"Spirits of the past, that whisper/pleasant tales of long
ago."
(Cummings E. Davis)
Cummings E. Davis, who moved to Concord in 1851, is recognized as one of the first collectors of Americana. Davis amassed over 1,500 objects during his lifetime, creating one of the earliest, largest, and best documented collections of local cultural and historical artifacts in the country. This collection, rich in material from Concord’s early history, forms the core of the Concord Museum's collection.
When Longfellow wrote "Paul Revere's Ride," he turned that episode into one of the most famous in American history. Most Americans recognize the words "One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be." Few, however, realize that in crafting that line Longfellow knowingly altered the facts to improve the narrative. Revere's own account, which Longfellow knew, states clearly that the famous lantern signal was not to Revere but from Revere. Knowing that something was going to happen, Revere arranged with the Charlestown militia that "if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land one, as a signal; for we were apprehensive it would be difficult to Cross the Charles River, or git over Boston neck."
Thoreau's Desk
In 1837, newly graduated from Harvard, Henry Thoreau was offered a job as a teacher in
Concord's Central School. Chastised by a school committee member for not disciplining the
students physically, Thoreau responded by striking several of them at random with a ruler.
He resigned his position that night and resolved to teach by his own methods. Thoreau's
green schoolmaster’s desk bears an inscription in Thoreau's hand "Summer of
1838," the year that Henry and his brother John took over the Concord Academy and
began teaching studies preparatory to a collegiate course."
Thoreau's Chair
"None is so poor that he need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness. There is
plenty of such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for taking them
away...I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, and three for
society," Henry Thoreau wrote in "Walden." One of the chairs Thoreau used
in his epic literary and economic experiment at Walden Pond survives at the Concord
Museum. A painted windsor side chair fitted with rockers, it was about 30 years old when
Thoreau took it to Walden in 1845. The chair came into the Museum collection in 1873,
eleven years after Thoreau's death at age 44.
Thoreau's Flute
One of Henry Thoreau's companions on his excursions in Concord was a flute, made in
Albany, New York around 1820. It belonged originally to his father John, and bears the
inscription "John Thoreau/1835/Henry D. Thoreau." A note to Thoreau from Ralph
Waldo Emerson written in 1838, within a year of the beginning of their friendship,
provides a pleasant view of the use Thoreau made of the instrument: "Will you not
come up to the Cliff [Fairhaven Hill in Concord] this p.m. at any hour convenient to you
where our ladies will be greatly gratified to see you & the more they say if you will
bring your flute for the echo’s sake, though now the wind blows."
Banjo Clocks
In 1802, Simon Willard of Boston patented the distinctive round-headed hanging wall clocks
known as banjo clocks. Willard advertised them as patent timepieces, and their production
involved a complicated network of independent craftsmen. Outside of Boston, no community
made as many banjo clocks as did Concord, where as many as seven makers worked in the
first three decades of the 19th century. For a brief period in its history the home of the
“embattled farmer,” soon to be celebrated as a rural idyll, supported in its
center an industry as urban and sophisticated as Boston's Roxbury Neck.
Tall Clock
In 1769, Nathaniel Mulliken of Lexington made an eight-day clock for John Buckman of the
same town. Six years later both men were caught up in the first military engagement of the
American Revolution. It was in Buckman's Tavern that the Lexington militia mustered on
April 19, 1775, in response to the alarm that the British were marching to their town.
Mulliken's clockmaking shop was burned by the British on their retreat from Concord later
that same day at a loss to him of better than 400 pounds. John Buckman's clock stands
today in the Concord Museum, an interesting reminder of the beginning of American
independence.
Bartlett Silver
The modern world is fond of the image of the old-time artist-craftsman busy at his
rewarding toil, shaping objects of utility and beauty. The career of silversmith Samuel
Bartlett (1752-1821) suggests that 18th-century artisans may have had a different view of
their labor. For 20 years, Bartlett made silver porringers, creampots, spoons, salts and
strainers in his Concord shop. His work equaled the standard of the best Boston makers,
beautifully fashioned and proportioned. At the same time, Bartlett pursued his career as a
citizen, holding a variety of town offices until he was elected Register of Deeds for
Middlesex County in 1795. At that time, Bartlett stopped making silver and spent the next
25 years recording deeds, filling tens of thousands of pages with his neat, round
handwriting, evidently preferring the life of a clerk to that of a craftsman.
Recent Acquisitions
The Concord Museum continues to collect, and in recent years has added some important
artifacts of Concord's history to the collection. A selected list of recent acquisitions
includes:
- A Daniel Munroe tall case clock which descended in the Merriam family of Concord and was originally the property of minuteman Josiah Merriam
- A much-beloved carousel horse that presided at the entrance to the Concord Country Store for many years
- A figural group by Daniel Chester French
- A unique miniature tall-case clock by Joseph Mulliken
- Portraiture of Concordians, both famous and not, including R.W. Emerson, Ellen Emerson, and H.D. Thoreau
- Four wedding dresses owned by four generations of brides from a Concord family
- A 17th-century chest with drawer from a cabinetmaker's shop in the Concord area, the first 17th-century piece to be added to the collection in more than thirty years
- A rocking chair manufactured by the Allen Chair Company, established in West Concord by Charles W. Allen in 1906
- A boy's rifle and a Massachusetts militia musket made by Alvan Pratt, a gunsmith who worked on Concord's Milldam over a fifty year period in the 19th century, as well as an ambrotype of Pratt, holding one of his muskets
- Four samplers worked by Thoreau's mother, aunt, and great-aunt
- A bass drum used by the Concord Junction Brass Band in the early 20th century
- A Concord-made high chest that descended in the same Concord family for more than 200 years
- A rare diamond-head timepiece by Daniel Munroe
- An 18th century "case of drawers" which was listed in Rev. William Emerson's 1776 probate inventory
- An 1845 oil portrait by Nahum Ball Onthank of 3-year-old Annie Hosmer of Concord, along with the dress that she is wearing in the portrait
- An 1808 Carlisle, Massachusetts sampler made by a 16-year-old schoolgirl and an 1818 sampler worked by 10-year-old Eliza Cordelia Hildreth of Concord
- A creampot and sugar bowl from Paul Revere’s shop
- A silver cann made by Concord silversmith Samuel Bartlett
- An “Emerson Diplomat” brand cigar box
- A toy pirate ship made by Martha Lincoln and Katharine Torrey in the Bantam Workshop in Concord in the 1950s.
- An eight-day clock with a distinguished Concord history made by Concord clockmaker Nathaniel Munroe.
- A very rare print of The Bloody Massacre by the patriot and engraver Paul Revere which was owned in Concord in 1775 by patriot and hat-maker Emerson Cogswell.