Jaimee Joroff

Centuries had passed since legendary King Arthur pulled a sword from a stone claiming his right to the throne of England, but, once more, swords were being pulled in King Arthur’s land as guards tried to repel a crowd surging forward to get a glimpse of captive Patriot Ethan Allen and some of his Green Mountain Boys as they were dragged towards Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, England. 

Have you ever tried to quickly clean up the house before last minute guests come over? Heart pounding down the seconds until their obnoxiously presumptuous fists knock on the door, you do a little frantic shoving, maybe commit a little bit of treason, and hope the house looks presentable. 

Awkward family gatherings have always existed. And if you were Concord resident Phebe Bliss Emerson, you might find yourself in the middle of one fairly often.

Born in 1741, Phebe was the second child of the Reverend Daniel Bliss. Her family lived in Concord, MA, where Rev. Bliss was the pastor of the Congregational Church from 1738-1764. Rev. Bliss’ fire and brimstone sermons left his parishioners quaking, crying, and praying for salvation.

Like his father, Rev. Bliss’ oldest son, Daniel, was a driven man, passionate about his beliefs and work. Daniel graduated from Harvard College in 1760 and became a lawyer. Upon passing the bar, Daniel took an oath swearing allegiance to the English monarch and the laws of England and her colonies. Daniel took the oath seriously; in his mind, to disobey would be treasonous.

On the morning of April 19, 1775, over 700 King’s troops marched into Concord to search for military supplies that spies had told Royal Governor Gage were being hidden there to support a rebellion against the King. Their search met unexpected resistance, exploding into a day-long battle over eighteen miles from Concord to Boston with fighting on open ground and from behind trees and stone walls. Today, you can retrace the soldiers’ steps along the Battle Road and imagine the landscape and walls as they were that day thanks, in part, to a 2024 project by Minute Man National Historical Park to rebuild the park’s historic stone walls in Concord, Lincoln, and Lexington. Led by Michael Papile, a team of professional stone wallers affiliated with The Stone Trust (an organization dedicated to preserving and advancing the art of dry stone walling) restored these walls. Stone by stone, stories of time were put back together.

Test your knowledge of Concord history!

As the 250th Anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord approaches, a witness house sits at the top of Concord’s Main Street, full of stories of rebels and traitors whose actions shaped the America we know today. It is the Wright Tavern, a red wood building with black shutters; one of the last standing colonial-era taverns from that fateful day of April 19, 1775. 

The tale of this tavern begins with a dangerous hole in the ground.

They say a person’s home is their castle. But what do you do if that castle is stolen from you?

In May of 2024, such a theft reportedly occurred in Concord, Massachusetts, when an unknown entity badly, but effectively, stole the identity of a Concord landowner and sold her land out from under her. Located on the corner of Mattison Drive and Ayrshire Lane (near Alford Circle), the sloping 1.8-acre plot of land had been purchased for the woman (who we shall call “the True Concord Lady”) in 1991 before circumstances moved her out of state. 

Test your knowledge with Concord Trivia!

Test your knowledge of Concord trivia!

“I do plead not guilty.”  ~ Mary Bradbury

Like the greased loops on a hangman’s dropped noose, the lives of Concord writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott are forever tightly bound together by a tale of witchcraft that began as follows: