There is strong temptation to define 19th century Concord primarily in relation to Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, and Hawthorne. The influence of these authors sometimes overshadows the fact that, quite independently of its later importance to American literature, during the first half of the century Concord was a beehive of artisan activity, trade, commerce, and politics.

Concord teemed with skilled craftsmen (hatters, clockmakers, and cabinetmakers among them), with general stores, shops, and taverns, with blacksmiths, millers, lawyers, and a variety of other merchants and service providers. The Middlesex Mutual Fire Insurance Company was established in town in 1826, the Concord Bank in 1832, the Middlesex Institution for Savings in 1835. Textile manufacturer Calvin Carver Damon purchased a West Concord cotton mill in 1834, ran it profitably, and at his death in 1854 passed it on to his son, Edward Carver Damon.

As host to the courts of Middlesex County from the late 17th century until 1867, Concord drew visitors from a wide area during court sessions. (Before the opening of the Fitchburg Railroad in 1844, out-of-towners arrived by stagecoach and by private conveyance.) The Middlesex Hotel on Monument Square was filled to capacity at such times, vendors sold food from booths, and something of a carnival atmosphere reigned.

Concord's intellectual and social life kept pace with its commercial and administrative vitality. The Concord Social Library (a proprietary library) was formed in 1821, the Concord Lyceum late in 1828. There were parties (quilting bees and skating parties, for example), dances, balls, suppers, club and organizational activities, and public celebrations of memorable historic events.

John Shepard Keyes, in his biographical sketch of Brooks in Hurd's 1890 History of Middlesex County, astutely and with humorous exaggeration emphasized his subject's central position: "In the dark, dingy back-room of the bank building, where Mr. Brooks worked ... more stories have been told, more anecdotes repeated, more politics discussed than in any other room in the town if not of the county ... Indeed if those walls could repeat what was said there, it would be a history of Concord, of Middlesex and Massachusetts, if not of the country and the world."

Born in Lincoln, Nathan Brooks was the fourth of the fourteen children of Joshua Brooks (farmer, tanner, and veteran of the Battle of Concord). Tutored by the Rev. Charles Stearns, he entered Harvard in 1804, earned tuition money by teaching school, and graduated in 1809. He gained his knowledge of law in Concord under the tutelage of Sam Hoar--one of the great Massachusetts lawyers of the 19th century--and of Thomas Heald. Admitted to the Middlesex Bar in 1813, Brooks practiced first out of an office on Lexington Road, later shared a building on Main Street with Sam Hoar, and finally (in 1833) moved to the new Concord Bank building (photo at left), which still stands on Main Street.

The Brooks home (below, right) was situated at the intersection of Main Street and Sudbury Road, where the Concord Free Public Library is now located. It was moved to Hubbard Street in 1872, prior to the Library's construction.

Estate settlement and administration comprised most of Nathan Brooks's legal work. He was consequently privy to confidential information about leading businessmen and pillars of the community. The estate records among the Nathan Brooks papers include bills, receipts, accounts, estate inventories, and other clear evidence of the standard of living and financial conduct of such Concordians as Deacon Reuben Brown, storekeepers Samuel Burr, Phineas How, and William Parkman, and multifaceted entrepreneurs Daniel Shattuck (who kept store on Monument Square in what is now the Colonial Inn) and Abel Moore.

Nathan Brooks's personal business affiliations involved him in some of the most important commercial enterprises in pre-Civil War Concord. He was secretary/treasurer of the Middlesex Mutual Fire Insurance Company, a director of the Concord Bank, and president of the Middlesex Institution for Savings. Moreover, his work with estates and on behalf of clients enhanced his knowledge of a number of ventures. In handling Daniel Shattuck's estate, he scrutinized financial records relating to the Concord Mill Dam Company, a real estate development company (incorporated 1828) of which Shattuck was treasurer. The Abel Moore estate drew his attention to the affairs of the short-lived Concord Steam Mill Company (incorporated 1846, out of business by 1847).

As a party, the Whigs opposed the expansion of slavery into free territory. Nathan Brooks's views on slavery were both consistent with his party's stance and supportive of the abolitionism of his wife, Mary Merrick Brooks. Mrs. Brooks was president of the Concord Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and an associate and friend of William Lloyd Garrison. Her husband's prominent public position prevented his overt involvement in illegally assisting runaway slaves, but his sympathy is suggested by the story of Brooks giving his hat to the fugitive slave Shadrach. (Shadrach was harbored by the Bigelows, neighbors of Nathan and Mary Brooks, one night in February of 1851.)

Nathan Brooks belonged to Concord's ruling class. He was a member of the Social Circle. And yet, he was liked and respected by the humble as well as the affluent. By all accounts, he was a fair-minded man, patient, pleasantly sociable, even-tempered, with a sense of humor. He was a good neighbor as well as a good lawyer. He taught Sunday school at the First Parish, was toastmaster at the annual dinner of the Middlesex Agricultural Society, and provided in his office a hospitable place for both conversation and business.

The life of Nathan Brooks and the papers that he left at his death offer a wealth of background information about the community that Thoreau, Emerson, the Alcotts, and Hawthorne inhabited. Furthermore, they include financial records that reflect very specifically on Thoreau's work as a surveyor and as a teacher, and waybills that place Emerson on stagecoaches from Boston to Concord on particular days, with particular fellow passengers. These papers paint a vivid and complex picture of a vibrant, practical world that simultaneously fascinated and repelled Concord's authors, that both nurtured and misunderstood them.