Barrow Bookstore Presents: Concord Trivia

As schools enjoy a well-earned summer break and prepare to reopen in the fall, test your local school knowledge with questions 1-4.

QUESTIONS

1 True or False: Concord’s Alcott Elementary School is named after Concord’s Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.

2 Which Concord school is named after a town resident who was a member of The Secret Six, the group that funded John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry?

3 Which famous author gave the 25th anniversary address at Concord Academy? a) Ralph Waldo Emerson b) Harriet Lothrop (pen name Margaret Sidney) c) Samuel Clemens (pen name Mark Twain) d) T.S. Eliot e) Agatha Christie

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4 What prestigious landscape architectural firm designed Middlesex School’s campus in Concord? If you need a hint, their other projects included The Biltmore Estate in North Carolina and the infrastructure of the Smoky Mountain Parkway, Acadia National Park, and Yosemite Valley.

Middlesex School

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5 In 1842, which author celebrated their birthday in a fantastically independent manner, and then five days later married and moved to Concord, Massachusetts? a) Margaret Fuller b) Ralph Waldo Emerson c) Edgar Allan Poe d) Nathaniel Hawthorne e) Herman Melville

6 Built in 1747, the Wright Tavern is located in Concord Center on the corner of Main Street and Lexington Road. On April 19, 1775, the tavern was briefly taken over by British officers as a command post while their troops searched the town for hidden weapons and military supplies. As described in A.S. Hudson’s 1904 book, The History of Concord, Massachusetts, the tavern eventually closed and over the centuries the building was used as a home for which of the following people: a) A liveryman b) A baker c) A bookbinder d) A storekeeper e) A tinsmith f) A shoe dealer

7 Preventable today, what illness caused the death of Henry David Thoreau’s brother, John? a) Scarlet fever b) Lockjaw c) Typhoid pneumonia d) Tuberculosis

Henry David Thoreau

public domain

8 Throughout his lifetime, Henry David Thoreau worked a variety of jobs. Which of the following jobs did he not do? a) Surveyor b) Writer c) Flute manufacturer d) Teacher e) Pencil maker

9 How many siblings did Henry David Thoreau have? Bonus points for putting them in order!

10 Just when colonial residents of Concord thought they had their newly formed country’s flag figured out, President George Washington signed the Flag Act of 1794 calling for a total number of how many stars on the American flag? a) 13 stars b) 15 stars c) 19 stars d) 23 stars

ANSWERS

1. False. Alcott Elementary School is named after Louisa’s father, Amos Bronson Alcott, who was the superintendent of Concord schools from 1859-1864.

2. Sanborn Middle School. Born in 1831 (died 1917), Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was a journalist, writer, teacher, and abolitionist. A Harvard graduate, Sanborn was friends with Emerson and Thoreau, and moved to Concord in 1854 when he became headmaster of a small co-ed school. Located at today’s 49 Sudbury Road, his school’s students included the young Louisa May Alcott and her siblings. Sanborn was also an ardent abolitionist and supporter of John Brown. Following Brown’s failed raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, federal marshals showed up at night outside of Sanborn’s Concord home and attempted to arrest him on suspicion of being one of six men secretly backing Brown’s endeavors. As a struggling, protesting, and handcuffed Sanborn was carried by marshals to a carriage, Sanborn’s sister started screaming, alerting Concord neighbors who came to Sanborn’s aid, wrenching him away from the deputies and harassing the deputies out of town.

Arrest and rescue of Frank Sanborn

commons.wikimedia.org

3. d) Meow-wow! The answer is T.S. Eliot. Eight years after he wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, (which became the basis for Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, Cats), T.S. Eliot delivered a speech at Concord Academy’s graduation ceremony. Established in 1922 as a girl’s school for grades 1-12, the school was still small, and Eliot spoke to a graduating class of 17 seniors. Eliot’s presence at Concord Academy was arranged by his friend and Concord Academy teacher Emily Hale, with whom he had a multidecade and extremely confusing (for her) relationship.

4. The Olmsted Brothers landscape architectural firm. Brothers John Charles and Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., inherited America’s first landscape architectural business from their father, Frederick Law Olmsted. In 1901, at the invitation of Middlesex School’s founder Frederick Winsor, the brothers designed the school’s campus.

Biltmore

5. d) Nathaniel Hawthorne. Born July 4, 1804, Hawthorne celebrated an Independence Day birthday. On July 9, 1842, Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in a small wedding held in a Boston bookshop owned by Sophia’s older sister, Elizabeth. Following the ceremony, the newlyweds took a carriage to Concord, MA, where they moved into the Old Manse on Monument Street. Renting the home from the Emerson family, the Hawthornes lived in the Manse from 1842-45.

6. All of them!

Bookbinder at work

By Jean-Pol Grandmont - Own work, CC BY 2.5 commons.wikimedia.org

7. b) Lockjaw. On January 1, 1842, Henry David Thoreau’s older brother, John, accidentally cut himself with a rusty razor while shaving. Lockjaw (another name for a tetanus infection) set in, causing tightness of the facial muscles and hindering his ability to breathe and swallow. John died eleven days later in Henry’s arms. Tetanus vaccines were developed 82 years later in 1924 and by the 1940s had become a common immunization.

8. c) Flute manufacturer. Thoreau played the flute but he did not manufacture them. (Thoreau’s flute may be seen on display at the Concord Museum.)

9. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) had three siblings: Helen (1812-1849); John, Jr., (1815-1842); and Sophia (1819-1876).

10. b) 15 stars. With a star representing each state, the 1794 Flag Act added two additional stars to reflect Vermont and Kentucky being admitted into the Union.