Concord Trivia

Barrow Bookstore Presents: Concord Trivia

QUESTIONS

1

In Louisa May Alcott’s Concord-based novel Little Women, which March sister was the “post-mistress” for the March family household? Bonus points: Which of the below names is not a March sister?

a) Meg

b) Jo

c) Edna

d) Beth

e) Amy

2

Which Concord author is theorized to have inspired President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to include in his first Inaugural Address in 1933 the line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?”

a) Bronson Alcott

b) William Ellery Channing

c) Ralph Waldo Emerson

d) Henry David Thoreau

e) Harriett Lothrop (pen name Margaret Sidney)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first Inauguration

Architect of the Capitol. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

3

During America’s Great Depression, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was one of the New Deal programs implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The work-relief program commissioned artists to paint large murals for permanent display in public spaces. In 1941, artist Charles Anton Kaeselau came to Concord, Massachusetts, as part of this program and painted a large mural depicting the April 19, 1775, battle at the North Bridge. The mural is still in its original location and today anyone can see it during business hours. Where is it?

a) The Old North Bridge Visitor Center

b) The Major John Buttrick House

c) The Concord Center Post Office

d) The Masonic Hall

e) Town Hall

4

Test your tour guide-level knowledge! On July 4, 1845, Concord observed Independence Day and two Concord residents did which of the following:

a) Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women, and Nathaniel Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter

b) Henry David Thoreau moved into his cabin at Walden Pond, and Nathaniel Hawthorne celebrated his 41st birthday

c) Bronson Alcott opened the Concord School of Philosophy, and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was arrested for being one of the “Secret Six” supporters of radical abolitionist John Brown

d) Mary Moody Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson’s aunt) bought a custom coffin to sleep in, and Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his 12,000th sermon

5

On July 4, 1837, the Town of Concord celebrated the completion of the Battle Monument at the site of the April 19, 1775, battle between the colonists and the King’s troops. Where is this monument?

a) Concord Center in Monument Square

b) Next to the North Bridge

c) On the Battle Road near Meriam’s Corner

d) Lexington Green (it’s complicated….)

6

You are attending the July 4, 1837, ceremony celebrating the completion of the Concord Monument when you are handed a six-inch piece of paper bearing a poem written by Ralph Waldo Emerson for this event. As a grandson of Concord’s “Patriot Minister” William Emerson, Ralph Waldo has called the poem “The Concord Hymn,” and it pays homage to the patriots of April 19, 1775. To the melody of a well-known hymn “Old Hundredth,” you and the crowd begin to sing “The Concord Hymn,” but your piece of paper suddenly blows away. Can you complete the poem from memory?

“By the ______ bridge that arched the flood, their ______ to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the ________ ________ stood, and fired the _____ heard round the world.”

The 1836 Battle Monument, the North Bridge, and the Minute Man statue

©istock.com

7

Sculptor and artist Daniel Chester French grew up in Concord and took his first art lessons from May Alcott (the younger sister of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott). His vast portfolio includes the statue of Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, and an array of works still remaining in Concord. How many of Daniel Chester French’s outdoor statues of American Revolutionary War patriots are on the grounds of the Minute Man National Historical Park?

Daniel Chester French, 1902

Photo by James Edward Purdy. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

8

True or False: Harvard University was once located in Concord, Massachusetts.

9

Riddle: From Ireland I came in my original house; I am older than the home where I live now; I have passed time with minutemen, ministers, Harvard students, very wise women, philosophers, authors, artists, Union soldiers, and maybe even you. In trusted care, still I move. Who or what am I? And where can you find me?

10

Excluding the base, how tall is the Concord Minute Man bronze statue?

ANSWERS

1.

D. Beth. As written in Little Women, “Beth was post-mistress, for, being most at home, she could attend to it regularly, and dearly liked the daily task of…. distributing the mail.” Bonus question answer: Alas, poor Edna, we hardly knew you! The March sisters are Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.

2.

D. Henry David Thoreau. As described in Sally Denton’s book The Plots Against the President, Eleanor Roosevelt gave her husband a book of Thoreau’s writings that included a September 7, 1851, journal entry noting that “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.” On the morning of his inauguration, soon-to-be President Roosevelt had the book of Thoreau’s writings with him as he finished working on last-minute changes to his speech.

Replica of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond

wikimedia commons

3.

C. The Concord Center Post Office at 34 Walden Street. Enter the post office lobby and look up to your left and you will see the mural. Kaeselau’s piece was one of about 700 New Deal artwork murals painted by different artists in Federal Post Offices across America.

4.

B. As Thoreau wrote in Walden, “I began to occupy my house [at Walden Pond] on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed.” At the same time, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia were living at their rental house, The Old Manse, on Monument Street in Concord and celebrating Hawthorne’s 41st birthday.

5.

B. Next to the North Bridge

6.

“By the RUDE bridge that arched the flood, their FLAG to April’s breeze unfurled, here once the EMBATTLED FARMERS stood, and fired the SHOT heard round the world.”

7.

Two statues. One is the Minute Man statue located in the heart of the park just next to the North Bridge. The second is a bas-relief sculpture of Major John Buttrick, who commanded the colonials at the North Bridge battle. The Buttrick memorial is located on Liberty Street (near Estabrook Road) next to the North Bridge Visitor Center.

8.

Oooo…. This is a tricky one! And you get credit if you answered either true or false! Harvard College came to Concord for one year in 1775. The school became a University in 1780. After the April 19, 1775, battles of Lexington and Concord, America’s war with England officially began. On May 1, 1775, students at the Cambridge-based Harvard College were dismissed early and the campus taken over as an encampment for George Washington’s Continental Army. Lacking a campus, Harvard College temporarily relocated for a year to Concord where they set up classes in the Courthouse, the First Parish Meeting House, and an empty school building. Students boarded with Concord residents, including ancestors of Ralph Waldo Emerson living at The Old Manse on Monument Street.

9.

The grandfather clock in The Old Manse. Now maintained by the Trustees of Reservations, The Old Manse is a museum and may be visited at 269 Monument Street, Concord, MA. Visit their website at: thetrustees.org/place/the-old-manse.

10.

Seven feet tall