Authors Ridge, Concord, Massachusetts

Authors Ridge in Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, less than a 15-minute walk northeast of Monument Square, is a place of pilgrimage for many Americans.

Young girls enthralled by Louisa May Alcott's Little Women come to visit her grave, independent thinkers indebted to Ralph Waldo Emerson's life and work pay their respects at the rough marble boulder that is his tombstone, naturalists and conservationists leave votive offerings at the headstone of Henry David Thoreau, America's first great ecologist.

19. Henry David Thoreau
20. Nathaniel & Sophia Hawthorne
21. Alcott Family
23. Ralph Waldo Emerson & Family
24. Harriet M Lothrop ("Margaret Sidney")

(Download full map of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 1.92Mb pdf, courtesy of The Friends of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.)

Emerson gave a speech at the inauguration of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, with the thought in mind that he would one day lie here.

Henry David Thoreau no doubt knew this ridge well, as he knew all the land in Concord from his daily walks as recounted in his journals and books, including Walden.

Novelist and short-story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was painfully shy in life. He probably received more visitors in death here on Authors Ridge than he had during his lifetime. His wife, Sophia (Peabody), and daughter Una, moved to England after his death, and were buried there, but in June 2006 their remains were brought to Concord and re-interred in the Hawthorne family plot.

Authors Ridge is less than 15 minutes' walk from Concord's Monument Square (map). Go to the left of Holy Family Roman Catholic church on MA Route 62 (Bedford Road) toward Bedford. After one block you'll come to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and if you're walking or biking you can enter the gate here, turn right and follow the lane northeast.

If you're driving, don't enter here, bear right and follow Bedford Road to the next gate, Prichard Gate. Enter here, bear right at the Y then immediately left (this lane is one-way; there's a stone marker pointing the way to Authors Ridge). Follow the curve of the lane to a small parking area, then walk up the macadam path to the ridge.

You may also want to visit the grave of sculptor Daniel Chester French, on the ridge you curved along on your way to Authors Ridge.

For the Melvin Memorial, go back the way you came and take the other fork at the Y.

---

Louisa May Alcott's Grave Thoreau's Grave Emerson's Grave Daniel C French's Grave Hawthorne's Grave Melvin Memorial Sleepy Hollow Cemetery What to See & Do in Concord MA Concord Homepage Famous New Englanders