man who did the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC) to three brothers from the area that died in the Civil War on the request of their only surviving brother and sibling. Sleepy Hollow cemetery is also noted for "Author's Ridge" where Nathanial Hawthorne, Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa Alcott, and Harriet Lothrop (better known as Margaret Sidney - the author of the "Five Little Peppers" series) are buried. At the foot of Author's Ridge is the grave site of Ephram Wales Bull, the guy who made the concord grape thru cultivating for years, that has an epitaph on it saying "He sowed, others reaped" which gives you a "minor" of a clue on how little he made off this famous little grape. On a ridge on the other side of Author's Ridge is the tomb of Daniel Chester French.

The Alcott house behind the town hall building that they lived in when the youngest daughter died (Elizabeth, who was immortalized in the book "Little Women" years later) no longer stands as it was razed to make way for the lawyer's office complex. But the Orchard House that they lived in and where Bronson Alcott (Louisa's father) founded and built the Concord School of Philosophy still stands along Lexington Road and almost next door to it is the Wayside Inn where she and other authors met and stayed at while in Concord. Emerson's home is off a side street nearby to the Orchard House. Nathanial Hawthorne stayed in the Old Manse, near the Old North Bridge, for a while right after he married.

My oldest daughter is a big Louisa Alcott fan so naturally I had to detour to take pictures of the Orchard House and such for her (as well as a couple of souvenirs) once I found out about it. *emphatic nod* Although the yard to it has been shortened by progress (a highway running thru part of it as well as a parking lot taking up most of it), it is still pretty to stroll around with the flower beds planted along one side and the wooden benches on the other side that I tried to have Robby pose for me on.

The homes in this area are gorgeous and it is fun cruising the streets just looking at them ... ok, so I was wistfully looking at them - was still fun. *winkety wink*

I had fun touring about the town, even touring about the cemeteries snapping pictures of some of the headstones that were nicely detailed even after all these years and acid rains onslaughts. I know, sounds morbid to hear someone say they cruise about cemeteries to snap pictures of folks headstones but the headstones prior to the mid 1700's were kind of unusual (by today's standards that is) and quite artistic. No two are actually alike though they may be similar in styling as each were individually hand carved back then - usually by a blacksmith or even someone who just had spare time and a bit of artistic talent to them. In the Puritan days, this was one of the only artistic expressions many had that was not frowned upon by the church elders. In some cases tombstones from other graves were later pulled up and the lettering smoothed over to have a new name and date of death carved onto it - thus why some famous graves or those of early pilgrims are hard to find from that time period. Their headstones may not have lasted thru the years due to a myriad of natural elements or their tombstone may have been cleared off for someone else to use. Many of the notations about their lives outside of their age and names are not always visible to the 1990's spectator as these were usually carved onto the bottom of the tombstone and slowly sank into the earth over the years, some of the epitaphs sinking 3 inches into soil. These epitaphs described sometimes how they died or how they lived their lives, or whatever the engraver thought was nice to carve into the slate stone.

The fun part of my trip though was being able to finally meet up with someone I had been talking to since 1995 over IRC! Yup, I got to meet dtking at long last!! Yea!!! *many hugs sent to this man* He popped onto #Tarot one night out of mere curiosity and I happened to be still chatting in that channel that nite, he and I hit it off immediately while conversing.

I miss parts of his older homepage but the newer homepage site gives people a glimpse into the easy talking style that this man possesses and the sly way he encourages people to ponder over things. He doesn't say "it is this way ..." but more so he presents his side of it and leaves it open for you to mull it over and think of what you make of it. So meeting him in person, my mentor you might call him - though Oghma from #Tarot could also fall into that classification pretty easily, was truly an honor and a half.

I had e-mailed him prior to my leaving for that area but he didn't see it until later on in the week and called me about Thursday to arrange to meet. We met up on Saturday morning to have breakfast, he and I both armed with cameras to document this occasion (me with a 110 style camera and him with a fancy digital camera that he gave me a copy of the disk to use for faster posting of them). Neither of us was taking this meeting lightly, we were both clearly looking forward to it - as he said when we finally laid eyes on each other and then hugged "at last, actual contact!" He got to chuckle at Robby's antics as he talked about his granddaughter (the apple of his eye), and FP- and him had an easy time conversing as well. Overall it was a great visit and both of us are looking forward to meeting up again for a longer visit session.

I did get to tour Salem area again but only for a couple of hours as we had to head back to the Concord area to finish loading up the car to head out to Washington DC for FP-'s next job assignment and to also meet up with Quagga from #30plus for a midday meal before we left the area. We had a nice casual chat at the Ninety-Nine Restaurant, though Robby may have "grossed" his Auntie Quagga out with how he tries to eat a solitary french fry (no ketchup). *chuckle*

FP- may get to go back near to this area later on over the summer and I certainly hope so. I think it would be fun to kidnap dtking for a day to tour Salem together while chatting. Sound like fun to you too, dtking???

Posted May, 1998