Old Manse

Specialties

WHEN TO VISIT

Grounds: Year-​round, daily, sunrise to sunset.

House:

Walk-​In Tours:

Saturdays & Sundays, March 16-​May 26 | 12Noon-​5PM

Tuesdays-​Sundays, May 28-​October 31 | 12Noon-​5PM

Saturdays & Sundays, November 2-​December 29 | 12Noon-​5PM

Monday, May 27 | 12Noon-​5PM (other Mondays by appointment)

Pre-​booked, by prior appointment tours are available year-​round, seven days a week.

The Old Manse Specialty Bookstore is open for business from 12Noon-​5PM when the house is open, and by prior appointment also.

Please call 978.369.3909 for more details when planning your visit.

ADMISSION

Grounds: FREE.

House tours: Members FREE. Nonmembers: Adult $ 8; Child (6 – 12) $ 5; Senior $ 7; Student (with valid ID) $ 7; Family (2 adults and up to 3 minor children) $ 25 (25% savings). Group tours by prior appointment (min. of 10 people): $ 6 per person.

History

Established in 1770.

The first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired nearby — and, less than a century later, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau spawned a revolution in American philosophy from here.

Built in 1770 for patriot minister William Emerson, The Old Manse, a National Historic Landmark, became the center of Concord’s political, literary, and social revolutions over the course of the next century. In the mid-​19^th-​century, leading Transcendentalists such as Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller discussed the issues of the day here, with the Hawthorne and Ripley families.

A handsome Georgian clapboard building, The Old Manse sits near the banks of the Concord River among rolling fields edged by centuries-​old stone walls and graced by an orchard. From upstairs, you can look out over the North Bridge, where the famous battle of April 19, 1775, took place. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne both called the Manse home for a time.