The Wayside
Encyclopedia
The Wayside is a historic house
in Concord, Massachusetts
. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later, it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott
and her family, author Nathaniel Hawthorne
and his family, and children's literature writer Margaret Sidney
. It became the first site with literary associations acquired by the National Park Service
and is now open to the public as part of Minute Man National Historical Park
.
at Concord's Old North Bridge
. During the years 1775 and 1776 the house was occupied by scientist John Winthrop during the nine months when Harvard College
was moved to Concord.
experiment, educator and philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott
and his family moved to Concord. Beginning in October 1844, the family first lived in the home of a friend named Edmund Hosmer. Alcott's wife Abby May
had recently inherited about $2,000 and they intended to use the money to buy a home. Neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson
helped the family find the property to buy: a home most recently owned by a wheelwright named Horatio Cogswell. Emerson also loaned the family $500 for their purchase. Bronson took no part in the transaction being, as his wife explained, "dissatisfied with the whole property arrangement" and did not believe he could own any part of the Earth. No one seemed to know much about the history of the home, though Henry David Thoreau
told the story that one of its previous owners believed he would never die and his ghost was rumored to haunt it. The Alcotts moved in on April 1, 1845; they named the home "Hillside".
The Alcotts immediately began renovating what was originally a colonial saltbox
home. A shed on the property was cut in half and attached to either side of the main house. Outside the house, they added terraces, arbors, and pavilions. They also added a bedroom for their 13-year old daughter Louisa May Alcott
in March 1846. It was the first room she had to herself. She wrote in her journal, "It does me very good to be alone, and Mother has made it very pretty and neat for me." In this home, Louisa and her sisters lived many of the scenes that later appeared in her book Little Women
, including the amateur plays they performed. She also began writing what would become her first book, Flower Fables
.
Bronson opened the home to many people, including Sophia Foord, a teacher with whom he hoped to open a school. He also offered the home as a site for the Underground Railroad
. The family likely hosted several escaped slaves; Louisa May, years later, referred to more than one, writing, "fugitive slaves were sheltered under our roof". Due to the requisite secrecy, however, few records of specific fugitives survive. Bronson referred to a 30-year old man who was "athletic, dextrous, sagacious, and self-relying" who stayed there for a week in 1847 on his way to Canada. Bronson hoped the experience would serve as a lesson to his family.
By 1848, the family debated about moving. Bronson liked Concord because of the neighbors he could converse with. Abby, however, saw the town as a symbol of their poverty and desired a move to the city of Boston to be closer to friends, relatives, and potential work. She won the debate and the family rented out the Hillside and moved to the South End by that winter.
, author Nathaniel Hawthorne
considered purchasing a home for his family. He assured his wife Sophia Peabody that his publishers Ticknor & Fields "promise the most liberal advances of money, should we need it, towards buying the house." On March 8, 1852, Hawthorne finalized his purchase of the house for $1,500 from the Alcotts. After buying the house, Hawthorne wrote, "Mr Alcott... had wasted a good deal of money in fitting it up to suit his own taste—all of which improvements I get for little or nothing. Having been much neglected, the place is the raggedest in the world but it will make, sooner or later, a comfortable and sufficiently pleasant home." The Hawthornes had previously lived in Concord at The Old Manse
, which they moved to after their July 9, 1842, wedding. Their new home was about two miles from there and the couple moved in with their three children in June. Nathaniel renamed it "The Wayside", noting that it stood so close to the road that it could have been mistaken for a coach stop. He explained in a letter: "I think [it] a better name, and more morally suggestive than that which... Mr. Alcott... bestowed on it." Bronson never accepted the name change and continued referring to it as "Hillside".
held a farewell dinner party at his Cambridge home
. The Hawthornes stayed in Europe until 1860 and, during that time, they leased The Wayside to family members including Sophia's sister, Mary Peabody
, who later married Horace Mann
. During her time in the house, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
stayed at The Wayside for a night while hiding his connection to John Brown
's raid on Harpers Ferry
. The Hawthornes' son Julian
later went to Sanborn's school. Before returning to the United States, the Hawthornes spent several months in Italy where, in April 1859, Nathaniel grew a mustache.
While the Hawthornes were overseas, the Alcotts had Henry David Thoreau survey the land next door to The Wayside. The site was the former home of a man named John Moore and was surrounded by elms and butternut trees, and included an apple orchard. They purchased the home, which they named Orchard House
, for $945 on September 22, 1857. The Hawthornes referred to it as "Apple Slump". While the Orchard House was being renovated, the Alcott family rented a wing of The Wayside. Unlike Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel was not known for socializing with his neighbors. He often used the hilltop in his backyard as a means of escaping social interactions. As Bronson noted, "he feared his neighbor's eyes would catch him as he walked." Louisa was surprised the neighboring families did not become friends. She wrote, "We did all we could to heal the breach between the families but they held off, so we let things rest."
After the family returned to the United States in 1860, Nathaniel considered moving to Boston, noting "I am really at a loss to imagine how we are to squeeze ourselves into that little old cottage of mine." The income from his consulship did not bring as much money as he predicted and, to make matters worse, reception to his latest book, The Marble Faun
, was not positive. Hoping to expand The Wayside rather than move, he wrote of his financial woes "with a wing of a house to build, and my girls to educate, and Julian to send to Cambridge [to study at Harvard College
]". Nevertheless, the family made several changes to the home, most notably the three-story tower on the back of the house. The top room became Nathaniel's study—he named it his "sky parlor"—though the tin roof made the room very hot in summer and very cold in winter. During those months he used the front parlor for his writing. Julian Hawthorne moved his bedroom to the first floor sitting room. Next-door neighbor Bronson Alcott cut paths and planted gardens for the Hawthornes, which included fir trees
and larch
es imported from England, and Thoreau surveyed the property for $10. The Hawthornes also added a second story over Alcott's west wing, enclosed the bay porch and moved the barn to the east side of the house. Nathaniel was not entirely pleased with the result:
During these years, Nathaniel spurned invitations from James Russell Lowell
to write for The Atlantic Monthly. When the journal was purchased by the publisher James Thomas Fields
, he invited both Nathaniel and Sophia to write. He agreed but she declined, writing: "You forget that Mr. Hawthorne is the Belleslettres portion of my being, and besides that I have a repugnance to female authoresses in general. I have far more distaste for myself as a female authoress in particular."
, Nathaniel Hawthorne's spirits and health were fading. Urged by his friend Horatio Bridge
, he took a trip to Washington, D.C.
, where he met President Abraham Lincoln
in the spring of 1862. Nathaniel noted he was "about the homeliest man I ever saw" but that he "liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage". He visited several sites related to the War and the Army especially in Virginia, where he traveled for a time with writer Nathaniel Parker Willis
. He returned to the Wayside on April 10, 1862, and less than a month later sent The Atlantic an essay titled "Chiefly About War Matters
by a Peaceable Man". Fields, editor of The Atlantic, had accompanied Nathaniel on the trip at Sophia's request and requested changes. He and publishing partner William Ticknor
agreed that comments about President Lincoln's odd features and references to "Uncle Abe" should be omitted. Nathaniel cut the entire section, though he considered it "the only part of the article really worth publishing" and lamented, "What a terrible thing it is to try to let off a little bit of truth into this miserable humbug of a world!" The Atlantic received very "cruel and terrible notes", Fields claimed, after the article was published.
In his later years, Nathaniel was especially concerned about the financial situation his family would face after his death. Living at The Wayside cost the family $2,500 a year, despite attempts to live frugally by refusing to hire help to take care of the house and grounds. He noted to his publisher Ticknor that he expected to "die in the alms-house". In the late spring of 1864, Nathaniel took ill and traveled with his friend, the former President of the United States Franklin Pierce
. It was on this trip that Nathaniel died on May 19, 1864. On hearing the news, Louisa May Alcott sent the family a bouquet of violets picked from Nathaniel's walking path by the house. Annie Adams Fields
, wife of the publisher, noted in her journal after a visit in April 1865, "What an altered household! She [Sophia] feels very lonely, and is like a reed. I fear the children will find small restraint from her... Will God spare her further trial?" Sophia and the three children moved to England shortly after; she sold The Wayside in 1870.
and his wife, Harriett
. Harriett was the author of the Five Little Peppers
series and other children's books
using the pen name Margaret Sidney
. The Lothrops added town water in 1883, central heating in 1888, and electric lighting in 1904, as well as a large piazza on the west side in 1887. The room that, after 1860, had served as Julian Hawthorne's bedroom became her dining room.
The Lothrops helped oversee a several-day celebration in honor of Nathaniel Hawthorne's centennial in 1904. Speeches were given, letters were read in public, and a tablet was dedicated by Beatrix Hawthorne (daughter of Julian) marking the larch
path where the author often walked.
In 1963, The Wayside was designated a National Historic Landmark
, and became part of Minute Man National Historical Park
on June 15, 1965. This designation came with the aid of the Lothrop's daughter Margaret, and it became the first literary site to be acquired by the National Park Service
. It is open to the public seasonally for guided tours. Its address is 455 Lexington Road in Concord.
Historic house
A historic house can be a stately home, the birthplace of a famous person, or a house with an interesting history or architecture.- Background :...
in Concord, Massachusetts
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later, it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
and her family, author Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
and his family, and children's literature writer Margaret Sidney
Margaret Sidney
Margaret Sidney was the pseudonym of American author Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop . In addition to writing popular children's stories, she ran her husband Daniel Lothrop's publishing company after his death...
. It became the first site with literary associations acquired by the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
and is now open to the public as part of Minute Man National Historical Park
Minute Man National Historical Park
Not to be confused with Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.Minute Man National Historical Park commemorates the opening battle in the American Revolutionary War. It also includes The Wayside, home in turn to three noted American authors...
.
Early history
The first record of the Wayside property occurs in 1717. Minuteman Samuel Whitney was living in this house, which still retained most of its original appearance, on April 19, 1775, when British troops passed by on their way to the Battles of Lexington and ConcordBattles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy , and Cambridge, near Boston...
at Concord's Old North Bridge
Old North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts
The North Bridge, often colloquially called the Old North Bridge, across the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts, is a historical site in the Battle of Concord, the first day of battle in the Revolutionary War....
. During the years 1775 and 1776 the house was occupied by scientist John Winthrop during the nine months when Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
was moved to Concord.
The Alcotts
Shortly after the failure of the FruitlandsFruitlands (transcendental center)
Fruitlands was a Utopian agrarian commune established in Harvard, Massachusetts by Amos Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane in the 1840s, based on Transcendentalist principles...
experiment, educator and philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a...
and his family moved to Concord. Beginning in October 1844, the family first lived in the home of a friend named Edmund Hosmer. Alcott's wife Abby May
Abby May
Abigail "Abby" Alcott was the wife of Transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott and mother of four daughters, including Civil War novelist Louisa May Alcott...
had recently inherited about $2,000 and they intended to use the money to buy a home. Neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
helped the family find the property to buy: a home most recently owned by a wheelwright named Horatio Cogswell. Emerson also loaned the family $500 for their purchase. Bronson took no part in the transaction being, as his wife explained, "dissatisfied with the whole property arrangement" and did not believe he could own any part of the Earth. No one seemed to know much about the history of the home, though Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
told the story that one of its previous owners believed he would never die and his ghost was rumored to haunt it. The Alcotts moved in on April 1, 1845; they named the home "Hillside".
The Alcotts immediately began renovating what was originally a colonial saltbox
Saltbox
A saltbox is a building with a long, pitched roof that slopes down to the back, generally a wooden frame house. A saltbox has just one story in the back and two stories in the front...
home. A shed on the property was cut in half and attached to either side of the main house. Outside the house, they added terraces, arbors, and pavilions. They also added a bedroom for their 13-year old daughter Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
in March 1846. It was the first room she had to herself. She wrote in her journal, "It does me very good to be alone, and Mother has made it very pretty and neat for me." In this home, Louisa and her sisters lived many of the scenes that later appeared in her book Little Women
Little Women
Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869...
, including the amateur plays they performed. She also began writing what would become her first book, Flower Fables
Flower Fables
Flower fables was the first work published by Louisa May Alcott and appeared on December 9, 1854. The book was a compilation of fanciful stories first written six years earlier for Ellen Emerson...
.
Bronson opened the home to many people, including Sophia Foord, a teacher with whom he hoped to open a school. He also offered the home as a site for the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
. The family likely hosted several escaped slaves; Louisa May, years later, referred to more than one, writing, "fugitive slaves were sheltered under our roof". Due to the requisite secrecy, however, few records of specific fugitives survive. Bronson referred to a 30-year old man who was "athletic, dextrous, sagacious, and self-relying" who stayed there for a week in 1847 on his way to Canada. Bronson hoped the experience would serve as a lesson to his family.
By 1848, the family debated about moving. Bronson liked Concord because of the neighbors he could converse with. Abby, however, saw the town as a symbol of their poverty and desired a move to the city of Boston to be closer to friends, relatives, and potential work. She won the debate and the family rented out the Hillside and moved to the South End by that winter.
The Hawthornes
After living for a time in a rented home in Lenox, MassachusettsLenox, Massachusetts
Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. Set in Western Massachusetts, it is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,077 at the 2000 census. Where the town has a border with Stockbridge is the site of Tanglewood, summer...
, author Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
considered purchasing a home for his family. He assured his wife Sophia Peabody that his publishers Ticknor & Fields "promise the most liberal advances of money, should we need it, towards buying the house." On March 8, 1852, Hawthorne finalized his purchase of the house for $1,500 from the Alcotts. After buying the house, Hawthorne wrote, "Mr Alcott... had wasted a good deal of money in fitting it up to suit his own taste—all of which improvements I get for little or nothing. Having been much neglected, the place is the raggedest in the world but it will make, sooner or later, a comfortable and sufficiently pleasant home." The Hawthornes had previously lived in Concord at The Old Manse
The Old Manse
The Old Manse is an historic manse famous for its American literary associations. It is now owned and operated as a nonprofit museum by the Trustees of Reservations...
, which they moved to after their July 9, 1842, wedding. Their new home was about two miles from there and the couple moved in with their three children in June. Nathaniel renamed it "The Wayside", noting that it stood so close to the road that it could have been mistaken for a coach stop. He explained in a letter: "I think [it] a better name, and more morally suggestive than that which... Mr. Alcott... bestowed on it." Bronson never accepted the name change and continued referring to it as "Hillside".
European trips
The family moved to England when Nathaniel Hawthorne was appointed United States counsel at Liverpool; he served in that role from August 1, 1853 to October 12, 1857. Shortly before leaving, on June 14, 1853, friend and poet Henry Wadsworth LongfellowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
held a farewell dinner party at his Cambridge home
Longfellow National Historic Site
The Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, also known as the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House and, until December 2010, Longfellow National Historic Site, is a historic site located at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For almost fifty years, it was the...
. The Hawthornes stayed in Europe until 1860 and, during that time, they leased The Wayside to family members including Sophia's sister, Mary Peabody
Mary Tyler Peabody Mann
Mary Tyler Peabody Mann of chronic bronchitis) was a teacher, author, mother, and wife of Horace Mann, American education reformer and politician.-Early Life:Mary Tyler Peabody Mann was the daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody...
, who later married Horace Mann
Horace Mann
Horace Mann was an American education reformer, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833. He served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1834 to 1837. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was...
. During her time in the house, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was an American journalist, author, and reformer. Sanborn was a social scientist, and a memorialist of American transcendentalism who wrote early biographies of many of the movement's key figures...
stayed at The Wayside for a night while hiding his connection to John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
's raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt by white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859...
. The Hawthornes' son Julian
Julian Hawthorne
Julian Hawthorne was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mystery/detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies and histories...
later went to Sanborn's school. Before returning to the United States, the Hawthornes spent several months in Italy where, in April 1859, Nathaniel grew a mustache.
While the Hawthornes were overseas, the Alcotts had Henry David Thoreau survey the land next door to The Wayside. The site was the former home of a man named John Moore and was surrounded by elms and butternut trees, and included an apple orchard. They purchased the home, which they named Orchard House
Orchard House
Orchard House is an historic house museum in Concord, Massachusetts. It was the longtime home of Amos Bronson Alcott and family, including his daughter Louisa May Alcott who wrote and set her beloved novel Little Women there.-History:...
, for $945 on September 22, 1857. The Hawthornes referred to it as "Apple Slump". While the Orchard House was being renovated, the Alcott family rented a wing of The Wayside. Unlike Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel was not known for socializing with his neighbors. He often used the hilltop in his backyard as a means of escaping social interactions. As Bronson noted, "he feared his neighbor's eyes would catch him as he walked." Louisa was surprised the neighboring families did not become friends. She wrote, "We did all we could to heal the breach between the families but they held off, so we let things rest."
Return to the United States
The Marble Faun
The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni, also known as Transformation, was the last of the four major romances by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was published in 1860. The Marble Faun, written on the eve of the American Civil War, is set in a fantastical Italy...
, was not positive. Hoping to expand The Wayside rather than move, he wrote of his financial woes "with a wing of a house to build, and my girls to educate, and Julian to send to Cambridge [to study at Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
]". Nevertheless, the family made several changes to the home, most notably the three-story tower on the back of the house. The top room became Nathaniel's study—he named it his "sky parlor"—though the tin roof made the room very hot in summer and very cold in winter. During those months he used the front parlor for his writing. Julian Hawthorne moved his bedroom to the first floor sitting room. Next-door neighbor Bronson Alcott cut paths and planted gardens for the Hawthornes, which included fir trees
Fir
Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...
and larch
Larch
Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south...
es imported from England, and Thoreau surveyed the property for $10. The Hawthornes also added a second story over Alcott's west wing, enclosed the bay porch and moved the barn to the east side of the house. Nathaniel was not entirely pleased with the result:
During these years, Nathaniel spurned invitations from James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...
to write for The Atlantic Monthly. When the journal was purchased by the publisher James Thomas Fields
James Thomas Fields
James Thomas Fields was an American publisher, editor, and poet.-Early life and family:He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on December 31, 1817 and named James Field; the family later added the "s". His father was a sea captain and died before Fields was three...
, he invited both Nathaniel and Sophia to write. He agreed but she declined, writing: "You forget that Mr. Hawthorne is the Belleslettres portion of my being, and besides that I have a repugnance to female authoresses in general. I have far more distaste for myself as a female authoress in particular."
Civil War years and beyond
At the outset of the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, Nathaniel Hawthorne's spirits and health were fading. Urged by his friend Horatio Bridge
Horatio Bridge
Commodore Horatio Bridge was a United States Naval officer who, as Chief of the Bureau of Provisions, served for many years as head of the Navy's supply organization...
, he took a trip to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, where he met President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
in the spring of 1862. Nathaniel noted he was "about the homeliest man I ever saw" but that he "liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage". He visited several sites related to the War and the Army especially in Virginia, where he traveled for a time with writer Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis , also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former...
. He returned to the Wayside on April 10, 1862, and less than a month later sent The Atlantic an essay titled "Chiefly About War Matters
Chiefly About War Matters
"Chiefly About War Matters", originally credited "by a Peaceable Man", is an 1862 essay by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It opposed the American Civil War and was quite controversial.-Background:...
by a Peaceable Man". Fields, editor of The Atlantic, had accompanied Nathaniel on the trip at Sophia's request and requested changes. He and publishing partner William Ticknor
William Ticknor
William Davis Ticknor I was an American publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and a founder of the publishing house Ticknor and Fields.-Life and work:...
agreed that comments about President Lincoln's odd features and references to "Uncle Abe" should be omitted. Nathaniel cut the entire section, though he considered it "the only part of the article really worth publishing" and lamented, "What a terrible thing it is to try to let off a little bit of truth into this miserable humbug of a world!" The Atlantic received very "cruel and terrible notes", Fields claimed, after the article was published.
In his later years, Nathaniel was especially concerned about the financial situation his family would face after his death. Living at The Wayside cost the family $2,500 a year, despite attempts to live frugally by refusing to hire help to take care of the house and grounds. He noted to his publisher Ticknor that he expected to "die in the alms-house". In the late spring of 1864, Nathaniel took ill and traveled with his friend, the former President of the United States Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...
. It was on this trip that Nathaniel died on May 19, 1864. On hearing the news, Louisa May Alcott sent the family a bouquet of violets picked from Nathaniel's walking path by the house. Annie Adams Fields
Annie Adams Fields
Annie Adams Fields was a United States writer.- 1834 -1881 :Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she was the second wife of the publisher and author James Thomas Fields, whom she married in 1854, and with whom she encouraged up and coming writers such as Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Freeman, and Emma Lazarus...
, wife of the publisher, noted in her journal after a visit in April 1865, "What an altered household! She [Sophia] feels very lonely, and is like a reed. I fear the children will find small restraint from her... Will God spare her further trial?" Sophia and the three children moved to England shortly after; she sold The Wayside in 1870.
The Lothrops
After several intermediate sales, it was again purchased in 1883 by Boston publisher Daniel LothropDaniel Lothrop
Daniel Lothrop was an American publisher.-Biography:Daniel Lothrop was horn in Rochester, Strafford County, New Hampshire, August 11, 1831, son of Daniel and Sophia Lothrop, the youngest of three brothers...
and his wife, Harriett
Margaret Sidney
Margaret Sidney was the pseudonym of American author Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop . In addition to writing popular children's stories, she ran her husband Daniel Lothrop's publishing company after his death...
. Harriett was the author of the Five Little Peppers
Five Little Peppers
The Five Little Peppers book series was created by Margaret Sidney from 1881 to 1916. It covers the lives of the five children of Mamsie and the late Mister Pepper who are born into poverty in a rural "little brown house." The series begins with the Peppers in their native state and develops with...
series and other children's books
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
using the pen name Margaret Sidney
Margaret Sidney
Margaret Sidney was the pseudonym of American author Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop . In addition to writing popular children's stories, she ran her husband Daniel Lothrop's publishing company after his death...
. The Lothrops added town water in 1883, central heating in 1888, and electric lighting in 1904, as well as a large piazza on the west side in 1887. The room that, after 1860, had served as Julian Hawthorne's bedroom became her dining room.
The Lothrops helped oversee a several-day celebration in honor of Nathaniel Hawthorne's centennial in 1904. Speeches were given, letters were read in public, and a tablet was dedicated by Beatrix Hawthorne (daughter of Julian) marking the larch
Larch
Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south...
path where the author often walked.
Modern history
After Margaret Sidney's death in 1924, the home was inherited by her daughter; she opened the home to the public in 1927. The home stayed in the family until 1965.In 1963, The Wayside was designated a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
, and became part of Minute Man National Historical Park
Minute Man National Historical Park
Not to be confused with Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.Minute Man National Historical Park commemorates the opening battle in the American Revolutionary War. It also includes The Wayside, home in turn to three noted American authors...
on June 15, 1965. This designation came with the aid of the Lothrop's daughter Margaret, and it became the first literary site to be acquired by the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
. It is open to the public seasonally for guided tours. Its address is 455 Lexington Road in Concord.
Sources
- Felton, R. Todd. A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England. Berkeley, California: Roaring Forties Press, 2006. ISBN 0-9766706-4-X
- Levine, Miriam. A Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Apple-wood Books, 1984. ISBN 0-918222-51-6
- Matteson, John. Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007. ISBN 978-0-393-33359-6
- McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8021-1776-7
- Miller, Edwin Haviland. Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. ISBN 0-87745-381-0
- Saxton, Martha. Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Gireaux, 1995 (first published 1977): 158. ISBN 0-374-52460-2
- Schreiner, Samuel A., Jr. The Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau and the Friendship That Freed the American Mind. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2006. 978-0471646631
- Wilson, Susan. Literary Trail of Greater Boston. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. ISBN 0-618-05013-2
- Wineapple Brenda. Hawthorne: A Life. New York: Random House, 2003. ISBN 0-8129-7291-0
- Wright, John Hardy. Hawthorne's Haunts in New England. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59629-425-7
External links
- The Wayside
- Minute Man National Historical Park
- The Wayside at Aboard the Underground Railroad: A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary