A short climb from the parking lot leads to Author's Ridge, where the Alcotts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Sydney and others are buried.

The artifacts, documents and period rooms here give you a sense of Concord's rich history. You'll see a lantern hung in the steeple of Old North Church to signal Paul Revere, and objects used by Thoreau at Walden Pond.

A replica of the Old North Bridge marks the place where colonial farmers advanced on the British and fired the "shot heard 'round the world." Emerson immortalized the bridge in his poem Concord Hymn. Nearby, Daniel Chester French's statue o..