Concord, Massachusetts proved to be quite a hotbed of literary activity, which we discovered as we drove through Minuteman National Historic Park, which stretches from Concord to Lexington.
While we drove around Concord, we found Ralph Waldo Emerson's house. Wikipedia claims it's a museum, but I'm pretty sure we saw a "Private Residence" sign. In any case, we didn't go inside.
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, but we didn't stop by his birthplace because we didn't have time. When we consulted a map, we realized that Walden Pond was also in the Concord area. It was cold and drizzly and we didn't have time to trek out there, so we missed that, too, unfortunately.
As we continued on, we found Louisa May Alcott's house. The tour was a bit pricey ($10, I think?), so we didn't do it, but we did wander through the gift shop full of all things "Little Women".
Just a couple houses down from the Alcott home was a house called The Wayside, which was under renovation and closed to the public. At various points in time, the Alcotts also lived at The Wayside (they called it Hillside), as did Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Sidney, who wrote the Five Little Peppers series.
part of the house got cut off because I was taking a picture of the turkey roosting on the fence
we only learned the significance of the house later on
It was interesting to find the houses of so many well-known writers in such close proximity. Maybe there was something in the water? :)
When we toured Salem, we stopped by the house that inspired the "House of the Seven Gables", by Nathaniel Hawthorne. We got there after closing so weren't able to tour it, but it looked like an interesting house, though not like what I had imagined. I had always pictured a building with more severe, straight lines, not a building with as much character as this one has.
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