On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Winter Wren
Minuteman National Historic Park lies within the towns of Concord, Lincoln and Lexington in Massachusetts and preserves the sites related to the Revolutionary War battle of Concord (April 19, 1775) as well as the running skirmishes during the retreat of the British regulars back to Boston after the battle along the so called “Battle Road”. The park also contains the “Wayside” (home at times to authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott) and is adjacent to the “Old Manse” (home to Emerson and also later Hawthorne).
The park contains walking trails meandering past the restored historic buildings and through mature hardwoods, pastures, croplands and cattail marshes. Boardwalks traverse the marshes as well as several brooks and one can also cross a replica of the “rude bridge that arched the flood” of the Concord River. Along the path are varied signs describing the events and how the land looked at the time. Periodically, one will see stone markers with inscriptions like “Near here are buried British soldiers.”
The park trails are popular not only with tourists, but also with local runners, bicyclists and birdwatchers. They are just a few minutes walk from historic downtown Concord, and more importantly, just a 20 minute bike ride from where I live.
Autumn in New England is justly famous and “leaf peepers” are out in force by October in Massachusetts. The sugar maples like this one are the main attraction. This photo is taken from the parking lot at Meriam’s Corner, the start of the “Battle Road” portion of the park. To the right of the photo is an old schoolhouse (not pictured), currently undergoing renovation using funding from the Great American Outdoors Act.
Horse chestnut trees provide some additional autumn color here at the “Bloody Angle”, a site where the Colonials lay in wait at a couple of sharp curves in the road and the British lost thirty soldiers as a result. The present-day trail comes in from the right up a hill after passing over a cattail marsh.
This picture is taken from almost the same location as the previous one, but looking to the right over the beginning of the stone wall across a glade and to the woodlands down the hill.
Between Meriam’s Corner and the Bloody Angle, there is also a working farm. This particular field usually grows two crops every year of sunflowers, but later in the season this other crop is planted (not sure exactly what it is) and then plowed under to restore the soil. Whatever it is, it provides some nice color after most of the leaves have fallen.
This section of the Battle Road trail passes through restorations of buildings owned by the Brooks family, who participated in the battle. Here a light January snowfall coated the trail now bare trees.
A later heavier snow is falling here while overlooking the North Bridge spanning the Concord River. This is the most heavily visited part of the park and easily walk-able from downtown Concord. The Visitor Center from which the picture is taken is the former home of descendants of Major Buttrick. Major Buttrick gave the order for the Americans to fire “the shot heard ’round the world” (as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it in his “Concord Hymn.”) Directly over the bridge is the Old Manse mentioned earlier.
This deer was munching on the first planting of young sunflowers in the field in front of Carty Barn. When I stopped to take a picture, it bounded away (showing why they are called white tailed deer).
In one of the pastures, the tenants at Carty Barn raise pigs. This is a sunrise over the lot where the pigs are raised. The early mornings are dense all along the trail with birdsong in the spring and early summer: rose-breasted grosbeaks, blue-winged warblers, redstarts are prominent among the nesting species. Turkey moms and poults are commonly seen in mid-summer.
Summer morning sun filtering through the trees above an empty trail. On the left a historical sign can be seen, on the right is a marker detailing how many more miles to Boston. It is an eighteen mile walk from the North Bridge to Boston. The British soldiers did the round trip in a single day with full kit, starting at 2 am and under heavy fire for the return trip. Much respect.
Early morning fog lifting after a humid August night. Hartwell Tavern pictured here is immediately after the Bloody Angle on the Battle Road and today features tours by guides in period costumes. In 1775, the retreating British didn’t stop in for a drink on their way back.
Manyakitty
Lovely photos as we enter the ‘hinge season’ between the flow of autumn and the dark of winter.
E.
I’m a huge Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne fan and would love to take this trip some day. See “The Old Manse” for real. Thanks for the report.
Manyakitty
@Manyakitty: stupid autocorrect. Supposed to be ‘glow of autumn.’
VeniceRiley
Can you still rrent canoes on the Concord? I used to do that with my girlfriend at the time. It’s a lovely way to see the sights, and gorgeous in autumn… leaves and pumpkins floating by.
eclare
Gorgeous photos.
MagdaInBlack
Beautiful photos, thank you. Pretty sure that’s buckwheat as a cover crop in the Carty Barn photo # 4.
teakay
Each of these photos sets a mood. So evocative. I especially like the light filtering through the fog. And the historical background information.
HeartlandLiberal
Absolutely gorgeous photos, which evoke a time and place in American history. Well done diary.
People, do NOT let the shot heard round the world die at the (tiny) hands of Trump!
bjacques
@E.: I only ever got to see them when Cozy Powell was on drums. Still great though.
JeanneT
Beautiful!
HinTN
@Manyakitty: “flow” worked just fine for me. Autumn is a great season.
Thank you for the history, the connection to the poets and the photographs, making a most excellent start to the morning.
BretH
Thank you so much for the beautiful photos and the great narration! It’s great seeing the same location in fall and winter.
winter wren
@VeniceRiley: Yes you can!
Minstrel Michael
Lovely photos, thank you!
I’m a long time lurker and very seldom comment. But I grew up nearby, in Lexington, and this is familiar territory. There’s a marker at the spot where Paul Revere was stopped and detained by the Redcoats, a few miles shy of Concord. When I was a kid, sixty-plus years ago, there was a dairy farm on that site called Buttrick’s (possibly descendants of Major Buttrick) that also, in season, sold really good ice cream (a generation before Steve’s). My history buff father would take us there rather frequently, and often drive on afterward to the Rude Bridge that Arched the Flood.
In due course I attended Lexington High School from 1966 to 1970. On the left hand wall of the school auditorium was a sign reading “APRIL 19 1775 WHAT A GLORIOUS MORNING FOR AMERICA.” In the spring of my senior year, somebody (and I never found out who) snuck in and rearranged the (moveable) letters so they read “APRIL 19 1775 WHAT A MORNING TO SCREW A GORILLA.”
winter wren
@MagdaInBlack: Thanks for the ID!
eclare
@Minstrel Michael:
Hahaha…
Betsy
I love these! So beautiful! And so full of history!
Geminid
The Great American Outdoors Act was passed in August of 2020. I remember Rep. Xochitl Torres Small touting its future benefits to the recreation industry in her southern New Mexico district. She still lost to Republican Yvette Harrel but maybe Rep. Gabe Vasques, who reclaimed the 2nd CD for Democrats last year, can point to tangible results from the Act like those at Minuteman Park. Besides improving opportunities for hiking etc., the Act funds some good jobs, which are in short supply in Vasques’ district.
Next November, Rep. Vasquez will face none other than former Rep. Harrel. This will be her fourth congressional campaign in six years. She lost her race to Xochitl Torres Small in 2018, won in 2020, and lost to Vasquez in 2022.
Meanwhile, Ms. Torres Small was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture this summer. At age 38, I think she is the youngest Deputy Agriculture Secretary ever. Gabe Vasquez is 39 years old. Both are talented politicians.
winter wren
@Minstrel Michael: What great memories growing up! Although I am originally from Maryland, all of my sons attended Concord-Carlisle HS. Hopefully all of them also have similar great memories.
winter wren
Dorothy A. Winsor
There’s beautiful light in those pictures.
Mike in Oly
Absolutely wonderful photos! Thanks for sharing. If I remember my iris history, Stedman Buttrick had a well known iris garden in this area back in the 1950s/60s. There was a great write up of the whole area and the garden in Nat. Geo. in a 1959 issue.
Citizen_X
@E.: I have had an Early American lunch and cocktail at the Wayside Inn, I highly recommend the experience. Also picked up a small volume of Tales From a Wayside Inn there.
@bjacques: Ha!
Geminid
@Geminid: The Great American Outdoors Act provedes a $900 million annual revenue stream to the Soil and Water Conservation Fund. I think that comes from royalty fees from federal offshore oil leases, mainly in the Gulf of Mexico. The Act also provides up to $9.5 billion over 5 years to begin clearing a maintenance backlog at National Parks.
The Act was introduced in the House by the late Representative John Lewis. The Senate passed it by a vote of 75-25 in June of 2020. The House passed the amended bill by a 310-207 vote, and The Former Guy signed it into law August 4. His Interior Secretary then issued restrictions on the spending which the Biden administration subsequenty reversed.
Miss Bianca
Lovely photos and commentary. Thank you.
StringOnAStick
Lovely photos! The last one is intriguing, I’ve never seen stone walls with a wooden fence overlay. I guess it depends on how easily whatever critter you are keeping in or out can thwart your designs on containment.
Old fences here in the basalt plains of central Oregon often have supports built out of juniper wood stacked into cribbing and filled with rock since digging a fence post securely into the ground is really difficult with all the rocks in the soil and basalt bedrock that is often just 6-12″ below the land surface. I think they’re pretty striking and evocative of the region, I plan to build aesthetic ones around grape arbor posts I’m putting in the yard next growing season.
JustRuss
Great post, great photos. Thank you.
Winter Wren
@Geminid: Well said
Winter Wren
@StringOnAStick: Neat. Yes, my guess is it helps some kind of animal be kept inside; not currently used, but presumably captures how it would have looked in 1775.
BigJimSlade
What a great set! I miss the Boston area sometimes.
stinger
I especially love the clouds in the Carty Barn/deer photo, and the dark bark of the horse chestnuts against their leaves at Bloody Angle. Thanks for all these!
Winter Wren
@E.: We toured the inside of the Old Manse once. One highlight I remember is that newlywed Hawthorne etched some poetry on one of the windows that you can still read. I couldn’t remember the words offhand, but just looked it up:
”
Man’s accidents are God’s purposes. Sophia A. Hawthorne 1843
The smallest twig leans clear against the sky
Composed by my wife and written with her diamond
Inscribed by my husband at sunset, April 3 1843. In the Gold light.
“
Manyakitty
@Winter Wren: 😍
Winter Wren
@Citizen_X: Will have to try that. I have yet to go inside the Wayside, although have passed by so many times.
pieceofpeace
These photos are magnificent. Thanks for sharing them.