2. Jarvis's Description of the Town House Site

In this section of his manuscript Houses and People in Concord, 1810 to 1882 (which came to the Concord Free Public Library in 1885 from Jarvis's estate, and has served ever since as a valuable source of local historic building information), Edward Jarvis describes the early nineteenth century use of the future Town House site for storekeeping by John Thoreau (father of Henry David Thoreau), Daniel Smith, and Luke Robbins. He notes, too, that the store building - later owned by lawyer John Keyes (father of John Shepard Keyes) - was moved to permit construction of the Town House.