The Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
The Concord Museum’s outstanding collection has been recognized for its national significance by curators, historians, educators, and visitors for more than a century. Click through to view some of the highlights of the collection.
Late in the evening of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere got word that the British were about to set out on a raid of the Provincial Congress’ military supplies stockpiled in Concord. He ordered fellow Patriots to set two lighted lanterns in the belfry of Boston’s Christ Church (Old North Church). This prearranged signal was…
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This rare Late Paleoindian spearhead dates to the period immediately following the Ice Age. The point was found in 1980 in the Concord River by a Concord resident and his young daughter. It most likely snapped from its shaft when the spear was thrust downward to catch a large fish, such as salmon.
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In this rare surviving print, famed patriot and engraver Paul Revere depicted a deadly clash between colonists and British soldiers in Boston in 1770—an event now known as “The Boston Massacre” leading up to the Revolution. Revere’s engraving was on sale within three weeks of the event. It was not intended to be an accurate…
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The owner of this horn, Amos Barrett (1752-1829) of Concord, was at the North Bridge on April 19, 1775, when the colonists clashed with British soldiers. Barrett vividly recalled fifty years later what he saw and did that fateful day: “We were all ordered to load, and had strict orders not to fire till they…
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Glasses like this one were used in New England to time sermons, though the minister was free to turn the glass when the sand ran out after, in this case, about ninety minutes. This glass is inscribed “1659” and is said to have come from West Cambridge, which may be a reference to Menotomy, present-day…
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This simple desk was part of Henry David Thoreau’s furnishings in his house at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847. On it he wrote Walden, universally acknowledged as one of the great books of American literature, as well as “Civil Disobedience,” one of the most influential essays in the worldwide democratic tradition. He also wrote…
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Henry Thoreau was a keen observer of nature. Thoreau hesitated before buying a spyglass, a rare extravagance, knowing that using it would change his perspective on the world. Buying this spyglass in Boston in 1854 revolutionized his bird watching, bringing the living bird closer.
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Henry Thoreau bought these shoes in Maine and tried them in Concord in December, 1853, in the midst of a heavy snowfall he measured with his two-foot rule. He later noted of his tracks: “Though they pressed the snow down four or five inches, they consolidated it, and it now endures and is two or…
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Daniel Munroe (1775-1859); case attributed to William Munroe (1778-1861) Daniel Munroe apprenticed with clockmaker Simon Willard in Roxbury and then established his own company in Concord from 1797 to 1808. He partnered with his brothers Nathaniel, also a clockmaker, and William, a cabinetmaker, to produce fashionable clocks. In the early nineteenth century, Concord was home…
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