Concord

Town in Middlesex County, eastern Massachusetts, USA, 29 km/18 mi northwest of Boston; population (2000 est) 17,000. Although electronic equipment, metal products, and leather goods are manufactured here, it is mainly a residential suburb of Boston. Concord was incorporated in 1635, when the early settlers were English.

Concord was the site of the first battle of the American Revolution between the British army and the Minutemen (citizen's militia) on 19 April 1775; 273 British and 95 American fighters were killed during the battle, and an obelisk marks the spot where the first soldiers fell. The Minutemen National Historic Park marks the battle, and is included on the national register of historic places. Others on the register are the house of the writer R W Emerson, a station, historic districts and several colonial houses. The Concord Museum, founded in 1886, has collections that date back to 1850.

The writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott lived in Concord. The Thoreau Institute celebrates Henry David Thoreau's life and work. The Victorian Gothic prison building from 1878 is still in use.

Concord

Capital of New Hampshire, in the south-central part of the state, on the Merrimack River, 30 km/19 mi north of Manchester; population (2000 est) 40,700. It also serves as the administrative headquarters of Merrimack County. Concord is the centre of an agricultural region; industries include granite, leather goods, electrical equipment, printed products, and wood products. Concord was incorporated as a town in 1733 and as a city in 1853.

The area was settled in 1727 on the site of an earlier trading post and was named Rumford until 1765. The community was renamed Concord in 1765 to commemorate the peaceful settlement of a border dispute with Massachusetts, which had claimed ownership.

Features include the State Capitol (1819), which contains its original legislative chamber, the oldest in continuous use in the USA. The building itself was extensively remodelled in both 1866 and 1910 and has a gold dome. President Franklin Pierce lived in Concord after his term ended and is buried in the Old North Cemetery. Concord teacher Christa McAuliffe, one of the seven astronauts who died aboard the Challenger, is memorialized in the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium. The city is also the site of the Museum of New Hampshire History.

concord

In music, the sounding together of notes in harmony that satisfies the ear as being final in itself and requiring no following chord to give the impression of resolution.