The town is fairly inconspicuous. It has an ice cream parlor and a public library on the street corner. There are a of couple coffee shops and parking is limited to the street curbs.

But once you start reading about Concord, Massachusetts, and all the wildly historic events that have occurred there, this quaint little towns turns into a living diorama. The oldest European-settlement beyond tidewater, Concord has a small park that marks where the first shots of the American Revolution were shot on April 19, 1775. The city is teeming with houses that have seen the footsteps of American icons, and throughout the city, visitors can find little reminders — a plaque here, a framed photo there — of what this quiet New England town has witnessed.

One of the highlights of the city is found about a mile northeast of Monument Square. This is the home of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Authors Ridge, a collection of crumbling graves in a well-manicured and circuitous graveyard. There are dozens of notable grave sites throughout the cemetery belonging to people who played a role in the Revolutionary War and the years that followed, but it’s on Authors Ridge that several notable writers and thinkers are buried including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott. Walking past the graves is like a ghostly stroll through a dusty library. Visitors tip their heads toward each other and whisper about books they’ve read by these figureheads. Some have left pencils and coins in remembrance.

The grave stones are weathered and imperfect. They’re also a beautiful reminder that even the most significant voices may physically be silenced but their words live on.

Click on a photo below to view it and begin a slideshow.

Continue Reading