Uncovering Concord’s Black History
Monument Square, Concord, MA
Did you know that there are many houses in Concord that were stops on the Underground Railroad? That the Alcotts, Thoreaus and Emersons were all very active Abolitionists? That the sisters, aunts, mothers and wives of those famous Transcendentalists formed the “Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society”? That Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison all visited and spoke in Concord? That some of our streets are named after black residents — Jennie Dugan, Brister Freeman?
Our aim is to construct a physical trail loop that includes many of these places, along with the re-packaging of the book, “Black History in Concord,” written by Barbara Elliott and Janet Jones of the Concord Public Schools in 1978. We hope to make it more available, both in the schools and in the community, so that it can be not only a teaching tool, but a guide to the trail itself.
Vast parts of Concord’s history are either suspended or buried
Each day visitors and residents pass by the following places:
- Walden Pond (Cato, Zilpha, Breed)
- Brister’s Hill Rd and Brister Spring
- Sanborn Junior High School, Alcott
- Barretts (Col.? Or Philip) Mill Road
- Nathan Brooks House (Mary – Concord’s leading woman abolitionist = “The Underground Station Master”; Pres. Of WASS/CFASS: led neighbors [the Bigelows], Mary Rice, Ephraim Allen, Bronson Alcott and Henry Thoreau, etc…)
- Peter’s Path and Spring
- Caesar’s Wood
- Jack Garrison (Concord Museum)
- Jenny Dugan Road & Spring
Buried
- Nameless & barely named, landless ex-slaves
- John Jack
- Thomas Dugan (1st to use rye cradle, graft apples, etc.)
- MCASS, CFASS
- Philip Barrett
- Susan Garrison and Robbinsons
- Mary Rice and Mary Brooks
- Shadrick, Thomas Sims and Anthony Burns
- Visits by Frederick Douglass, John Brown, & Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips