While Ralph Waldo Emerson was preparing to marry Lydia Jackson (whom he called "Lidian"), he told her he could not live in her home town of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

"[3] He had previously lived in Concord at The Old Manse, the Emerson family home,[4] and hoped to return to that town.

In July 1835, he wrote in his journal, "I bought my house and two acres six rods of land of John T. Coolidge for 3,500 dollars.

However, in a contemporary letter to his brother William, he writes: "It is in a mean place, and cannot be fine until trees and flowers give it a character of its own".

[citation needed] The money came from a settlement with the family of his first wife, Ellen Tucker, who had died young.

[citation needed] He also entertained a host of notable neighbors and visitors including Bronson and Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau.

[citation needed] Beginning in July 1836, the home hosted the meetings of the Transcendental Club, a group which included Orestes Brownson, Theodore Parker, and others.

[19] After the fire was put out, friends took up a collection to pay for repairs, raising some $12,000 in total, and sending the Emersons to Europe and Egypt while the house was restored.