{"nrhp_refnum":"66000775","name":"Old Manse","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Monument St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Concord","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.46857074400006,"lon":-71.34932835226294,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1966-10-15","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1962-12-29","areas_of_significance":["Literature"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 2 1/2-story, gambrel-roofed frame house on Monument Street in Concord, Massachusetts, built about 1769 for the Rev. William Emerson. It sits on a 6.71-acre parcel running to the Concord River beside the Old North Bridge.","why_significant":"The house is significant mainly for its association with Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived there for 3 1/2 years after his 1842 marriage and wrote most of the tales in Mosses From an Old Manse there. It is also tied to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who worked on his essay Nature in the house in 1834.","narrative":"Near the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, the Old Manse is a 2 1/2-story frame house with a gambrel roof, built about 1769 for the Rev. William Emerson, pastor of the Church in Concord. It stands on a 6.71-acre parcel of open land stretching from Monument Street to the Concord River. The house has a center-hall plan, paneled rooms, and French wallpaper that predates 1850. Window panes in the dining room and study carry inscriptions cut by Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife. Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody lived here from 1842 to 1846, and he named the house and wrote most of Mosses From an Old Manse in the upstairs study. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the minister's grandson, lived here in 1834 while working on Nature. The house stayed in private hands until 1939, when the Trustees of Reservations acquired it. It is now open to visitors as a museum.","period_of_significance":"Specific dates: c. 1769; 1834; 1842-46","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by the Trustees of Reservations since 1939 and open to the public as a museum; described as relatively unaltered since construction.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 01:59:11.474497-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/55/7937/63793755/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/66000775_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000775/fb37599252-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000775/fb37599252-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Midnightdreary","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Manse_from_side.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Midnightdreary</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Manse_from_side.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793755","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Manse","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4439852"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/old-manse-66000775/"}