Concord

Concord, cities, United States

Concord (kŏng`kərd, kŏn`kôrd').

1 city (1990 pop. 111,348), Contra Costa co., W central Calif.; settled c.1852, inc. 1906. An eastern suburb in the San Francisco Bay area, it has electronics and petroleum-refining industries. A nearby U.S. naval ammunition depot was the site of the devastating Port Chicago explosion of July, 1944.

2 Town (1990 pop. 17,076), Middlesex co., E Mass., a high-income suburb of Boston, on the Concord River; inc. 1635. Electronic, metal, and wood products are made there. The site of the Revolutionary battle of Concord on Apr. 19, 1775 (see Lexington and Concord, battles of), is marked by Daniel Chester French's bronze Minuteman. Concord has many old houses, some opened as memorials to noted occupants—Emerson, the Alcotts, Hawthorne, and Thoreau—who made the town an important intellectual and literary center (see transcendentalism) in the quarter century preceding the Civil War. An antiquarian museum and the Old Manse, built in 1769 by Emerson's grandfather and made famous by Hawthorne, and the place where Ephraim Bull developed the Concord grape are there. Walden Pond, the site of Thoreau's two-year sojourn in the woods, which is described in his Walden (1854), is in Walden Pond State Park.

Bibliography

See W. B. Maynard, Walden Pond: A History (2004).

3 City (1990 pop. 36,006), state capital and seat of Merrimack co., S central N.H., on the Merrimack River; settled 1725–27, inc. as Rumford, Mass., in 1733 (Count Rumford later took his title from this name) and as Concord, N.H., in 1765. Famous for its granite, the city also has printing, millworking, and insurance industries and plants making electronic, metal, dairy, and clay products. It became the state capital in 1808, and its growth was further aided by the building of the Middlesex Canal in 1815. St. Paul's school (preparatory) and the house of Franklin Pierce (a museum) are in Concord. Mary Baker Eddy was born a few miles away, at Bow.

4 City (1990 pop. 27,347), seat of Cabarrus co., central N.C., near the edge of the Piedmont; settled 1796, inc. 1837. In a livestock and grain producing area, it is also a cotton textile center. Other manufactures include plastics, building materials, paper and food products, and optical fibers. Gold discovered nearby in 1799 started the North Carolina gold rush. Concord is the seat of Barber-Scotia College. Lowe's (formerly Charlotte) Motor Speedway, a stock-car track, is there.

---

Concord, river, United States

Concord, river, c.15 mi (24 km) long, NE Mass., a short tributary of the Merrimack, which it joins at Lowell. On Apr. 19, 1775, colonial militia fired some of the first shots of the American Revolution at the British over a bridge across the river at Concord, Mass. Henry David Thoreau's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), records a boat trip with his brother.

---

Concord

City (pop., 2000: 121,780), western California, U.S. Located near San Francisco, it was laid out in 1868 as Todos Santos and renamed in 1869 for Concord, Mass. Developed as an orchard and poultry centre after the railroad reached it in 1912, it is now mainly residential.

---

Concord

Town (pop., 2000: 16,993), eastern Massachusetts, U.S. Founded in 1635, it was the first inland Puritan settlement. In 1775 the British were marching to seize its storehouse of military supplies when they were checked by minutemen (see Battles of Lexington and Concord). In the 19th century it was a noted cultural centre and the home of writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott (all buried there). Several historic houses are now museums; Walden Pond, where Thoreau lived and wrote, is nearby.

---

Concord

City (pop., 2000: 40,687), capital of New Hampshire, U.S. It lies along the Merrimack River above Manchester. Settled in 1727, the community was incorporated in 1733 by Massachusetts as Rumford but, following bitter litigation, was determined in 1762 to be within the jurisdiction of New Hampshire. Renamed Concord in 1765, it was made the capital in 1808. Printing, carriage making, and granite quarrying were important in its early development; Concord granite is still quarried.