A Map of Concord the Old Musketaquid Plantation

Grapes and the Revolutionary War – what Concord is known for!

This lovely pictorial map of Concord, Massachusetts, was drawn by Boston artist Helen Bodley and published by Houghton Mifflin in 1928. Bodley covers the town’s long history, from the Native American settlement of Musketaquid to the Revolutionary War and Concord’s 19th-century writers.

The map centers on the historic town, with roads, rivers, and rail lines set among green hills. Footprints and skirmish lines trace the British retreat of April 19, 1775, and there are scenes of Paul Revere’s ride and a Minuteman facing a British soldier. Walden Pond appears with Thoreau’s hut, along with the School of Philosophy and the homes of Emerson, Alcott, and Hawthorne. Quotes from Emerson run across ribbons near the top of the sheet.

Twenty local buildings, including the Old Manse and the Wayside, line the sides, illustrated more deliberately than the cartographic content. The border of Concord grapes is a nod to Ephraim Bull, who developed the grape and whose house is shown at lower left. The title artwork shows a colonial family meeting a Native American man, and an inset outlines the original bounds of the 1635 plantation. Musketaquid, meaning “grassy river,” was the Native name for the area.

The map captures the Colonial Revival spirit that was popular during the 1920s, when Americans facing rapid modernization looked back fondly on early New England. Bodley also includes her own era, placing 1920s golfers and tennis players alongside 18th-century stagecoaches and armed Redcoats.