Henry David Thoreau sat for his photograph twice, in Worcester in 1856 for the daguerrotypist Benjamin Maxham and in New Bedford in 1861 for the ambrotypist Edward Sidney Dunshee (1823-1907).  One of the Dunshee ambrotypes is in the Concord Museum collection, a gift to the Museum of Mr. Walton Ricketson and his sister Miss Anna Ricketson in 1929. Shortly after Thoreau’s death on May 6, 1862 — 150 years ago this month — Daniel Ricketson (Walton and Anna’s father) wrote to Henry’s sister Sophia Thoreau about the ambrotype:  “We all consider it very lifelike and one of the most successful …

  Each week we will present an artifact from the Concord Museum collection that speaks to Concord’s storied history. We welcome comments, memories and suggestions for future items. The pamphlet, Rules and Regulations for the Massachusetts Army, is a very significant and rare artifact of the early Revolution in the collection of the Concord Museum. Because of the dramatic events at the North Bridge on April 19, 1775, other aspects of Concord’s role in the beginning of the Revolution are often eclipsed. Two important meetings of the Provincial Congress were convened in Concord in April. This …

  Welcome to Concord Patch’s newest feature, Object of the Week. Each week we will present an artifact from the Concord Museum collection that speaks to Concord’s storied history. We welcome comments, memories and suggestions for future items. Whether it is a small cradle quilt passed down in the family of a patriot of the American Revolution, a large quilt commemorating the 1975 Bicentennial of that war, or a complex geometric pattern crafted in silk like this one, each quilt in the Concord Museum collection has a story to tell about the makers, the communities they lived in, and the era in …

Welcome to Concord Patch’s newest feature, Object of the Week. Each week we will present an artifact from the Concord Museum collection that speaks to Concord’s storied history. We welcome comments, memories and suggestions for future items. Most of the household and personal objects that can reliably be associated with Henry Thoreau and his family are in the Concord Museum.  Many details of Thoreau’s everyday life can be discerned in these 250 or so objects.  The Thoreau family material includes this silhouette of Henry Thoreau’s mother, Cynthia Dunbar.  Cynthia Dunbar (1787-1874) and her …

Welcome to Concord Patch’s newest feature, Object of the Week. Each week we will present an artifact from the Concord Museum collection that speaks to Concord’s storied history. We welcome comments, memories and suggestions for future items. This needlework picture was worked by one of Concord’s earliest residents, Rebeckah Wheeler (1645-1718), who was born just 10 years after the town’s founding.   The picture has long been listed in needlework books and elsewhere as the earliest signed and dated pictorial embroidery of American origin.  The needlework depicts episodes from the Book of …

Welcome to Concord Patch’s newest feature, Object of the Week. Each week we will present an artifact from the Concord Museum collection that speaks to Concord’s storied history. We welcome comments, memories and suggestions for future items. Women’s History Month continues with a portrait of Ellen Louisa Tucker. Tucker (1811-1831) was just 16 when she met Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1827 in Concord, New Hampshire.  In a letter to his brother in 1829, the 26-year-old Emerson described Tucker as “simple but very elegant in her manners....she is beautiful, and finally I love her.” Tragically, just 17…

  Welcome to Concord Patch’s newest feature, Object of the Week. Each week we will present an artifact from the Concord Museum collection that speaks to Concord’s storied history. We welcome comments, memories and suggestions for future items. In honor of Women’s History Month, we present an image of Margaret Fuller. Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was a groundbreaking author, educator, literary critic, journalist, Transcendentalist, human rights activist, and feminist.  This rare image of a young Margaret Fuller was taken before 1830 by Henry Williams, a machine-aided profilist whose studio was …