The Old Manse was inhabited at one time by Ralph Waldo Emerson and by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne wrote a collection of short stories titled 'Mosses from the Old Manse' that has some of the most deliciously Freudian images you ever read anywhere. If I were a more diligent person I would look them up for your education and amusement but it's too hard. It's enough to say that those New Englanders had what people now would style issues on matters sexual. The building by the river is part of the grounds of the Old Manse as seen from the modern bridge that crosses the river. The Old Manse looks down on the river and site of the rude arch that spanned the flood where that engagement between Colonials and British soldiers took place. There was a running fight up and back something like 20 miles from Boston out to Concord and Lexington, and it's well furnished with signs and museums. A good place to get some sense of the way things kinda were on 19 April 1775 when the incipient American rebellion really got under way. Gotta stir your American blood to stand in those places and contemplate those nervy people taking on the greatest power in the world at that moment.
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