THE 3 PARTS OF CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN

“History is an endless chain of inventive and spurious continuities, as in the case of the USS Constellation1, the USS Constellation , the USS Constellation , and the 2 3 USS Constellation4.” — Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1659

The land which is now under Concord’s Colonial Inn facing the town common, up to this point, had been owned by the Reverend Peter Bulkeley (1). His son, the Reverend Edward Bulkeley (1), had removed to Concord from his church in Marshfield in 1658, and would in 1660 be designated to succeed his deceased father as the reverend of Concord.

In this year Samuel Symon Willard, son of Major Simon Willard, a Concord merchant living on Lee’s or Nawshawtuck Hill (Gleason F6) and charged by the community to deal militarily with the problem posed by the presence of a racial and ethnic other (native Americans), received his diploma. He would become a minister of Groton and eventually his father would relocate there to reside with him. one of the most eminent ministers in New England was son of Major Simon Willard and was born in Concord January 31, 1640. He was graduated in 1659 and ordained at Groton, Mass., in 1662, from whence he removed to when that town was destroyed by the Indians in March, 1676, and was installed as colleague pastor with the Rev. Mr. Thacher, over the Old South Church, April 10, 1678. He officiated as Vice President of Harvard College, from September 6, 1701, till his death. He died September 12, 1707 aged 67. His son was Secretary of the province 39 years, and his grandson, , D.D., LL.D., was President of Harvard. The notices in “History of the Old South Church,” and other works, are so copious, that any further account here is unnecessary.1 2

1. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN died.

2. Per the History of Groton by Caleb Butler, 1848, page 444: Rev. Samuel Willard and his wife, Abigail Sherman married August 8, 1664. Children: 1. Abigail Willard b. July 5, 1665. (m. Samuel Estabrook) 2. Samuel Willard, Jr. b. Jan. 25, 1667. 3. Mary Willard b. Oct. 10, 1669. 4. John Willard b. Sept. 8, 1673. 5. Elizabeth Willard b. Dec. 27, 1674. He was the 2nd Minister of Groton, Mass. & ordained there July 13, 1664 - “a church gathered at Groyton and Mr. Willard ordained” (pages 155-157, Butler’s Hist. of Groton.) He m. Abigail Sherman Aug. 8, 1664, granddaughter of Lord Darcy, Earl of Rivers, England & after her death he m. Eunice, the dau. of Edward Tyng. It is said he had twenty children six by Abigail Sherman and fourteen by Eunice Tyng. The Hon. Josiah Willard, Secretary of the Province by appointment of the King, for 39 years was his son & the late Rev. Joseph Willard, Pres. of Harvard 23 years was his grandson. Rev. Gershom Hobart succeeded him as minister of Groton. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1663

Captain Timothy Wheeler became Concord’s deputy and representative to the General Court of the Bay Colony. He would be their representative off and on until 1672.3

The land which is now under Concord’s Colonial Inn was sold by Grace Bulkeley, the widow of the Reverend Peter Bulkeley, to Captain Timothy Wheeler.

John Miles, freedman of Concord, had by this point acquired over 400 acres of land in the South Quarter of the town (Nine Acre Corner area). His son Samuel Miles would construct a house on “faier haven way” (still standing at #429 Williams Road) in the early 1700s, and in this house his grandson Charles Miles of Revolutionary fame would be born in 1727 and would live most of his life.

During this year there would be five marriages, fourteen births, and four deaths in this town:

Marriages Births Deaths

1656 3 11 —

1657 3 11 3

1658 3 6 3

1659 2 10 4

1660 6 11 3

1661 2 12 6

1662 4 14 4

1663 5 14 4

1664 4 11 2

1665 7 13 6

1666 2 22 6

1667 8 15 6

3. Representative Timothy WHEELER of Concord, freeman on May 13, 1640, ensign in 1646, was a Captain late in his days, but more often in the record called Lieutenant. He was a Representative during 1663, and very often after; he died on July 10, 1687, aged about 86, as the gravestone tells; had Sarah WHEELER, born on June 22, 1640; had his wife Jane WHEELER who died on February 12, 1643; and by wife Mary Brooks WHEELER, daughter of Captain Thomas Brooks, had Mary WHEELER, born on October 3, 1657, died at 3 years; Elizabeth WHEELER, born on October 6, 1661, who got married during 1678 with Eleazer Prout; Rebecca WHEELER, born during 1666, who got married during 1684 with James Minot; and probably others, perhaps Timothy WHEELER of Concord, freeman 1677, for one, who got married on June 29, 1670 with Ruth Fuller, and died on June 7, 1678. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

Marriages Births Deaths

1668 4 21 5

1669 4 24 5

1670 2 21 2

1671 6 22 7

1672 5 20 3

1673 6 29 6

1674 3 20 5

1675 5 21 11

1676 4 13 13

1677 11 22 6 HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1667

In Concord, John Smeadly was deputy and representative to the General Court.

The initial Concord town meetinghouse had been on the hill some distance easterly from the common. In this year it was arranged to create a new meetinghouse, somewhat closer in. The house would be complete in 1673.

Some of the timbers cut during this year for use in the frame of the new meetinghouse would be re-used in 1710 for a law court building on the south side of the Concord common. Then, when this law court building would get old, it would be moved to the back of Deacon John White’s home for use as that family’s barn. Then in 1850 these timbers would be recycled yet again by Daniel Shattuck to build an ell on the Lowell Road side of what is now the Colonial Inn, and a stable.

ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE, IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1687

July 10, Sunday (Old Style): Timothy Wheeler died, aged about 86.4 Captain Wheeler left the land which is now beneath Concord’s Colonial Inn to his daughter Rebecca Wheeler Minot, wife of Captain James Minot (1653- 1735).

4. Representative Timothy WHEELER of Concord, freeman on May 13, 1640, ensign in 1646, was a Captain late in his days, but more often in the record called Lieutenant. He was a Representative during 1663, and very often after; he died on July 10, 1687, aged about 86, as the gravestone tells; had Sarah WHEELER, born on June 22, 1640; had his wife Jane WHEELER who died on February 12, 1643; and by wife Mary Brooks WHEELER, daughter of Captain Thomas Brooks, had Mary WHEELER, born on October 3, 1657, died at 3 years; Elizabeth WHEELER, born on October 6, 1661, who got married during 1678 with Eleazer Prout; Rebecca WHEELER, born during 1666, who got married during 1684 with James Minot; and probably others, perhaps Timothy WHEELER of Concord, freeman 1677, for one, who got married on June 29, 1670 with Ruth Fuller, and died on June 7, 1678. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1699

In Concord, Thomas Brown continued as Town Clerk.

The trail through Concord to Groton, which had been in existence at least since 1665, was at this point upgraded and incorporated into a Groton Road which ran 200 miles to the British citadel at Crown Point on Lake Champlain, gateway to Québec. The road passed over the Concord River via a bridge near where the Old North Bridge now stands.

At some point during the late 17th Century, Captain James Minot had built the home that eventually would become the east wing of Concord’s Colonial Inn (we know he was living there on November 14, 1716). HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1710

In Concord, William Wheeler, Joseph Dakin, William Wilson, Samuel Fletcher, and Benjamin Whittemore were Selectmen.

In Concord, William Wilson was Town Clerk.

In Concord, John Heywood continued as Town Treasurer.

In Concord, from 2 to 3 Horse-Officers or “persons to look after horses going at large on the common during Concord Court” would be chosen each year until 1802. From this year until 1718, William Wilson would be the Town Clerk.

Benjamin Whittemore was Concord’s deputy and representative to the General Court.

Concord needed a new, 3d, meetinghouse.

In Concord, the timbers which had been cut for use in the town meetinghouse in 1667 were being re-used at this point for a law court building being constructed on the south side of the town common. (This law court building in turn when it got old would be moved to the back of Deacon John White’s home for use as that family’s barn, and then in 1850 the timbers would be recycled yet again by Daniel Shattuck to build an ell on the Lowell Road side of what is now the Colonial Inn, and a stable.)

ESSENCES ARE FUZZY, GENERIC, CONCEPTUAL; ARISTOTLE WAS RIGHT WHEN HE INSISTED THAT ALL TRUTH IS SPECIFIC AND PARTICULAR (AND WRONG WHEN HE CHARACTERIZED TRUTH AS A GENERALIZATION).

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1716

In Concord, Joseph Dakin, William Wilson, Benjamin Whittemore, John Flint, and Daniel Brooks were Selectmen. Ordinarily, Concord’s five selectmen acted as Overseers of the Poor and as Assessors, but in this period there was in addition a board of five Overseers of the Poor.

In Concord, William Wilson continued as Town Clerk.

In Concord, Samuel Jones continued as Town Treasurer.

Boston Light, the 1st lighthouse built in the US and the last to remain currently staffed, was built on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor BOSTON HARBOR . This 1st stone lighthouse was financed by a tax of a

penny a ton on all vessels entering and leaving the harbor. The first keeper, George Worthylake, was paid £50 a year. He made additional money by acting as a harbor pilot for incoming vessels, and kept a flock of sheep on Great Brewster Island. In a 1717 storm his sheep would be out on the long sand spit off Great Brewster when the tide came in, and would be drowned. In 1718 Worthylake and his family would be out in a boat when an accident would happen and they would drown.5

Boston Light in 1789

Captain James Minot deeded the home that eventually would become the east wing of Concord’s Colonial Inn HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN to his son James Minot, Jr.

During this year and the following one, what we know as “The Wayside” was being constructed on a granite foundation as a two-story side gable Georgian house. It is also known as the “Samuel Whitney” house because during the fighting in 1775 it would be the home of the Reverend Samuel Whitney. The present front bay would be added, by the Alcotts, during the 1845-1887 alterations. The East and West additions have romantic detailing while the west porch, which would be tacked on circa 1900, has late Victorian details. This would be the home not only of the Alcott family but also of the Hawthorne family, and finally of Daniel and Harriet 1 Lothrop (Harriet was known by her pen name “Margaret Sidney”). Between 1716 and 1778 a 1 /2-story side gable barn with a shed attached to its north wall would be associated with this structure, but the barn would be moving around. It would be moved to the west side of the house by Bronson Alcott, by 1845, and then finally Nathaniel Hawthorne would have it moved to the east side of the house, in 1860. OLD HOUSES

Concord had in the previous year kept a grammar school for but one quarter, in different parts of the town, and the total expense for education had been £40. In this year, however, it raised £50 for its schools, £35 for the grammar school at the town center and £5 for each of the grammar schools of the other three divisions of the town.

5. Boston having been during the colonial era the maritime center of America, there had been other beacons before this Boston Light. There had been, for instance, a beacon on nearby Point Allerton in Hull as early as 1673, and the town of Hull had already built a lighthouse on the northern bluff as of 1681. So what is meant when people say that this is our 1st lighthouse is merely that the structure on Little Brewster, rebuilt after the Brits destroyed it during the revolution, happens to be the most antique still in existence. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1759

In Concord, Samuel Merriam, James Chandler, John Flint, Stephen Hosmer, Jr., and Jonas Heywood were Selectmen.

In Concord, John Beaton continued as Town Treasurer.

Charles Prescott was Concord’s deputy and representative to the General Court.

At the age of about 12 or 13, Hannah Melvin of Concord, having experienced religious conversion, was accepted into the church. THE MELVINS OF CONCORD

Due to the religious upheaval in Concord involving his family, the first marriage of Charles Miles in 1756 had been officiated at by a Justice of the Peace rather than the local minister, but in this year, having reconciled with the church, his second marriage was officiated at by the Reverend Daniel Bliss.

James Minott of Concord was an Assistant and Counselor. James Minot, Jr. died, and left his “dwelling house, barns and all of the other buildings on the home lot [in Concord] to my son Ephraim” Minot. COLONIAL INN Representatives of Lincoln6

Chambers Russell ’54-57, ’59, ’62, ’63, ’5. Joshua Brooks 1809-1811.

Samuel Farrer 1766-1768. Leonard Hoar 1812-1814.

Eleazer Brooks ’74-’78, ’80, ’5, ’7, ’90-’2. William Hayden 1815, 1816.

Chambers Russell 1788. Elijah Fiske 1820-1822.

Samuel Hoar ’94, ’95, ’97, ’98, 1801, ’3-’8. Joel Smith 1824.

Samuel Farrar, Jr. 1800. Silas P. Tarbell 1827, 1828.

Not represented 1758, ’60, ’62, ’69-’73, ’79, ’81, ’82, ’86, ’89, ’93, ’96, ’99, 1802, ’17, ’23, ’25, ’26.

Counselors of Lincoln7

Hon. Chambers Russell 1759-1766

Hon. Eleazer Brooks 1788 1792-1800

6. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) 7. Ibid HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1764

January 20, Friday: Ephraim Minot sold the property that is now the Colonial Inn, with 20 acres bounded on the west by Concord’s Millbrook, to his cousin, Dr. Timothy Minott, Jr. Dr. Minot (1726-1804) would tend the wounded on April 19, 1775. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1766

In Concord, John Jones, Simon Hunt, James Barrett, Charles Prescott, and John Cuming were Selectmen.

In Concord, John Beaton continued as Town Treasurer.

In Concord, Jonas Heywood was Town Clerk.

Charles Prescott was Concord’s deputy and representative to the General Court.

Dr. Timothy Minott, Jr. mortgaged the Concord property that is now the Colonial Inn to his cousin Samuel Minot, a goldsmith of Boston.

Thomas Munroe of Lexington sold his mortgaged interest in what we now know as Concord’s Wright Tavern HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN to Daniel Taylor, who would keep it until 1775.

By a special act of the colonial legislature, the farm of Edward Stearns was set off from Billerica and annexed to Bedford: Concord gave them liberty to be set off; and the General Court passed an act, September 23, 1729, incorporating them as a town by the name of Bedford. The boundaries of the town, as described in this act, were nearly the same as they are at present [1835], excepting the farm of Edward Stearns, which was set off from Billerica and annexed to Bedford by a special act, passed in HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN 1766.8 Representatives of Lincoln9

Chambers Russell ’54-57, ’59, ’62, ’63, ’5. Joshua Brooks 1809-1811.

Samuel Farrer 1766-1768. Leonard Hoar 1812-1814.

Eleazer Brooks ’74-’78, ’80, ’5, ’7, ’90-’2. William Hayden 1815, 1816.

Chambers Russell 1788. Elijah Fiske 1820-1822.

Samuel Hoar ’94, ’95, ’97, ’98, 1801, ’3-’8. Joel Smith 1824.

Samuel Farrar, Jr. 1800. Silas P. Tarbell 1827, 1828.

Not represented 1758, ’60, ’62, ’69-’73, ’79, ’81, ’82, ’86, ’89, ’93, ’96, ’99, 1802, ’17, ’23, ’25, ’26.

8. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) 9. Ibid HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1770

Dr. Timothy Minott, Jr.’s mortgage for the property that is now the Colonial Inn in Concord had at this point been paid off in full. Between this year and 1775 a one-story heavily timbered structure, that eventually would become the central building of the inn, would be erected at the west end of what is now its east wing. This new addition would have its first use as a Provincial storehouse during the Revolution.

In the spring of this year Concord moved its 1754 wooden gaol so that it would be closer to the tavern on South Bridge Road, where the prisoners could be fed. This required “rollers” (tree trunks) and 26 pairs of oxen. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1780

Deacon John White hired the new one-story heavily timbered structure that would eventually be used as the center of the Colonial Inn from Dr. Timothy Minott, Jr. for a store, and set up to live in one end of it (he would soon add a 2nd story and move his family upstairs). This Concord store would specialize in paints and oils but also carry general merchandise. He put up a VARIETY STORE sign.

The following table exhibits the appropriations for several objects at different periods in the town of Acton:10

1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830

Minister £50 £52 £70 £3,562 £80 $353 $353 $363 ___

Schools 13 12 24 2,000 49 333 450 450 450

Roads 26 70 60 800 120 400 500 600 800

Incidental 20 12 80 10,000 100 500 1,000 1,400 600

Concord’s revolutionary Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety was renewed. The committee of correspondence, etc., chosen March, 1776 [for Concord], were John Cuming, Esq., Ephraim Wood, Jr., Esq., Capt. Jonas Heywood, Capt. Joseph Hosmer, James Barrett, Esq., Capt. David Brown, and Capt. George Minot. In 1777, Colonel John Buttrick, Josiah Merriam, Isaac Hubbard, Capt. Abishai Brown, Capt. David Wheeler, Mr. Ephraim Potter, and Lieut. Nathan Stow. In 1778, John Cuming, Esq., Colonel John Buttrick, Ephraim Wood, Jr., Esq., Jonas Heywood, Esq., James Barrett, Esq., Capt. David 10. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN Brown, and Mr. Josiah Merriam. These were re-elected in 1779, 1780, 1781 & 1782. In 1783, James Barrett, Esq., Jonas Heywood, Esq., Ephraim Wood, Jr., Esq., Capt. David Wood, and Lieut. Joseph Hayward. This committee was not chosen afterwards.11 AMERICAN REVOLUTION

A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: Before the first documented use of the term “carbonated paper,” when Ralph Wedgwood would obtain an English patent for a “Stylographic Writer” in 1806, and before Cyrus P. Dakin of Concord’s alleged invention of carbon paper in ELECTRIC Concord in 1823 (actually we have no record of such a person ever having resided in the vicinity), the best that WALDEN anyone was able to achieve by way of automatic copying was a scheme by James Watt dating to this year, for writing with a special ink containing gum arabic. By pressing his freshly written sheet of paper firmly against a sheet of wet paper the inventor of components for the steam engine found that he was able to create a copy of his writing that would remain legible for about 24 hours — but you needed to look at it with a mirror. (Watt’s copying method would develop in the direction of the business letter-copying book which would have become standard procedure in business by the 1870s; Watt would also pioneer a device for the creation of pretty-good copies of sculpture.)

CARBON PAPER

11. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1789

During this year Dr. Timothy Minott, Jr. sold the home that would eventually become the east wing of Concord’s Colonial Inn to his new son-in-law Ammi White, a cabinet-maker who would add a long shop or shed to that structure. On the same day, Dr. Minot sold the one-story heavily timbered store next door, that eventually would become the central building of the Colonial Inn, to his new son-in-law’s father, Deacon John White.

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1799

October 30, Wednesday: As Henry Thoreau would later record in his journal, “Mother first came to Concord about the same age that father did, but a little before him.” Deacon John White’s cousin Ammi White sold Jean Thoreau some land and the home with added shed that eventually would become the East House of Concord’s Colonial Inn. This was the house next door to where the town stored its explosives — so it must have been available at a considerable discount.12 Deacon White’s wife Esther, a neighbor, was the sister of Jean’s 2nd wife in

Concord, Mrs. Rebecca Kettell Thoreau (the brothers of Esther and Rebecca ran the bakery in Wright Tavern). Mr. Thoreau lost his health, moved to Concord, . . .

January 23, Saturday, 1858: … Mrs. William Monroe told Sophia last evening that she remembered her (Sophia’s) grandfather very well, that he was taller than Father, and used to ride out to their house–she was a Stone and lived where she and her husband did afterward, now Darius Merriam’s–when they made cheeses, to drink the whey, being in consumption. She said that she remembered Grandmother too, Jennie Burns, how she came to the schoolroom (in Middle Street (?), Boston) once, leading her little daughter Elizabeth, the latter so small that she could not tell her name distinctly, but spoke thick and lispingly,– “Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau.”13 JANE “JENNIE” BURNS THOREAU JEAN THOREAU CONSUMPTION 12. This house is now the north end of the Colonial Inn, the building to the right in the drawing by John Downes,

and to the best of any guest’s knowledge no explosives are presently being stored next door. 13. Vide February 7th. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

One should not forbear to mention that it would not have taken much to be “taller than Father” John Thoreau, who was a remarkably short man, and that thus this passage in the journal in no way implied that Jean Thoreau had been tall: HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

Table of Altitudes

Yoda 2 ' 0 '' Lavinia Warren 2 ' 8 '' Tom Thumb, Jr. 3 ' 4 '' Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) 3 ' 8 '' Hervé Villechaize (“Fantasy Island”) 3 ' 11'' Charles Proteus Steinmetz 4 ' 0 '' Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (1) 4 ' 3 '' Alexander Pope 4 ' 6 '' Benjamin Lay 4 ' 7 '' Dr. Ruth Westheimer 4 ' 7 '' Gary Coleman (“Arnold Jackson”) 4 ' 8 '' Edith Piaf 4 ' 8 '' Queen Victoria with osteoporosis 4 ' 8 '' Linda Hunt 4 ' 9 '' Queen Victoria as adult 4 ' 10 '' Mother Teresa 4 ' 10 '' Margaret Mitchell 4 ' 10 '' length of newer military musket 4 ' 10'' Charlotte Brontë 4 ' 10-11'' Tammy Faye Bakker 4 ' 11'' Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut 4 ' 11'' jockey Willie Shoemaker 4 ' 11'' Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 4 ' 11'' Joan of Arc 4 ' 11'' Bonnie Parker of “Bonnie & Clyde” 4 ' 11'' Harriet Beecher Stowe 4 ' 11'' Laura Ingalls Wilder 4 ' 11'' a rather tall adult Pygmy male 4 ' 11'' Gloria Swanson 4 ' 11''1/2 Clara Barton 5 ' 0 '' Isambard Kingdom Brunel 5 ' 0 '' Andrew Carnegie 5 ' 0 '' Thomas de Quincey 5 ' 0 '' Stephen A. Douglas 5 ' 0 '' Danny DeVito 5 ' 0 '' Immanuel Kant 5 ' 0 '' William Wilberforce 5 ' 0 '' Dollie Parton 5 ' 0 '' Mae West 5 ' 0 '' Pia Zadora 5 ' 0 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

Deng Xiaoping 5 ' 0 '' Dred Scott 5 ' 0 '' (±) Captain William Bligh of HMS Bounty 5 ' 0 '' (±) Harriet Tubman 5 ' 0 '' (±) Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (2) 5 ' 0 '' (±) John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island 5 ' 0 '' (+) John Keats 5 ' 3/4 '' Debbie Reynolds (Carrie Fisher’s mother) 5 ' 1 '' Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) 5 ' 1 '' Bette Midler 5 ' 1 '' Dudley Moore 5 ' 2 '' Paul Simon (of Simon & Garfunkel) 5 ' 2 '' Honoré de Balzac 5 ' 2 '' Sally Field 5 ' 2 '' Jemmy Button 5 ' 2 '' Margaret Mead 5 ' 2 '' R. Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller 5 ' 2 '' Yuri Gagarin the astronaut 5 ' 2 '' William Walker 5 ' 2 '' Horatio Alger, Jr. 5 ' 2 '' length of older military musket 5 ' 2 '' 1 the artist formerly known as Prince 5 ' 2 /2'' 1 typical female of Thoreau’s period 5 ' 2 /2'' Francis of Assisi 5 ' 3 '' Volt ai re 5 ' 3 '' Mohandas Gandhi 5 ' 3 '' Kahlil Gibran 5 ' 3 '' Friend Daniel Ricketson 5 ' 3 '' The Reverend Gilbert White 5 ' 3 '' Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev 5 ' 3 '' Sammy Davis, Jr. 5 ' 3 '' William Laws Calley, Jr. 5 ' 3 '' Truman Capote 5 ' 3 '' Kim Jong Il (North Korea) 5 ' 3 '' Stephen A. “Little Giant” Douglas 5 ' 4 '' Francisco Franco 5 ' 4 '' President James Madison 5 ' 4 '' Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili “Stalin” 5 ' 4 '' Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 '' Pablo Picasso 5 ' 4 '' Truman Capote 5 ' 4 '' Queen Elizabeth 5 ' 4 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

Ludwig van Beethoven 5 ' 4 '' Typical Homo Erectus 5 ' 4 '' 1 typical Neanderthal adult male 5 ' 4 /2'' 1 Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 /2'' comte de Buffon 5 ' 5 '' (-) Captain Nathaniel Gordon 5 ' 5 '' Charles Manson 5 ' 5 '' Audie Murphy 5 ' 5 '' Harry Houdini 5 ' 5 '' Hung Hsiu-ch'üan 5 ' 5 '' 1 Marilyn Monroe 5 ' 5 /2'' 1 T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia” 5 ' 5 /2'' average runaway male American slave 5 ' 5-6 '' Charles Dickens 5 ' 6? '' President Benjamin Harrison 5 ' 6 '' President Martin Van Buren 5 ' 6 '' James Smithson 5 ' 6 '' Louisa May Alcott 5 ' 6 '' 1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 5 ' 6 /2'' 1 Napoleon Bonaparte 5 ' 6 /2'' Emily Brontë 5 ' 6-7 '' Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 5 ' ? '' average height, seaman of 1812 5 ' 6.85 '' Oliver Reed Smoot, Jr. 5 ' 7 '' minimum height, British soldier 5 ' 7 '' President John Adams 5 ' 7 '' President Adams 5 ' 7 '' President William McKinley 5 ' 7 '' “Charley” Parkhurst (a female) 5 ' 7 '' Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 7 '' Henry Thoreau 5 ' 7 '' 1 the average male of Thoreau's period 5 ' 7 /2 '' Edgar Allan Poe 5 ' 8 '' President Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 8 '' President William H. Harrison 5 ' 8 '' President James Polk 5 ' 8 '' President Zachary Taylor 5 ' 8 '' average height, soldier of 1812 5 ' 8.35 '' 1 President Rutherford B. Hayes 5 ' 8 /2'' President Millard Fillmore 5 ' 9 '' President Harry S Truman 5 ' 9 '' 1 President Jimmy Carter 5 ' 9 /2'' HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

3 Herman Melville 5 ' 9 /4'' Calvin Coolidge 5 ' 10'' Andrew Johnson 5 ' 10'' Theodore Roosevelt 5 ' 10'' Thomas Paine 5 ' 10'' Franklin Pierce 5 ' 10'' Abby May Alcott 5 ' 10'' Reverend Henry C. Wright 5 ' 10'' 1 Nathaniel Hawthorne 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 Louis “Deerfoot” Bennett 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 Friend John Greenleaf Whittier 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 President Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower 5 ' 10 /2'' Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots 5 ' 11'' Sojourner Truth 5 ' 11'' President Stephen Grover Cleveland 5 ' 11'' President Herbert Hoover 5 ' 11'' President Woodrow Wilson 5 ' 11'' President Jefferson Davis 5 ' 11'' 1 President Richard Milhous Nixon 5 ' 11 /2'' Robert Voorhis the hermit of Rhode Island < 6 ' Frederick Douglass 6 ' (-) Anthony Burns 6 ' 0 '' Waldo Emerson 6 ' 0 '' Joseph Smith, Jr. 6 ' 0 '' David Walker 6 ' 0 '' Sarah F. Wakefield 6 ' 0 '' Thomas Wentworth Higginson 6 ' 0 '' President James Buchanan 6 ' 0 '' President Gerald R. Ford 6 ' 0 '' President James Garfield 6 ' 0 '' President Warren Harding 6 ' 0 '' President John F. Kennedy 6 ' 0 '' President James Monroe 6 ' 0 '' President William H. Taft 6 ' 0 '' President John Tyler 6 ' 0 '' Captain John Brown 6 ' 0 (+)'' President Andrew Jackson 6 ' 1'' Alfred Russel Wallace 6 ' 1'' President Ronald Reagan 6 ' 1'' 1 Venture Smith 6 ' 1 /2'' John Camel Heenan 6 ' 2 '' Crispus Attucks 6 ' 2 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

President Chester A. Arthur 6 ' 2 '' President George Bush, Senior 6 ' 2 '' President Franklin D. Roosevelt 6 ' 2 '' President George Washington 6 ' 2 '' Gabriel Prosser 6 ' 2 '' Dangerfield Newby 6 ' 2 '' Charles Augustus Lindbergh 6 ' 2 '' 1 President Bill Clinton 6 ' 2 /2'' 1 President Thomas Jefferson 6 ' 2 /2'' President Lyndon B. Johnson 6 ' 3 '' Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 6 ' 3 '' 1 Richard “King Dick” Seaver 6 ' 3 /4'' President Abraham Lincoln 6 ' 4 '' Marion Morrison (AKA John Wayne) 6 ' 4 '' Elisha Reynolds Potter, Senior 6 ' 4 '' Thomas Cholmondeley 6 ' 4 '' (?) William Buckley 6 ' 4-7” Franklin Benjamin Sanborn 6 ' 5 '' Peter the Great of Russia 6 ' 7 '' William “Dwarf Billy” Burley 6 ' 7 '' Giovanni Battista Belzoni 6 ' 7 '' Thomas Jefferson (the statue) 7 ' 6'' Jefferson Davis (the statue) 7 ' 7'' 1 Martin Van Buren Bates 7 ' 11 /2'' M. Bihin, a Belgian exhibited in Boston in 1840 8 ' Anna Haining Swan 8 ' 1''

John Thoreau’s sister Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau, was reared, like him and the other six children, in the Thoreau home in Concord after the death of their mother Jane “Jennie” Burns Thoreau in 1896, by Jean Thoreau’s second wife, the widow Mrs. Rebecca Kettell Thoreau.

Eventually Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau married and went to live in Maine. So: what was her husband’s name, Thatcher or Lowell? Where did they live? Did Henry visit them on his trips to Maine?

NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE OCTOBER 30TH, 1799 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN AT BEST).

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1801

March 7, Saturday: In his home in Concord, Jean Thoreau died “of consumption” at the age of 47, leaving an estate of some $25,000.00 inclusive of the approximate value of his two homes, plus about $12,000.00 in good securities and in cash: Mr. Thoreau lost his health, moved to Concord, and there finished his course like a christian.14

Thoreau Deaths

Name Death Date Age Buried

John March 1801 47 Concord

Mary July 24, 1811 25 Concord

Sarah August 1829 38 Concord

Miss Betsey November 1839 60s? Concord

John January 1842 27 Concord

Helen L. June 1849 36 Concord

After Jean’s death his widow and children, including 14-year-old John Thoreau, would continue residence in this home that eventually would become the east wing of Concord’s present-day Colonial Inn, along with John’s two sisters: Sarah Thoreau, a town seamstress, and Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau (Betsey), who had inherited the house. Soon the orphaned boy John would be working as a clerk in the store of Deacon John White.

14. This is per the obituary of Mrs. Rebecca Kettell Thoreau, Henry Thoreau’s step-grandmother who had reared Henry’s father John Thoreau and his sisters Sarah, Elizabeth Thoreau, Nancy, Aunt Jane Thoreau, and Aunt Maria Thoreau — who, like his grandfather Jean Thoreau, had already died before Henry was born. It appeared in The Christian Disciple of October 1815, Volume III, No. 10. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN If Henry Thoreau’s Aunt Maria Thoreau had been born, as we suppose, in 1796, the years of her mother Jane “Jennie” Burns Thoreau’s death, this would put her at roughly 5 years of age at the date of her father’s death.

THOREAU LIFESPANS

The house at Number 57 in Prince Street in Boston passed to the surviving children, John Thoreau, David Thoreau, Sarah Thoreau, Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau, Maria Thoreau, Jane Thoreau, Nancy Thoreau, and ?????????? Thoreau (the name of this child does not seem to be anywhere on record), each receiving a one- eighth share.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1812

The one-story heavily timbered variety store structure that eventually would become the central building of Concord’s Colonial Inn passed at this point from Deacon John White to Messrs. Hemmenway and Daniel Shattuck, with the deacon retaining an interest in the enterprise.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1818

Winter: The Thoreaus had abandoned Concord in favor of Chelmsford MA:

Chelmsford, till March, 1821. (Last charge in Chelmsford about middle of March, 1821.) Aunt Sarah taught me to walk there when fourteen months old. Lived next the meeting-house, where they kept the powder in the garret. Father kept shop and painted signs, etc.15 JOHN THOREAU CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU THOREAU RESIDENCES

This was during David Henry Thoreau’s year one.

At some point John Thoreau, Senior “got a fall while painting Hale’s (?) factory.”

At some point John Thoreau, Jr. was playing with an inflated bladder when it “burst on the hearth.”

At some point “The cow came into the entry after pumpkins.”

At some point “I cut my toe and was knocked over by a hen with chickens, etc., etc.”

15. That house next door to the meeting-house in Concord was of course the house bought in 1799 by David Henry’s grandfather, which is now the east wing of the Colonial Inn. “Aunt Sarah” was of course Sarah Thoreau, John’s sister who worked in Concord as a seamstress. (I am unclear, however, whether Thoreau intended that powder had been stored in the garret of the Concord meetinghouse, or in the garret of the Chelmsford one.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1820

It was Deacon John White’s self-appointed task to stop people from traveling on Sunday, and he was especially strict about Lowell Road. In about this year he built as his own home a duplicate section at the west end of his variety store. (This structure is now a central part of Concord’s Colonial Inn.)

THE DEACONS OF CONCORD

FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E.

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1821

At this point, in Concord, Daniel Shattuck, who as a partner of Deacon John White had been living over the

variety store which now is a central part of the present-day Colonial Inn, was able to purchase that store and its stock from his partner.

Concord had been allowing its poor to be housed separately, maintained by various contracts with various individual providers, but in this year it took a contract whereby all the town’s paupers were to be housed together at an Alms House and Poor Farm. This cost the town $1,450, although in subsequent years the total cost would go down significantly. Here was the general financial situation: Since the Revolution new state-valuations have been taken, once in ten years, and that after the taking of the census. In these valuations various articles of personal property are required to be enumerated and described, not however uniformly alike. In HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN the following table some of the principal only are mentioned.16

Articles of Property. In 1781. In 1791. In 1801. In 1811. In 1821. In 1831.

Polls 326 340 390 390 435 489

Dwelling houses 193 188 227 224 235 253

Barns 174 142 184 183 203 225

Other buildings —— —— 64 79 265 125

Acres of tillage land 1188 1063 1112 1156 1137 1098

Acres of English Mowing 753 721 840 992 1205 1279

Acres of Meadow 2089 1827 2236 2131 2153 2111

Acres of Pasturing 3099 4398 3800 2982 3852 4059

Acres of Woodland 3878 4436 3635 3386 3262 2048

Acres Unimproved —— —— 1282 1732 1392 2833

Acres Unimproveable —— —— 384 —— 395 612

Acres Used for roads —— —— —— 348 286 ——

Acres of Water —— —— —— 515 695 ——

Barrels of Cider 882 799 1376 1767 1079 ——

Tons of English Hay —— —— 731 838 880 836

Tons of Meadow Hay —— —— 1434 1453 1270 1370

Bushels of Rye —— —— 4738 2942 3183 2327

Bushels of Corn —— —— 10505 10052 11375 11424

Bushels of Oats —— —— 1388 1463 2372 4129

Horses 137 146 182 179 145 177

Oxen 324 288 374 326 337 418

Cows 916 775 934 831 743 725

Swine 137 308 290 269 294 408

The total valuation, in 1801, was $20,322, in 1811, $24,554, in 1821, $25,860, and in 1831, $36,681.29.

16. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN End of March: Toward the end of the month, the Thoreaus moved to Concord and for a short time “Lived next the meeting-house, where they kept the powder in the garret.” This was the house bought in 1799 by David Henry Thoreau’s grandfather; it is now the east wing of the Colonial Inn and to the best of anyone’s knowledge no explosives are stored next door. (The family would then go on to reside in Boston.) THOREAU RESIDENCES CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU JOHN THOREAU

Chelmsford, till March, 1821. (Last charge in Chelmsford about middle of March, 1821.) Aunt Sarah taught me to walk there when fourteen months old. Lived next the meeting-house, where they kept the powder in the garret. Father kept shop and painted signs, etc.17

17. That house next door to the meeting-house was of course the house bought in 1799 by David Henry’s grandfather, which is now the east wing of the Colonial Inn. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1830

Daniel Shattuck bought the house which is now the west part of Concord’s Colonial Inn and moved into it. Shattuck would help found the Middlesex Insurance Company, National Bank, Savings Bank, and Milldam Company. His brother Lemuel Shattuck, who had been helping with the store since 1823, moved into rooms above the store, where he would remain until 1833, when he would relocate to Boston to become a book publisher. Brother Lemuel would in 1835 publish the 1st history of Concord, would present the 1st report ever given at a town meeting, would get a law passed making such reports mandatory throughout the state, and would found both the American Statistical Society and the New England Genealogy Society. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1835

The Thoreau family in Concord would live in “Aunt’s House, to spring of 1837,” the house which is now the west part of Concord’s Colonial Inn, with Aunt Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau (Aunt Sarah Thoreau having died in 1829): David Henry was away most of the time, as a student at Harvard College. CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU JOHN THOREAU, SR.

HENRY’S RELATIVES

On the Isle of Jersey, a savings bank was opened. According to Marcel R. Garnier’s L’ANCÊTRE (THE ANCESTOR), it was in about this year that John Guillet, originally from Jersey, moved from Québec to Ontario.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

The Colonial Inn “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1839

Daniel Shattuck bought the home that eventually would become the east wing of Concord’s Colonial Inn. It would be occupied in turn until 1885 by Reuben Rice, Mrs. Almira Barlow, the Tolman Family, F.S. Simonds, and many other tenants. Rice was manager of the Green Store, where the Catholic Church now stands, until he went west to work for the railroads; he would return to Concord as a town financial benefactor. (Simonds would write several histories and would wind up being quoted by Adolf Hitler, and in our own century there has been a Litt.D. named Frank Herbert Simonds (1878-1936) who has authored several Realpolitik histories, so I wonder whether F.H. Simonds might not be the son of this F.S. Simonds.)

George B. Bartlett would explain in his 1885 history CONCORD; HISTORIC, LITERARY, AND PICTURESQUE (3d Edition, Revised; Boston: D. Lotrop Company, Washington Street opposite Bromfield) that: Opposite the Library stands the old inn, at which stages running between Boston and the up-country towns used to change horses. The swing sign marked “Shepard's Tavern,” is now in the possession of Mr. R.N. Rice, who purchased the building, and has modernized it into a pleasant residence. Bigelow’s tavern, another ancient inn, stood just below, and its extensive grounds comprise a part of his fine estate. In front of his stable stood the old jail in which British prisoners were confined in 1775. Mr. Rice commenced business in the old green store which occupied the site of the Catholic church. He went to Michigan in 1846, in the service of the Michigan Central Railroad, of which he was afterwards general manager for thirteen years. In 1870, Mr. Rice built his present house, and was prominent in various extensive town improvements, including Hubbard and Thoreau streets. Other gentlemen were associated with Mr. Rice, among whom were Mr. Samuel Staples, who has for years been an authority on the subject of real estate, and has lived in town for half a century. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN In Worcester, John Downes worked as an engraver for John Warner Barber, who in this year was publishing his HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. Downes was doing many natural history engravings: the “winter wren,” white-

breasted nuthatch, and other birds, engravings for A SYSTEM OF NATURAL HISTORY (Brattleboro VT, 1834), etc. Among the woodcuts Downes executed for Barber was a view of Monument Square from the site of the present Colonial Inn. Entitled “CENTRAL PART OF CONCORD, MASS.,” the view was “Drawn by J.W. Barber — Engraved by J. Downes, Worcester” (Harding’s DAYS, top illustration opposite page 429). HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN The Thoreaus had left their “house on the square” only two years before this engraving was 1st published. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN In this year the 7th edition of John Hayward’s THE NEW ENGLAND GAZETTEER was issued. This would be the edition found in the personal library of Henry Thoreau, that is now in Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library. Thoreau would refer extensively to this resource in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, in THE MAINE WOODS, and in CAPE COD, as well as mentioning it in his correspondence and in his journal.

NEW ENGLAND GAZETTEER

PEOPLE OF A WEEK HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

A WEEK: According to the Gazetteer, the descent of Amoskeag Falls, which are the most considerable in the Merrimack, is fifty-four feet in half a mile. We locked ourselves through here with much ado, surmounting the successive watery steps of this river’s staircase in the midst of a crowd of villagers, jumping into the canal to their amusement, to save our boat from upsetting, and consuming much river- water in our service. Amoskeag, or Namaskeak, is said to mean “great fishing-place.” It was hereabouts that the Sachem Wannalancet resided. GOOKIN Tradition says that his tribe, when at war with the Mohawks, concealed their provisions in the cavities of the rocks in the upper part of these falls. The Indians, who hid their provisions in these holes, and affirmed “that God had cut them out for that purpose,” understood their origin and use better than the Royal Society, who in their Transactions, in the last century, speaking of these very holes, declare that “they seem plainly to be artificial.” Similar “pot-holes” may be seen at the Stone Flume on this river, on the Ottaway, at Bellows’ Falls on the Connecticut, and in the limestone rock at Shelburne Falls on Deerfield River in Massachusetts, and more or less generally about all falls. Perhaps the most remarkable curiosity of this kind in New England is the well-known Basin on the Pemigewasset, one of the head-waters of this river, twenty by thirty feet in extent and proportionably deep, with a smooth and rounded brim, and filled with a cold, pellucid, and greenish water. At Amoskeag the river is divided into many separate torrents and trickling rills by the rocks, and its volume is so much reduced by the drain of the canals that it does not fill its bed. There are many pot-holes here on a rocky island which the river washes over in high freshets. As at Shelburne Falls, where I first observed them, they are from one foot to four or five in diameter, and as many in depth, perfectly round and regular, with smooth and gracefully curved brims, like goblets. Their origin is apparent to the most careless observer. A stone which the current has washed down, meeting with obstacles, revolves as on a pivot where it lies, gradually sinking in the course of centuries deeper and deeper into the rock, and in new freshets receiving the aid of fresh stones, which are drawn into this trap and doomed to revolve there for an indefinite period, doing Sisyphus-like penance for stony sins, until they either wear out, or wear through the bottom of their prison, or else are released by some revolution of nature. There lie the stones of various sizes, from a pebble to a foot or two in diameter, some of which have rested from their labor only since the spring, and some higher up which have lain still and dry for ages, —we noticed some here at least sixteen feet above the present level of the water,— while others are still revolving, and enjoy no respite at any season. In one instance, at Shelburne Falls, they have worn quite through the rock, so that a portion of the river leaks through in anticipation of the fall. Some of these pot-holes at Amoskeag, in a very hard brown-stone, had an oblong, cylindrical stone of the same material loosely fitting them. One, as much as fifteen feet deep and seven or eight in diameter, which was worn quite through to the water, had a huge rock of the same material, smooth but of irregular form, lodged in it. Everywhere there were the rudiments or the wrecks of a dimple in the rock; the rocky shells of whirlpools. As if by force of example and sympathy after so many lessons, the rocks, the hardest material, had been endeavoring to whirl or flow into the forms of the most fluid. The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

THE MAINE WOODS: I found my companions where I had left them, on the side of the peak, gathering the mountain cranberries, which filled every crevice between the rocks, together with blueberries, which had a spicier flavor the higher up they grew, but were not the less agreeable to our palates. When the country is settled, and roads are made, these cranberries will perhaps become an article of commerce. From this elevation, just on the skirts of the clouds, we could overlook the country, west and south, for a hundred miles. There it was, the State of Maine, which we had seen on the map, but not much like that, — immeasurable forest for the sun to shine on, that eastern stuff we hear of in Massachusetts. No clearing, no house. It did not look as if a solitary traveller had cut so much as a walking-stick there. Countless lakes, — Moosehead in the southwest, forty miles long by ten wide, like a gleaming silver platter at the end of the table; Chesuncook, eighteen long by three wide, without an island; Millinocket, on the south, with its hundred islands; and a hundred others without a name; and mountains also, whose names, for the most part, are known only to the Indians. The forest looked like a firm grass sward, and the effect of these lakes in its midst has been well compared, by one who has since visited this same spot, to that of a “mirror broken into a thousand fragments, and wildly scattered over the grass, reflecting the full blaze of the sun.” It was a large farm for somebody, when cleared. According to the Gazetteer, which was printed before the boundary question was settled, this single Penobscot county, in which we were, was larger than the whole State of Vermont, with its fourteen counties; and this was only a part of the wild lands of Maine. We are concerned now, however, about natural, not political limits. We were about eighty miles, as the bird flies, from Bangor, or one hundred and fifteen, as we had rode, and walked, and paddled. We had to console ourselves with the reflection that this view was probably as good as that from the peak, as far as it went; and what were a mountain without its attendant clouds and mists? Like ourselves, neither Bailey nor Jackson had obtained a clear view from the summit.

JACOB WHITMAN BAILEY DR. CHARLES T. JACKSON HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

CAPE COD: Captain John Sears, of Suet, was the first person in this country who obtained pure marine salt by solar evaporation alone; though it had long been made in a similar way on the coast of France, and elsewhere. This was in the year 1776, at which time, on account of the war, salt was scarce and dear. The Historical Collections contain an interesting account of his experiments, which we read when we first saw the roofs of the salt-works. Barnstable county is the most favorable locality for these works on our northern coast, there is so little fresh water here emptying into ocean. Quite recently there were about two millions of dollars invested in this business here. But now the Cape is unable to compete with the importers of salt and the manufacturers of it at the West, and, accordingly, her salt-works are fast going to decay. From making salt, they turn to fishing more than ever. The Gazetteer will uniformly tell you, under the head of each town, how many go a-fishing, and the value of the fish and oil taken, how much salt is made and used, how many are engaged in the coasting trade, how many in manufacturing palm- leaf hats, leather, boots, shoes, and tinware, and then it has done, and leaves you to imagine the more truly domestic manufactures which are nearly the same all the world over. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1850

Daniel Shattuck made over the whole store building which is now a central part of Concord’s Colonial Inn into a dwelling which he rented to John F. Skinner; the building would until late 1893 therefore be known locally as the Skinner House. Shattuck used the timbers of the White family’s barn to build an ell on the Lowell Road side, about this time, and a stable for himself. These barn timbers were recycled timbers that originally had been cut for the town meetinghouse in 1667, had then been re-used in 1710 when the old meetinghouse was replaced with a new one (not for that new meetinghouse but in another new building, on the south side of the common, which was intended for law courts and town meetings). Then Deacon John White had eventually moved this court building, when it was old, to the rear of his West House, for use as his family’s barn.

Beginning at this point, the “Daniel Taylor” house built in 1804 or before would be undergoing alterations. As modified, this is a structure still in existence. OLD HOUSES HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1855

In Concord, the one-story heavily timbered store that eventually would become the central building of the Colonial Inn at this point began to be used as a boardinghouse. Soon this building would be attached to the home that eventually would become the east wing of the present structure and the combination would be run as a small hotel by several people in turn, including Thatcher Magoun, W.E. Rand, and J. Tarleton.

The phone number of the Colonial Inn in Concord is 369- 9200. Traditional New England fare is offered in the dining room, and if you arrange this in advance you can be served tea in the Thoreau Room. The inn has 54 rooms to rent, dating to various periods, and you will be charged between $90.00 and $140.00 for a double room with bath — the older the room the more expensive it is. Make reservations well in advance, and bear in mind that you will not meet the ghost of Henry Thoreau because for most of the time that the Thoreau family lived in the building that is now the East wing, he was in a dorm at Harvard College. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1860

September 29, Saturday: Henry Thoreau surveyed, for Daniel Shattuck, on a portion of the estate which would eventuate in the Colonial Inn on Concord Common near Monument Street. His sketch shows as neighbors Joseph Reynolds, Aunt Maria Thoreau, John Shepard Keyes, and Mrs. Charles W. Goodnow.

View Henry Thoreau’s personal working drafts of his surveys courtesy of AT&T and the Concord Free Public Library: http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/Thoreau_Surveys.htm

(The official copy of this survey of course had become the property of the person or persons who had hired this Concord town surveyor to do their surveying work during the 19th Century. Such materials have yet to be recovered.)

View this particular personal working draft of a survey in fine detail: HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/113.htm

Also, Thoreau was working on his natural history materials. He posted to editor Horace Greeley his “SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES” for publication in the New-York Weekly Tribune. Concord Sep 29th 1860 Friend Greeley, Knowing your interest in whatever relates to Agriculture, I send you with this a short Address delivered by me before “The Middlesex Ag- ricultural Society”, in this town, Sep. 20th; on The Succession of Forest Trees. It is part of a chapter on the Dispersion of Seeds. If you would like to print it, please accept it. If you do not wish to print it entire, return it to me at once, for it is due to the Societys “Report” a month or 6 weeks hence Yrs truly Henry D. Thoreau

September 29, Saturday: Another hard frost and a very cold day. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

In the hard frost of September 29th and 30th and October 1st the thermometer would go all the way down to 20° and all Ephraim Wales Bull’s Concord grapes, some fifty bushels of them, would be frozen.

Theodore Henry Hittell’s THE ADVENTURES OF JAMES CAPEN ADAMS,18 MOUNTAINEER AND GRIZZLY BEAR HUNTER, OF CALIFORNIA (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Company. 117 Washington Street. San Francisco: Towne and Bacon). The book contained a dozen woodcuts by Charles Nahl. JAMES CAPEN ADAMS

18. Hittell had completely bought into Grizzly Adams’s story that his real name was James Capen Adams rather than John Adams. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1861

Concord experienced an invasion of the army worm (possibly Heliophila unipuncta).

What are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful; they have a high use which dollars and cents never represent. If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things, though at considerable expense; for such things educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education. I do not think him fit to be the founder of a state or even of a town who does not foresee the use of these things, but legislates chiefly for oxen, as it were.

If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps. We cut down the few old oaks which witness the transfer of the township from the Indians to the white man, and commence our museums with a cartridge-box taken from a British soldier in 1775. — “Henry David Thoreau, The Journal (1861),” as quoted on page 140 of William Least Heat-Moon’s PrairyErth (a deep map) [Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1991].

Daniel Shattuck was still living in the house that is now the west wing of the Colonial Inn, but with his daughter Frances Shattuck Surette who was married to Louis A. Surette, Jr.; he would deed this property to her along with the house which would become the inn’s east wing. (Thomas Surette, his grandson, would become HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN known as a musician.)

Daniel Kirkwood has theorized, and now there seems to be little disagreement, that the periodic meteor swarms which the earth encounters are being produced by fragments left behind by disintegrating comets, distributed along their antique orbits. (However, his early recognition of the nature of this phenomenon would not be generally shared until the year 1867.) ASTRONOMY

Although we will focus in this Kouroo database on the great June comet II Tebbutt of this year, be it noted that during this year 1861 there were actually two comets. The other comet, which is named Thatcher, is a periodic one with a period of about 415 years. This lesser Thatcher comet of this year is possibly the parent of the Lyrid meteor shower that comes into our skies each April, a shower that was first noticed in April of 687 BCE and would again become very prominent in April of 1982. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1865

The house which eventually would become the east wing of Concord’s Colonial Inn at this point was owned by trustees of the town donations and was being run as a boardinghouse. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1900

During this year Anne Rainsford French Bush became the first American woman to be granted a license to drive an automobile. The license was a “steam engineer’s licence” allowing the operation of a “four-wheeled engine powered by steam or gas.” —Another first for Concord!

At about this time the house which is now the west part of Concord’s Colonial Inn was attached to the central building; the inn would be managed by the Mr. and Mrs. Abrams who have given to the entire structure its present business name. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1947

The Boston Elevated would henceforth be known as the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

The war over, the heavy metal of obsolete naval ordinance was being removed from islands such as Georges Island and sold as scrap.

Meanwhile, no-one knows quite how, the chandeliers and marble mantlepieces of the luxurious apartments inside Fort Warren were disappearing without a trace. The federal government sold Gallops Island at public auction, and for some time it would do duty as a dump. Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili (“Stalin”) decided that the Soviets should participate in the Olympics, thus making the games a battleground in the Cold War. Stalin wanted his athletes to enter the 1948 Olympics but could not get anyone to guarantee a large number of gold medals, so he decided to postpone entry until 1952. To ensure that Soviet athletes met Olympic eligibility requirements, top athletes were no longer to be paid in cash by their clubs. Instead, they were to hold sinecure positions in government or the military. As the Soviets had virtually no athletic facilities, coaches would begin to have their athletes swim during the summer, run in the spring and fall, and do cross-country skiing in the winter — this was the beginning of cross-training.

Ownership of Concord’s Colonial Inn was taken over by Luther and Loring Grimes, brothers, with Loring Grimes becoming the resident director.

Christian Dior and a “New Look.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1965

The following, about a trip to Walden Pond which he had made in this year, with of course an overnight stay at the Colonial Inn, would in 1968 be published by August Derleth:19

June 12, 1965: With Rikki Meng, who had driven swiftly from Sac Prairie by way of New York, I registered this afternoon at the Colonial Inn on the Square in Concord –for two years, 1835 into 1837, Henry Thoreau’s home, and for many years before that the home of his grandparents and of his aunts Sarah and Betsey Thoreau– a hostelry at which everything was conducted with leisurely but friendly dignity.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN

1987

Spring: Mark Edmundson’s “Emerson and the Work of Melancholia” in Raritan 6(4), pages 120-26.

Paul McCarthy’s “Houses in Walden: Thoreau as ‘Real-Estate Broker,’ Social Critic, Idealist” in Midwest Quarterly XXVIII, 3, pages 323-39: Per Professor Donald Ross’s student Rebecca Thompson, reporting on the above, this pedestrian essay summarized WALDEN’s references to houses and dwelling-places. Without humor or imagination —two fatal deficiencies— it also tried to put them into a symbolic context. (A typical sentence: “Thoreau held firm opinions about the architecture, construction, and value of houses.” Ho hum.) It naively assumed that WALDEN was prescriptive rather than individualistic, and that the burden of Thoreau’s critique was that “Everyone should replace the costly and ornamental with the simple, natural, and economic.” Those drawbacks aside, Ms. Thompson continued in this classroom report, McCarthy did a fair job of describing the houses typical of Concord, Massachusetts in Thoreau’s time — frame dwellings of one or two stories, with a central chimney to heat all the rooms. And Paul McCarthy had tracked down a WALDEN reference to

19. August Derleth. WALDEN POND: HOMAGE TO THOREAU. Iowa City IA: The Prairie Press, 1968 HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN “Middlesex House” that Ms. Thompson had assumed referred to a private estate; it turns out that the Middlesex Hotel, along with the Colonial Inn (not mentioned in WALDEN) was a Concord public-house. This, then, she concludes, must be another example of the houses in WALDEN whose grand scale merely reduced their residents to the status of “vermin which infest them.”

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2017. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: December 9, 2017 HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in HDT WHAT? INDEX

CONCORD’S COLONIAL INN THE COLONIAL INN the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.