Emerson’s home library included the Christian Bible, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita , an autographed copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, as well as books by Thoreau, Nietzsche, William James, Herman Melville, and Hawthorne. President Obama lists Emerson’s Self- Reliance among his favorite books. Concord, Massachusetts, we found out, is a historical gold mine. One fantastic nugget was Ralph Waldo Emerson whose home we visited during our visit to New England.

Emerson, a famed poet whose ideas of individualism, self- reliance, and Unitarianism helped shape the American mind, was born in 1803 in Boston, attended the renowned Boston Latin School and Harvard where he earned his tuition as a waiter and delivery boy. Interestly, after graduating, his bad health led him to flee New England’s cold climate to Charleston where he first encountered slavery, then to St. Augustine where he met the refugee nephew of Napoleon and became interested in European intellectualism.

Emerson lived a simple life from a more than modest income, charging $10-$50 for each of his 1,500 lectures. The artwork above the fireplace was acquired during one of his trips to Europe. He returned to Boston, took a job teaching, then returned to Harvard where he earned a divinity degree. He was ordained, became a junior pastor at Boston’s Second Church and chaplain to the Massachusetts Legislature.

His first wife’s death after just two years of marriage was personally mindchanging. He began to challenge established church traditions and soon left the church to become a traveling lecturer.

In Europe he met many great scholars: John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Voltaire, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Upon his return to the U.S. in 1833, he settled in Concord and became a professional lecturer and essayist. He remarried and bought a house he named “Bush,” the one Linda and I visited, which is now a museum.

Linda stands in front of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s home in Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson and his buddies formed the Transcendental Club that resulted in the movement called Transcendentalism with followers such as Thoreau, George Putnam, George Ripley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bronson Alcott and his daughter, Louisa May of Li ttle Women fame.

Soon after the Civil War began, Emerson gave a lecture at the Smithsonian condemning slavery. He met and became a friend of President Lincoln and offered a eulogy at his death. Emerson also eulogized Thoreau and Hawthorne at their funerals.

Emerson’s health declined; his home burned and was rebuilt. He traveled to Europe and Egypt to recover and returned to Concord where the town celebrated in his honor. He died of pneumonia in 1882 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Linda and I offered a prayer at his grave.

Emerson and his second wife, Lydia, slept in this bed. Emerson’s mother had the adjacent room. Next week: Alcott Home

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)