Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Old Manse Home Has Several Significant Literary Associations
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Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, moved into the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1842. The home was originally built in 1770 for Rev. William Emerson, writer Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandfather. Newlywed Hawthorne moved there for three years with his bride and paid just $100 a year in rent.
Henry David Thoreau grew a vegetable garden on the property before the Hawthornes moved in. Hawthorne once described the house in his notes: “Between two tall gateposts of roughhewn stone… we behold the gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black ash trees.”
