Alida Vienna Orzechowski

Discover which of the historical tales you've heard for years aren't true at all.

A very long time ago, before Hallmark was even a twinkle in the corporate eye, reverence for mothers was expressed in stories that were shared and passed on, rather than greeting cards. Take for example the ancient Egyptian tale of Isis, who really, really wanted to have a baby with her husband Osiris. The fact that Osiris was dead and probably dismembered was but a trifle to a competent mother-to-be like Isis, and accordingly, she reassembled and resurrected her late husband just long enough for him to participate in the conception of their son. The end result was baby Horus who would grow up to become the first ruler of a unified Egypt, thus ensuring Isis’ new title and esteem as Mother of the Pharaohs.

Discover the tall tales you've heard so often -- and the true stories behind them.

If you were asked to supply a few words describing the American gothic fiction author Nathaniel Hawthorne, it’s probably safe to assume ‘funny’ would not be among them.

Known for his dark romances full of guilt, torment, suffering, and sin, with nary a happy ending to be found, it seems quite improbable that anything even remotely humorous could emerge from this brooding cobbler of words.

When you hear the words ‘Walden Pond’ you probably think of Henry David Thoreau and his cabin in the woods. If you’ve been here, you might also think of the many hiking trails and sandy little coves surrounding the gin-clear water of the pond where tens of thousands of people enjoy swimming and walking each season.

What you might not think about is the community of formerly enslaved people who once lived near Walden. Not because it was the beautiful, tranquil scene we flock to today, but because it was considered an infertile, out of the way, undesirable piece of land to Concord’s white population.

As Elise Lemire writes in her excellent book Black Walden, as many as fifteen formerly enslaved people ‘made a life for themselves in Walden Woods, enough that Henry David Thoreau could describe their community as a “small village.”’ 

In 1855, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a letter that would become one of the most famous pieces of correspondence in American literary history. 

That year was a difficult time for the adolescent country. Already sharply divided over the issue of slavery, “free soilers” and pro-slavery factions were quickly disintegrating into bloody violence. The ongoing gold rush and westward expansion was continuing to displace native populations, while the same year, and without irony, a white, anti-immigrant party in Cincinnati would attack a local German-American neighborhood for being foreigners. 

If historical Concord had to be summed up in one sensational newspaper headline it might read something like, “TINY TOWN THAT TROUNCED BRITISH BATALLION ALSO BELOVED BY BOOKWORMS”. 

Fortunately, most pilgrims to Concord don’t rely on alliterative excerpts of history when they visit, and yet, there’s so much more to our story than armies and authors. In particular, there is a great deal just waiting to be learned about Concord’s African American history, a complex and very human story that far predates our nation. 

A short drive down Monument Street and across from the venerable Old North Bridge, sits a restored early-19th century vernacular farmhouse, such as can be found all over New England. What sets this farmhouse apart is that it belonged to the family of Revolutionary War veteran Caesar Robbins, who was enslaved at birth around 1745. 

On a rainy morning in early May, in the small back parlor of 13 West Street, Boston, a wedding was about to take place. It would be the second wedding for the Peabody family in less than a year, and while 38-year-old Elizabeth could certainly claim an intimate relationship with each of the handsome grooms, she would be bride to neither. 

Just hours after their wedding on the 9th of July 1842, a honeymooning couple moved to Concord, MA and into the house they would rent for the next three years. Shortly after their arrival, the groom, who was also an aspiring author, noted the following, “Houses of antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to.”