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The rear of the First Parish in Concord, Bulkeley's Church, begun a year after the town's founding in 1635

A Lush Sense of Place
What a fascinating magazine! It isn't often that one ventures through 'web' territory and feels as if one is actually, physically, entering a realm... gorgeous layout, 'lush' and regal... Of course, I'm passing this site along to everyone I know....
Sonja, Montreal, Canada

Memories from a Concord Postmaster's Daughter
It's been many years since I went to the Post Office on Walden Street. I was born in 1941 and lived in Concord. During that period that you are referencing in your article about the mural at the post office, I believe my Dad was Postmaster. His name was John Raymond McManus. We lived at 28 Fairhaven Road.

Dad and his family grew up at 15 Wood Street and he's buried in the family plot there in Concord. I brought him home for the last time in April, 1995.

He told me many stories during his lifetime (he lived to be 94) about the days he and his twin, Edward F. McManus gave tours in pony traps to the tourists in the early days of the century. My Grandfather was the town Taxi Service in Concord in those days. Dad knew all the old history stories and was the best Concord history source I knew. Every time we came east to visit, we went to the Old North Bridge. He knew so much about the area and the people. It was a joy to visit there with him.
Brenda (McManus) Donovan

CCHS Class of 1980
Your website is to be commended. It is excellent! I was a Concord resident and in the High School Class of 1980. I think of Concord fondly and picked the town I now live in (South Hadley, MA.), based on my upbringing. I wish everyone in Concord, good health and a Happy New Year.
Mark A. Lambert

Understanding the Transcendentalists and Universal Law
I am working on a paper about the Transcendentalists and need some information. I simply must understand how they viewed Universal laws. Thank you very much!
Cynthia

Leslie Perrin Wilson, author of Thoreau, Emerson, and Transcendentalism, and curator of the Library's Special Collections, answers further:

The Transcendentalists, and Emerson and Thoreau in particular, wrote over and over again about how man might approach an understanding of the universal laws. If you have not read Emerson's Nature (1836), the clarion call of Transcendentalism, you should do so as soon as you can, because it deals extensively with Reason and Understanding, and the difference between the two.

Reduced to the simplest level: Emerson wrote in Nature that the universe and man's place in it were not to be understood solely by the logic of the human intellect (referred to as "Understanding" by the Romantic writers and the Transcendentalists after them). The divine spark of intuition--referred to as "Reason"--was required to make the leap from an understanding of the laws of nature and patterns of human behavior to the universal. Understanding (in the Romantic sense) was important to grasping material laws and, if pursued deliberately and consistently, promoted broader vision, but by itself did not lead to the divine and universal. Nature is important as a kind of medium of communication between God and man, symbolic of the divine, but a purely scientific understanding of it was not enough for higher understanding.