Who Was Caesar Robbins and Why Is His House So Special?
This humble house is a link and a witness to some of the most important and real history that we have. It is the only standing house built by an early African resident of Concord. It in, we have been given a unique gift : the opportunity to create a center where we can teach these stories to our youth and the visitors from across the US and the Globe who come to Concord each year.
DGP Town Meeting Statement
The CPC has generously voted to support our mission through articles 35 & 36, with input from many Concord residents and town leaders, to preserve the Robbins House as an Educational Center. To preserve the memory of Concord’s earliest African inhabitants whose wherewithal gave them the strength to overcome the adversity of slavery, fight in the Revolutionary War, stay in Concord and build meaningful lives, contributing to the wonder of Concord. The stories aren’t all complimentary, at least one African resident’s home was burned, individuals were taunted and lived in poverty, but still many of our earlier African and Abolitionist residents demonstrated the courage and independence that America is known for.
Caesar Robbins House in the News
Support is urgently needed to help secure the Caesar Robbins house before April’s town meeting, so that Community Preservation Act funds can be passed for its preservation in Article #35 & the town is allowed to lease land next to the North Bridge parking lot for its future site, Article #36.
Letter to the Editor
The Drinking Gourd Project currently is leading an effort to restore the Caesar Robbins house, built in 1780 by a freed man and Revolutionary War patriot, to be used as an education center focused on Concord’s African and Abolitionist history. You can help this effort by coming to Town Meeting and voting yes on Article 35 for CPC funding and Article 36 to lease land next to the North Bridge parking lot as the new location of the Robbins House Education Center.
Brister Freeman’s Ditch Fence
Naturalist J. Walter Brain discovered Brister’s ditch fence, using Thoreau’s survey map, in the Hapgood Wright Town Forest. Allan Schmidt, former member of the Trails Committee, used it to locate Brister’s home site on the Brister Freeman’s Trail Map in the town forest kiosk. Both are helping author Elise Lemire and the Drinking Gourd Project plan a stone marker to memorialize this site.
Cuming, Freeman live on
For the first 150 years of its existence, Concord was a slave town. Its doctors, lawyers, merchants, and ministers relied on slaves to grow their food and tend to their increasingly elaborate wardrobes and domestic furnishings. Slavery allowed these town leaders to pursue professions away from their plows and appear on the colonial stage as gentlemen.