Concord: Its Black History 1636-1860
Concord: Its Black History 1636-1860, was written Barbara K. Elliott and Janet W. Jones of the Concord Public Schools in 1976.
We plan to update and rewrite this as an online teaching tool and resource.
CONCORD: ITS BLACK HISTORY
1636 — 1860
Prepared by
Barbara K. Elliot and Janet W. Jones
Illustrated by
Laraine Armenti and Carolyn King
A book written for children to learn about the history of black people who lived, worked, and died in Concord, Massachusetts from 1636 to 1860.
Soft cover illustrated book, 8.75″ x 6″
132 pages, Copyright 1976
![Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? We have you covered with a little Robbins house trivia. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem entitled Peter’s Field. Peter’s Field most likely referenced Peter Hutchinson, who was the last African American owner of The Robbins House. Peter purchased the home in 1852 and lived with his wife, Nancy, and several of their children in the home until 1868. Emerson described Peter’s farm, and by extension the original area of farmland attached to The Robbins House out in the Great Field like this:
KNOWS he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?]
That field by spirits bad and good,
By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
And every rood in the hemlock wood
I know is ground enchanted.
[In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts:
I wandered up,
I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
For in those lonely grounds the sun
Shines not as on the town,
In nearer arcs his journeys run,
And nearer stoops the moon.
There in a moment I have seen
The buried Past arise;
The fields of Thessaly grew green,
Old gods forsook the skies.
Happy Reading!](http://robbinshouse.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)