On September 30, 1829, Ralph Waldo Emerson married his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker. Already ill with tuberculosis when they met, she succumbed to the disease in 1831. Emerson mourned her death deeply and left the ministry soon thereafter.

The history of the barn behind the Emerson House in Concord, built circa 1828 and used for a variety of purposes by the Emerson family. The Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association—RWEMA— completed an extensive restoration of this historic structure in August 2020.

On this day in 1835, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lydia “Lidian”Jackson were married in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The following day, they moved into the house in Concord that they would call home for the rest of their lives.

This inaugural blog post shares a biographical profile of Ralph Waldo Emerson on the occasion of his 217th birthday.