From war heroes to authors, philosophers and inventors, Concord has long been home to some of the greatest minds in America. While authors Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa Alcott are the better known luminaries, many others made their mark on Concord and beyond. This is just a sampling of the many influential figures who have called Concord home. Many others, too numerous to list, have helped shape the history and culture of this historic town.
Notable People of Concord
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Ellen Garrison Jackson
1823 - 1890
Ellen Garrison’s mother, Susan Garrison was a founding and only black member of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society. Her grandfather was Caesar Robbins, an enslaved African American who earned his freedom by fighting in the Revolutionary War. Her father, Jack Garrison was also a former enslaved African American in New Jersey. After the Civil War Ellen moved to Maryland to teach newly freed people. In 1866, she and another teacher challenged the nation’s first Civil Rights Act, which conferred citizenship and equal rights on African Americans.
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John Jack
1713 - 1773
John Jack was an enslaved African American who bought his freedom from his owner’s widow and made a living as a shoemaker. He hired Tory lawyer Daniel Bliss to settle his estate. Daniel Bliss wrote the famous epitaph on John Jack’s headstone at Old Hill Burying Ground which calls out the hypocrisy that those who clamored for freedom from England denied freedom to others.
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Caesar Robbins
1745 - 1822
Enslaved African American who fought in both the American Revolution and the French Indian War. He earned his freedom after fighting in the Revolution and moved to Concord from Chelmsford in the 1780s. He likely served at the North Bridge. In 1776 he was with the forces that fortified Dorchester Heights. He was probably emancipated before or at the time of his enlistment. He married twice and had six children. Two of his grown children, Susan and Peter, became the first residents of the newly built house on the Robbins farm. The house survived two moves and is now in the parking lot across from the Old North Bridge. Caesar’s granddaughter, Ellen Garrison, was an educator and social justice advocate.
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Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley
July 31, 1793 - 1867
Sarah Alden Bradford was born in Boston. Her mother suffered from tuberculosis and her father was a sea captain who encouraged her to study Latin and anything she pleased. And study she did. She read her brothers’ books when they attended Harvard College, taught herself German and Greek and became a noted scholar and educator. When she married the Unitarian minister Samuel Ripley and eventually moved to the Old Manse in Concord she tutored many students and earned praise for her intelligence from contemporaries that included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Frederic Henry Hedge.
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Mary Moody Emerson
August 23, 1774 - May 1, 1863
Mary Moody Emerson was only two years old when her father, Reverend William Emerson, mounted his horse and road off in to the Revolutionary War never to return. Mary was sent to live with her impoverished grandmother and insane aunt in Malden, MA. She was a voracious reader and in spite of any formal education, she sought knowledge and was self educated. When her brother, William died, Mary helped to raise his family and had a deep and profound influence on her nephew, Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as the respect and admiration of his friend, Henry David Thoreau. An intelligent, unique and somewhat eccentric woman, Mary wrote thousands of letters and journal entries and encouraged Emerson to become a minister. She lived to be almost 90 years old. She is buried in the Emerson family plot at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
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Samuel Prescott
August 19, 1751 - 1776 or 1777
It was not Paul Revere who rode into Concord in the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 19th 1775 but a young, local doctor who had been visiting his fiancée, Lydia Muliken, in Lexington. Samuel Prescott joined Paul Revere and William Dawes on the road to Concord as he headed home to Concord after identifying himself as a Son of Liberty. Shortly after all three were stopped by a British patrol. Dawes escaped on foot and Revere was captured. But brave Dr. Prescott, being familiar with the terrain and an excellent horseman, jumped a stone wall and raced to Concord to alert the town that the Redcoats were approaching. From there he went on to sound the alarm in Acton and Stow. Sadly, Dr. Prescott never married the lovely Lydia Muliken. He seems to have vanished into the war though there is evidence that he went on to serve as a surgeon in the Continental Army and later joined the crew of a New England privateer and died in prison in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1776 or 1777.
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Louisa May Alcott
November 29, 1832 - March 6, 1888
The Alcotts came to Concord at the invitation of Ralph Waldo Emerson. They moved often, living in several homes in Concord and beyond including a utopian community in Harvard, MA, before purchasing Hillside (later renamed The Wayside by Nathaniel Hawthorne) and Orchard House. Hillside is where Louisa May and her three sisters lived their teen years and served as the setting of her most famous novel, Little Women, which was written in part next door at Orchard House when Louisa was 35. Her father, Bronson, was an educator, a philosopher and superintendent of Concord Schools. He began the first adult education program in the country when he opened The School of Philosophy at Orchard House where men and women came to share ideas and listen to speakers.
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Daniel Chester French
April 26, 1850 - October 7, 1931
Daniel Chester French is best known as the sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Though born in New Hampshire he spent his teen years in Concord. His first art teacher was Louisa May Alcott’s youngest sister, May. The Minute Man statue at the North Bridge was his first commission when he was 23 years old. The work that meant the most to him stands in the center of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a memorial to three Concord brothers who died during the Civil War. He named the monument Mourning Victory and chose to be buried on the ridge above the sculpture.
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Mary Merrick Brooks
1801 - 1868
Though she was a slave-owner’s daughter, Mary Merrick Brooks was one of Concord’s leading abolitionists. She was the founder of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society and worked tirelessly to recruit her neighbors to the cause and bring anti-slavery speakers to Concord even though that was considered controversial in the 1830s.
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Henry D. Thoreau
July 13, 1817 - May 6, 1862
Henry David Thoreau was born on Virginia Road in Concord and baptized David Henry Thoreau; he changed his name after graduating from Harvard College in 1837. Perhaps Concord’s best known resident, Thoreau lived here all his life and knew the land intimately. For two years he lived in a one-room house that he built on the shores of Walden Pond. His book Walden, ensured that Concord would not just be known as an historic town but as a sacred place where philosophers and writers were inspired and where a nascent country developed a unique literary voice. Thoreau’s mother, aunts and sisters were abolitionists and members of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society and were influential in shaping Henry’s viewpoints.
Photo credits:
Mary Merrick Brooks by Alonzo Hartwell, Boston, Massachusetts, 1852. Concord Museum Collection, Bequest of Mrs. Stedman Buttrick, Sr.; Pi413. Portraits used in the card fronts of Ruth Wheeler, Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley, Mary Moody Emerson, Henry David Thoreau courtesy WIlliam Munroe Special Collections, Concord Free Public Library. Ralph Kimlau portrait courtesy of Eileen Dong, Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Collection.
Images on this page are part of Revolutionary Concordians, a special trading card series developed by Thoreau Farm with support from Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. These cards celebrate notable figures from Concord’s history—revolutionary in both large and small ways—who helped shape the town and beyond.
