Ralph Waldo Emerson House

The Ralph Waldo Emerson House is a house museum located at 28 Cambridge Turnpike, Concord, Massachusetts, and a National Historic Landmark for its associations with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. The museum is open mid-April to mid-October; an admission fee is charged.

History

The house was built in 1828 by the Coolidge family and named "Coolidge Castle".Richardson, Robert D., Jr. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1995: 208. ISBN 0-520-08808-5 It was used as a summer house on the village outskirts, beside the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike. It is a four-square, two-story frame building in a house style common to many New England towns.

While Ralph Waldo Emerson was preparing to marry Lydia Jackson (who he called "Lidian"), he told her he could not live in her home town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. "Plymouth is streets", he wrote to her, "I live in the wide champaign."Schreiner, Samuel A., Jr. The Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and the Friendship that Freed the American Mind. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006: 34. ISBN 0-471-64663-6 He had previously lived in Concord at The Old Manse, the Emerson family home,Wilson, Susan. Literary Trail of Greater Boston. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000: 127. ISBN 0-618-05013-2 and hoped to return to that town. In July 1835, he wrote in his...
Read More