<P> "Concord Hymn" (original title was "Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument, April 19, 1836") is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson written for the 1837 dedication of the Obelisk, a monument in Concord, Massachusetts, commemorating the Battle of Concord, the second in a series of battles and skirmishes on April 19, 1775, at the outbreak of the American Revolution . </P> <P> In October 1834 Emerson went to live with his step - grandfather Ezra Ripley in Concord, at what was later named The Old Manse--less than a hundred paces from the spot where the battle took place . In 1835 he purchased a home on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike and quickly became one of Concord's leading citizens . That same year he was asked to give a public lecture commemorating the town's 200th anniversary . </P> <P> The "Concord Hymn" was written at the request of the Battle Monument Committee . At Concord's Independence Day celebration on July 4, 1837, it was first read, then sung as a hymn by a local choir using the then - familiar tune "Old Hundredth". </P>

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