The Old Manse is a National Historic Landmark built for Rev. William Emerson c.1770. Emerson’s grandson, Ralph Waldo, drafted his essay Nature here and Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne spent three honeymoon years at The Manse. Hawthorne published a short story collection called Mosses from an Old Manse which gave the house its’ name. The property remained in the Emerson-Ripley family until 1939 when it was then sold to The Trustees of Reservations.
Courtesy of the www.thetrustees.org