Essay
Emerson became engaged to Lydia Jackson of Plymouth in January of 1835. The couple quickly began to consider the matter of where they would make their home. Emerson made his best case for Concord. He wrote Lydia on February 1, 1835 of Concords beneficial effect on his intellectual life: Under this mornings severe but beautiful light I thought dear friend that hardly should I get away from Concord. I must win you to love it. I am a born poet in the sense of a perceiver & dear lover of the harmonies that are in the soul & in matter, & especially of the correspondences between these & those. A sunset, a forest, a snow storm, a certain river-view, are more to me than many friends & do ordinarily divide my day with my books. Wherever I go therefore I guard & study my rambling propensities with a care that is ridiculous to people, but to me is the care of my high calling. Now Concord is only one of a hundred towns in which I could find these necessary objects but Plymouth I fear is not one. Plymouth is streets; I live in the wide champaign. Resolute in his preference for Concord over Plymouth, Emerson prevailed.
In the summer of 1835, Emerson bought the house on the Cambridge Turnpike where he and Lydiawhom he renamed Lidian after their marriage for the sake of euphony with her new last namewould begin family life. They were married in Plymouth on September 14, shortly after Emerson delivered his address at the bicentennial celebration of Concords incorporation. The next day, Emerson brought his bride to the home they first called Coolidge House or Coolidge Castle after its original owner, later renamed Bush.
In this house, the Emerson children were bornWaldo in 1836, Ellen Tucker (named for Emersons first wife) in 1839, Edith in 1841, Edward Waldo in 1844. Young Waldo died here of scarlet fever in January of 1842. Daughter Edith married William H. Forbes, Jr. before the long window in the parlor in 1865. Relatives and friends visited and sometimes stayed at the house for long periods of time. Authors, publishers, radical thinkers, and social reformers came to converse with the sage of Concord. And here Emerson died in 1882.
Emerson had written his brother William on July 27,
1835,
just after buying the place:
I have dodged the doom of building & have bought the Coolidge
house in Concord with the expectation of entering it next
September.
It is in a mean place & cannot be fine until trees & flowers
give
it a character of its own. But we shall crowd so many books &
papers, &, if possible, wise friends, into it that it shall have as
much wit as it can carry. The purchase price was $3,500.
Emerson
was prepared to spend an additional $400 or $500 for expansion and
renovation.
Originally built in the late 1820s for Charles Coolidge, the house stood on the southwest side of the Cambridge Turnpike. The Emersons made alterations to it in 1836 and 1857. The 1836 renovation squared off the main section of the house at the southwest corner and added a parlor and a room above it, known as the straw carpet chamber. These two rooms were meant for Emersons brother Charles and Elizabeth Hoar, who were to be married in September, 1836. The rooms were never used for their intended purpose, however. Charles died in May of that year.
The house featured a front entrance facing the Cambridge Turnpike, which opened to a long central hall and a wide main staircase. To the left was the large, square, corner guestroom, the Pilgrims Chamber, in which the Emerson children were born. To the right was Emersons study.
In his Concord Historic, Literary and Picturesque (16th edition, revised; 1895), George Bradford Bartlett wrote of the study: The first door on the right leads to the study, a plain, square room, lined on one side with simple wooden shelves filled with choice books; a large mahogany table stands in the middle, covered with books, and by the morocco writing-pad lies the pen which has had so great an influence on the thoughts of two continents. A large fire-place, with a low grate occupies the lower end, over which hangs a fine copy of Michael Angelos Fates, the faces of the strong-minded women frowning upon all who would disturb with idle tongues this haunt of solemn thought. On the mantle-shelf are busts and statuettes of men prominent in the great reforms of the age, and a quaint, rough idol brought from the Nile. A few choice engravings hang upon the walls, and the pine trees shade the windows.
The house also had a southeast entrance and hall, a dining room, and, in the service wing, a kitchen. Upstairs, the large, square rooms corresponded to those below.
Emersons original purchase of the Coolidge property
included
the house, barn, and about two acres of land. The Emersons later
bought additional propertyin 1838 the parcel at the intersection of
Lexington Road
and the Cambridge Turnpike, known as the heaterpiece, and in 1847
land along the Mill Brook.
In 1836, Emerson planted apple, pear, plum, and peach trees on his property, later adding more pears. Something of a gentleman farmer, he became a regular exhibitor of pears at the Middlesex Agricultural Societys annual exhibition and cattle show. He also set out pine and hemlock trees.
The Emerson house as it now appears is as reconstructed following a devastating early morning fire on July 24, 1872. Due to quick action by neighbors and townsfolk, much was saved, including many of Emersons manuscripts and books. With the assistance of his good friend Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, space for a study for Emerson was obtained in the Court House on Monument Square. Moreover, Emersons friends collected and presented him with funds sufficient to restore the house and to travel abroad while repairs were in progress.
While her husband and daughter Ellen traveled, Lidian remained behind, first at the Manse, then at the home of her younger daughter, Edith. In the spring of 1873, she and Edith refurnished Bush, which was restored under the supervision of John Shepard Keyes. The Emerson women aimed to make the house look (in Ellens words) just like itself only somewhat spruced up and improved by the time the travelers returned.
After the death in 1930 of Edward Waldo Emerson (the
Emersons
youngest child), the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association was
formed
to maintain and manage the Emerson house and property. The house
remains today much as it was at the end of Ralph Waldo Emersons life,
with the exception of the contents of the study, which were transferred
to the Concord Antiquarian Society (now the Concord Museum) in the
early
1930s.
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