Articles by The Concord Museum’s Guild of Volunteers

Drawing Inspiration: The 2026 Concord Museum Garden Tour

April 3, 2026

The Concord Museum’s Guild of Volunteers

On June 5 and 6, the Concord Museum Guild of Volunteers welcomes community members to join the 37th Garden Tour. This beloved annual event invites ticket holders to tour six stunning private gardens throughout the Concord area, drawing inspiration from a variety of plantings, landscape designs, and approaches to outdoor living.

Beauty Abounds in Concord’s Gardens: The 34th Annual Concord Museum Garden Tour June 2-3, 2023

March 15, 2023

The Concord Museum’s Guild of Volunteers

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The annual Concord Museum Garden Tour, organized by the Museum’s Guild of Volunteers, has been a tradition for more than 30 years. Garden Tour participants can visit several of Concord’s most beautiful private gardens on a self-guided tour over two days.

Inside Concord’s Private Gardens

The 33rd Concord Museum Garden Tour June 3 – 4, 2022

May 15, 2022

The Concord Museum’s Guild of Volunteers

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This is your chance to go behind the garden gates of some of Concord’s most beautiful – and unusual – private gardens.

The Summer Issue is Here!

As our nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this issue explores the people, ideas, and stories that continue to shape its legacy. Inside, Professor Robert A. Gross offers fresh perspective in “A Referendum on Independence,” while a special foldout guide, “Following in Thoreau’s Footsteps,” invites you to explore the landscapes that inspired him. Discover an unexpected connection in “A Tale of Two Authors,” revisit the moving story of “A Hawthorne Homecoming,” and enjoy summer events, arts, and ways to experience Concord firsthand.

A Referendum on Independence

The road to American independence took time to complete, and Massachusetts, despite its reputation as a vanguard state, was not always in the lead. In 1775, even after the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, most Patriot leaders were still seeking restoration of colonial rights within the British empire. Thomas Paine broke the logjam with the publication of Common Sense early the next year. The instant best-seller argued the case for separation by appealing to economic and political self-interest, emotional resentment of a brutal and oppressive king, and a utopian vision of America as “an asylum for mankind.”

A Hawthorne Homecoming

Two white horses pulled the hearse into Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a top-hatted driver at the reins. A band of mourners followed on foot as they made their way toward Authors’ Ridge.Except for the bright sunshine, this scene wouldn’t seem out of place in a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. But it happened a mere twenty years ago, on June 26, 2006. That was the day Hawthorne and his wife and daughter were reunited after his death separated them 142 years earlier.