The Wayside: Home of Authors

 

Many persons have asked me how this house happened to be the home of so many authors. It is true that eleven--if we include those who have published one book--have lived in The Wayside. By birth or marriage they were all connected with three families. Mr. and Mrs. Amos Bronson Alcott and their four daughters, later made famous in Little Women, lived here from April 1, 1845 to November 17, 1848. They were followed by Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne and their relatives. The last author was my mother, Mrs. Daniel Lothrop, better known as "Margaret Sidney," who wrote Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.

When I tried to answer the question as to why the Alcotts and Hawthornes chose this particular house, I remembered that both families had previously lived in Concord, although at different periods of time. Each family, after an absence of a few years, had returned to the town where they had made many friends. This house, old even then, happened to be for sale when, in 1845, the Alcott family was in search of a home. By chance, several years later, the Hawthornes decided to buy at the time the Alcotts wished to sell.

The selection of The Wayside by my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Lothrop, was, however, a purposeful choice of Mr. Hawthorne's former home. It happened in this way. Early in 1883 they were boarding in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they had lived most of the time since their marriage a year and a half earlier. They, too, wished to own a home, and had almost decided upon a certain house on Brattle Street in Cambridge. One morning, when my father was on his way by streetcar to his publishing office in Boston, he noticed a newspaper advertisement. It stated that the former home of Nathaniel Hawthorne was for sale. Realizing immediately that his wife would be entranced with the idea of owning such a house, he interrupted his journey and stopped at the real-estate office for the key and refusal. That night with boyish enthusiasm he came up behind his wife and dangled the key before her delighted eyes. Within a few days they went to Concord to inspect the house. Well satisfied, my father returned to the real-estate office to complete the purchase. There he learned of the narrow margin by which he had secured the property--hardly had he left the office before a telegram came from Chicago, ordering the firm to "hold The Wayside at any cost."

When my father and mother first came to The Wayside in 1883, it was, as it is today, a long rambling building of fifteen rooms and eight stairways; the piazza is the only addition since that date. It was already a house of many additions. Indeed its gradual development suggested to me one of my pet names for it, "Topsy." Like the little colored girl, it "just grew." As a result there are three distinct ridgepoles with as many different roof lines. Surmounting all is the famous tower study built by Mr. Hawthorne. In the middle of the building is the old colonial two-story farmhouse of simple lines, its center doorway now replaced by a bay window. On either side of this main part are two additions, or wings, set back a few feet from the front line of the house. In the western wing is still preserved the front door which the Hawthornes installed when they made their changes in 1860.

This old house, with colonial as well as literary associations, delighted my parents. Loving literature and history as they did, they determined to make as few changes as possible. They felt it a duty to preserve the physical structure as well as the fine traditions of the past, and they decided to repair, but not to change unless absolutely necessary. All that dated from the Hawthorne era was carefully saved, especially the wallpaper and the graining of the woodwork.

At the time my parents bought The Wayside, the exterior of the house badly needed paint. A rich buff, with cream trimmings, was chosen. Soon after the completion of the repairs, Mr. Julian Hawthorne returned to his childhood home to visit my parents. Standing in the road, and looking at the house, Mr. Hawthorne turned to my father and said, "Mr. Lothrop, how did you happen to choose that color? It is the exact shade I remember when I lived here as a boy." In 1932, nearly fifty years after that meeting, I saw Mr. Hawthorne in San Francisco. After a brief, but courteous, greeting he almost breathlessly said, "Have you changed the color of the old house?" He sighed with content when he was assured that the same shade had been kept and the home was little altered.

It must not be thought that the physical reminders of the past were the only, or chief, concern of my parents. They were deeply interested in the personalities and activities of the former owners. In fact, as I have stated, my father and mother were first drawn to the house because it had been the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne. His name was mentioned in our household almost as if he had been a close friend, although neither my father nor my mother had ever met him. Nevertheless he was always "Mr. Hawthorne," not the impersonal "Hawthorne" of books. Even now I can twist neither my tongue nor my pen to anything except "Mr. Hawthorne." It is as natural for me to speak of him in that way as it is for me to speak of other authors whom I did know, such as Mr. Whittier and Dr. Holmes. This attitude of respectful friendliness towards the former author-owners of our home is part of my earliest recollections, for I was born and brought up in The Wayside.

Toward the Hawthorne family there was a feeling of special friendliness. The younger daughter, Rose, then Mrs. George Parsons Lathrop, had become a firm friend of my mother, and often spent whole afternoons at The Wayside. She and my mother had first come to know each other when the Lathrops sold the house to my parents, but the chance acquaintanceship soon ripened into warm friendship. Mrs. Lathrop occasionally visited a cousin, Mrs. Mary Mann How, in the center of Concord, and almost invariably would come down to her old home, The Wayside, for a chat with this other author whose name was surprisingly like her own. [EE-lalo] On one such occasion Mrs. Lathrop climbed to her father's favorite path on top of the hill. From a pine tree near it she picked a branch which she brought back to the house. Later she painted for Mother a wooden fire screen, in soft shades of greens and browns, combining the pine branch with a quotation from her father's Mosses from an Old Manse: [EE-rose]

 

FIRE WORSHIP

Beautiful it is to see the strengthening gleam, the deepening light that gradually casts distinct shadows of the human figure, the table and highbacked chairs upon the opposite wall, and at length, as twilight comes on, replenishes the room with living radiance and makes life all rosecolor.

Perhaps the article of furniture most prized by my mother was the mahogany dining table which had belonged to Mr. Hawthorne. She considered herself fortunate in being able to buy from Mrs. Lathrop this table and several other pieces of Hawthorne furniture, which were too bulky or otherwise unsuitable for a small New York apartment. Among the other pieces were Mr. Hawthorne's red leather easy chair, his shaving stand, a bookcase, and bedroom chairs. Mrs. Lathrop told my mother that she was glad this furniture was to be used by an author and a publisher who would cherish it. [EE-tab]

 

[Cutline:] Front Hall. The Wayside Today [D008]

 

Since I was so well acquainted with Mrs. Lathrop, it was not strange that as a little girl, I should think of the other members of the Hawthorne family as personalities and not as mere names. I often wondered about them, and imagined how they had looked and acted. Yet they never appeared to me as ghosts. Perhaps I was spared that experience because of the death of my father when I was seven years old. He and I had been very close, our reactions being similar. To me he could never seem ghostlike; his spirit was far too vital. No more could I think of Mr. Hawthorne as a ghost. Yet I could easily picture him walking back and forth on the hillside, or climbing the stairs to his tower study. Sometimes the impression was so strong that I wished I could turn my head more quickly. Perhaps then, I liked to think, I might catch a glimpse of him starting up our front stairs.

The Alcott girls had lived in the house when they were children, and therefore were objects of my childhood imagination. I liked to think of them running through the rooms and along the terraces, and I often wondered whether they had had as good a time as I. At the age of four, I have been told, I used to climb up and down the winding colonial stairs, playing "Pilgrim's Progress" as Louisa and her sisters had done so many years before.

When I grew older and studied history, the colonial period also became vivid. It was not difficult to visualize the red coats and the muskets of the British soldiers who had marched past our house on their way to the Old North Bridge on April 19, 1775 [EE-nb]. Nor was it difficult to imagine the fight between the British officer and the young Concord man, which is supposed to have taken place on our hillside, according to a description by Mr. Hawthorne in Septimius Felton. Many times I have listened to my mother and watched her point out a spot on the hill where, tradition says, the British soldier was buried.

 

Fortunately for me, my imagination was not allowed to run riot. My mother possessed a sincere respect for historical accuracy, in addition to her ability for creative writing. Whenever she was composing an historical story she was attentive to even small details, I well remember one instance of her effort in that direction when she was writing Little Maid of Concord Town. In this story about the Revolutionary War she described the adventures of an imaginary Debbie Parlin and her family, placing them in an actual house, now "Grapevine Cottage." Among Debbie's friends was charming Millicent Barrett who really did live on Barrett's Mill Road. Shortly before the war Millicent had persuaded an admirer, a British officer, to teach her how to make a paper cartridge, a newly devised method for combining a bullet and gunpowder in the same container. Fortunately she had realized the value to the colonial cause of this invention which allowed a soldier to load his gun rapidly without measuring the powder between each shot. As soon as she could, Millicent gathered her girl friends, supposedly including Debbie, and taught them how to make the cartridges, which they, of course, turned over to their colonial officer friends. When Mother narrated this tale in Little Maid of Concord Town, she took pains to secure a picture of the scissors with which Millicent cut the paper for the cartridges, the scissors having been fortunately preserved in the Concord Free Public Library. As a young girl I was greatly impressed with the necessity for accuracy and vividness, for I was not only my mother's faithful reader, but her messenger, and I remember carrying many histories home on my bicycle from the library.

Another of Mother's characteristics was her deep interest in young people. Coupled with it was a sense of responsibility towards them. She believed that the heritage of the past should be preserved for their benefit. This belief ultimately led to the organization of the National Society, Children of the American Revolution, as I shall explain in a later chapter. It led her also to work for the preservation of historic houses, most notable of which was the Orchard House, where Louisa Alcott had accomplished much of her writing. So it was with The Wayside; Mother always welcomed to it groups of students and teachers. One of my very early memories is that of the Wellesley cheer, given by some jolly seniors as they departed after a visit to the house.

It was natural, therefore, when The Wayside came into my possession, that I should feel a responsibility for its future. I knew what it had done for me during my girlhood, in bringing history to life, and I wished that other young people might have the same joy. For them I decided to assemble all the interesting bits of information possible, about events, little as well as big, which had occurred in the house. Yet when I actually started the task I found that I did not know enough about the intimate family life of the Hawthornes and Alcotts. Unfortunately I was only a small girl, of about five years, when Mrs. Hawthorne's sister, Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, the noted advocate of kindergartens, used to come to see Mother. I remember Miss Peabody's crown of white hair and commanding presence, but I was too young to have noticed what she may have said to my mother. Nor was I much older when Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop used to spend afternoons chatting with Mother.

I did not see Mrs. Lathrop again until 1924. In the meantime, after her husband's death, she had become Mother Mary Alphonsa of the Dominican Order, and had established Rosary Hill Home, a hospital for cancerous poor, in Hawthorne, New York, where I called upon her. Although far from well, she kindly came downstairs to talk with me, When she heard my plans for The Wayside, which she, too, had dearly loved, she said that she would write out for me some of her memories of her life there. Unhappily her death occurred two years later, before she had been able to put those memories on paper. 

Her brother, Mr. Julian Hawthorne, I saw in 1932 in San Francisco, as I have mentioned. At that time he was erect in carriage and alert of mind although eighty-six years of age. He gave me a number of reminiscences of his boyhood in our home, and told me of the last time he had seen his father. As a freshman at Harvard College, he had gone to The Wayside to make some request of his father. After it had been granted and he was leaving the room, he glanced back at his father who was standing feebly by the bed, but gazing at him with an expression of particular affection.

To supplement these infrequent talks with Mrs. Lathrop and Mr. Julian Hawthorne I turned to manuscripts of letters and diaries written by the Hawthornes and Alcotts, and to certain personal papers of my mother. From these I have made many excerpts in order to give descriptions by actual observers. Among the more important items which I have found are the statements by my mother detailing how she happened to write Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, and why she chose the pen name of "Margaret Sidney." I found also a letter from Mrs. Hawthorne describing in a lively manner a dancing party she and her husband gave for their daughter Una. Quite as fortunate was the discovery of another letter, this time from Mrs. Alcott to her brother, in which she explained the repairs and changes which her husband and she made in the old colonial house shortly after they had bought it. 

For still earlier periods of The Wayside history I have searched deeds and town records as well as family memoirs. Fortunately a descendant of the Whitneys, who were living in the house at the beginning of the Revolution, had compiled a narrative of the exciting events experienced in it on April 19, 1775. The town records of Concord also give many interesting bits of information about the various owners of the house in colonial times.

From all these sources I have found that The Wayside has been inhabited practically continuously since it was built about 1700, and all that time has been essentially a home. Its walls have resounded to the shouts of children. Within its rooms successive families have worked and played, have discussed world problems of the moment, and have made their contribution to the art of fine living.

During the two centuries of its existence, economic and political conditions changed radically. When the earliest part of the house was built, Massachusetts was an English colony, and remained so for seventy-five years. In that period ordinary life was vastly different from the hustling existence of the present. We of this generation can hardly picture its slow quality, the dangers and hardships involved, and the great amount of physical labor required to secure even food, shelter, and clothing. There were not even the conveniences which we now think of as necessities. There was no running water in the house, and in very cold weather the outdoor well had to be primed with hot water. Matches were unknown; if the fire went out recourse was to the tinder box, or to red-hot coals hastily carried on a shovel from a neighbor's house. The open fireplace with its oven was the only provision for cooking and heating. All the essentials for building a house, beams, planks, laths, nails, and other materials, were produced by hand labor. Transportation was still on horseback or by horse-drawn vehicles. It took a good part of a day to travel the twenty miles from Concord to Boston. The stage line was not started until 1791. The first postoffice in Concord was not opened until 1795.

Under these pioneer conditions, a member of the Ball family, about 1700, chose for his home a pleasant situation a mile from the center of town, close by the Bay Road which led from Concord to Boston. Protected from winter winds by a hillside on the north, the house faced south, its front rooms receiving sunshine all day long. Across the road the view over open fields was bounded by distant wooded hills.

 

   

The Ball house was sturdily built. Its large central chimney, hand-hewn beams, "gunstock" posts--so called because of their shape--wooden pegs, and wide floor boards seem even now little affected by the passage of time. It was similar in plan to most of the farmhouses of the early colonial period. There were four sizable, low-ceilinged rooms, two above and two below, separated not only by the large center chimney, but also by a tiny entry, or passage way, on each floor. The stairs were steep and winding, occupying only half of the tiny entry space. Possibly there were at that time two additional rear rooms, both small, which were separated by their own chimney. One of these rooms was probably at the side of the house and therefore visible from the road. Although the date of the building of these rooms is uncertain, it is known that many years later the Alcotts combined two such rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom, into one large room which they used as a kitchen, but which is now called the "Old Room." Under its floor the remains of an old hearth can still be seen.

It is a great disappointment to me that as yet I have been unable to discover when the house was built. I have thoroughly searched town and county records of deeds, and even the probate records, returning more than once to be sure that I had not overlooked some hidden clue. In spite of my best efforts I have found nothing definite. The nearest date I can give is an approximate one, 1700; and for that the house itself is my authority. Certain structural details of the four main rooms and central chimney point to the latter part of the seventeenth or the very early part of the eighteenth century. Much older may have been the two small rooms at the rear of the main house; I am inclined to that belief because they had their own chimney. This arrangement of two rooms with a chimney between was a favorite one with the early settlers in Massachusetts. [EE-date]

 

Whatever the age of the house, it was built on part of an old "house lott," so called because on it were placed the owner's home, barn, and other farm buildings. In this section of Concord, the East Quarter, the first "house lotts" were set out on the slope of a long hill running eastward from Concord. These lots extended from the crest of the hill to the brook which flows through the meadow, an especially favorable location, protected from the north winds, yet open to the warmth of a southern exposure. It was not strange that in 1635, when the earliest settlers forced their way from Boston through heavy forests, they chose this slope for their rude shelters. For that first winter they built into the hillside in an effort to provide some sort of protection for their families. I have often looked at that hillside and marveled at the courage of those women and children who faced the cold of a New England winter under such most unendurable conditions. As soon as possible tiny bins were built at the foot of the hill, and these served until more permanent buildings could be erected, When the first road was made, it was laid out skirting the bottom of the hill in order to avoid both the marsh and the highland; a narrow space was left between the hill and the road for the houses. Opposite them, across the road, were built the barns.

The first divisions or assignments of land, soon after the founding of the town, were probably recorded with some degree of completeness. In 1666, however, the town felt it necessary to demand that all heads of families file a list of their holdings. At that time Nathaniel Ball, Sr., owned a "house lott" of thirteen acres. Twenty-two years later, one of his sons, Nathaniel, Jr., just three days before his marriage in 1688, received from his father the "unimproved half of the house lott," the remainder to go to him at his father's death.

The next date of which I am sure is nearly thirty years later, in 1717, when Caleb Ball, a son of this same Nathaniel, Jr., sold his home with three acres immediately surrounding it. With the date 1717, fortunately, my difficulties disappear. From that year to the present, the succession of deeds is complete. I wish, however, that I knew how Caleb came into possession of the property and when he came into the possession of it. I wish I knew whether it had a home on it when he secured it, or whether he himself built the comfortable house with its four main sunny rooms. In short, I wish I knew far more than the simple facts that this land was part of the original "house lott" of Nathaniel, Sr., and that the house which was upon it in 1717 is now, with its many additions, known as The Wayside.

At the time Caleb sold his property the house was in a fairly well settled community; some of the old houses which were close to it on either side have since then disappeared. As I thought of the life in such a community, I wondered what reasons had impelled Caleb to move his young family from the ancestral lands to a sparsely settled district where roads were poor and transportation both difficult and infrequent. His move was a complete one. He disposed not only of his house and its three acres, but also of his barn and eighteen additional acres of farming land, almost immediately buying a sixty-acre farm on the Lexington town line, some three or four miles from the center of Concord.

It must have taken a great deal of courage for Caleb and his wife Experience to leave their comfortable home in a closely settled community where they had many neighbors upon whom they could call in case of need. Only a stone's throw away towards the east was the home of Caleb's parents and their large family. Not far beyond was another house (now "Grapevine Cottage"). Within calling distance to the west of Caleb's house was the cottage of William Clark, and only a short distance beyond that was the Hoar home (now "Orchard House"). In these houses and in others nearby, many young people were living. Neighborhood entertainments, such as quilting parties or corn shuckings, would vary the monotony of the toil-laden days, and might be expected to appeal to Caleb and his wife. He was twenty-six and she a year younger when they took their two small daughters, the elder only two and a half years of age, to the distant farm.

Although Caleb was a young farmer to whom an increase in acreage might be attractive, that motive alone would presumably not account for the serious decision he had made. I was interested, therefore, to find that, at just about the same time, a number of other young farmers living along the Bay Road had left the center of Concord and bought large undivided farms on the outskirts, and I started to find out what changes taking place might have influenced Caleb and his fellows.

I learned that the lands which these young men were selling were neither easy nor profitable to till, partly because they were divided into scattered lots or "pieces," as they were described in the deeds. These often widely separated pieces were a natural outgrowth of the original division of Concord land. In addition to his "house lott" each head of a family was assigned a number of lots of farming land of various kinds, which generally included pasture, meadow, plowland, and woodland. In each assignment some good land and some poor land had been included. The purpose of such an arrangement had been, of course, to secure a distribution which would be fair to all; but the result had been an inconvenient scattering of any one person's holdings.

Although by 1717 there had been a change in ownership of individual lots, nevertheless the system prevailed, and it was difficult, or almost impossible, to buy enough contiguous lots to form a large farm near the center of town. Caleb had been caught by this system. The twenty-one acres which he sold were in four separate lots.

Fortunately by 1717 danger of the Indians attacking outlying farms was lessening. Through the persistence of the colonists, the Indians were being driven towards the western part of the state. King Philip's War, which had started in 1675, had brought real menace to the residents of Concord. Soldiers, at that time, were sent to help guard the town; garrison houses were built and homes were fortified, to which neighbors might go in case of alarm. Although the town of Concord was never attacked, yet in 1676 Indians captured a fifteen-year-old girl and killed her two brothers at Nashoba, a community then within the limits of Concord, but some seven miles from the center of town. This tragedy occurred in spite of the fact that the young men had posted their sister on a nearby hill to warn them of any approach of Indians, while they threshed grain in their barn. Although she later made her escape, inhabitants of other towns not far from Concord were not so fortunate. Dunstable, Groton, and Lancaster, as Shattuck mentions in his well-known history of Concord, "were often attacked by Indians from 1694 to 1712, and many of the inhabitants were killed or carried into captivity." [1] He adds that raids were made even on Chelmsford and Sudbury. A Major Tyng, for instance, was fatally wounded by Indians in 1711 as he was traveling between Groton and Concord, but he managed to reach Concord before his death. As a result of these conditions some of the Concord men were constantly employed as scouts, or were detailed to garrison houses or forts. 

When the outlying farms became safe, the effects of Concord's system of land division would have been far more serious for the progressive farmers had they not been able to sell at a good price their town homes and land. Fortunately for them some of the young men were beginning to turn from farming as a vocation and were becoming artisans, encouraged by a growing demand for objects and services which required specialized skill. In most instances these artisans continued to do a small amount of farming, enough to provide for their own needs, and were therefore glad to buy houses which had a small acreage of farming land near the center of town.

This increased demand for the products of artisans particularly attracted my attention because it seemed to mark the development of Concord from a frontier community to a settled town where fears for personal safety were giving way to considerations of leisure, comfort, and beauty. The rise of an enterprising man was sometimes rapid. For instance, Samuel Fletcher, Jr., to whom Caleb Ball sold his house and land, was at the time of the transaction, a simple glazier. Only five years later, when this same Samuel Fletcher in his turn sold his home, he had become a builder and planner of houses, giving his occupation as that of "housewright."

As it happened the Ball house, which Samuel Fletcher had bought from Caleb Ball in 1717 and which he sold in 1722 to Nathaniel Colburn, continued for over fifty years to be the home of specialists of one sort or another. For twenty-four of those years Nathaniel Colburn, another "housewright," made it his home and in it brought up his large family. The next owner, John Breede, was a cordwainer, that is, a worker in leather, or a shoemaker. The third man, a "trader," was Samuel Whitney, who occupied the house from 1769 to 1776. An able and intelligent patriot, he was destined to take a stirring part in the events leading up to the Revolution.

Life during those fifty years flowed on fairly prosperously in the old house. Many children filled its rooms, and I like to think how its walls must have resounded to their laughter and the clatter of their heels. There must have been much noise and hilarity because in the Colburn family, for instance, there were eleven children, all except one of whom were born in the house. The Breedes had ten children. When the Whitneys sold the house and moved to Boston, they had eleven. Those were days of large families, four more children being born to the Whitneys in later years.

The owners of the house took their share in the life of the town, serving in the various offices to which they were elected. The old town records show that Nathaniel Colburn was often chosen to be one of the "Horse Officers" and "Field Drivers," or "Haywards," as Shattuck describes the latter term. John Breede, as his vocation might suggest, was frequently elected one of the three "Sealers of Leather." Occasionally he was chosen for other offices, such as tithingman, fence viewer, or surveyor of the highway. As can be seen from these titles, careful supervision was maintained by the town over the quality of private goods offered for sale, as well as over the general condition of the town itself. For instance, certain men were appointed to take care of stray animals, especially horses, when the court met in Concord, and certain others were named to see that private fences were kept mended. It is amusing to find that for many years a vote was taken at each annual town meeting to determine whether swine should be allowed to run free in the streets.

These and other town records show that the early owners of the house were men of parts. Nathaniel Colburn, for example, would seem to have been a trusted workman since through many consecutive years his name appears frequently when he was paid for repairs on the meeting house, the schools, and the homes of the poor for whom the town was responsible. He was apparently a man who knew his own mind, being in 1724 one of only fourteen men to dissent from a certain vote at a town meeting. Yet he must have been respected and well liked, because he was made in 1747 a member of a committee of five, selected to consider what measures might properly be taken to "promote peace and unanimity, in the first precinct." 

Only a year earlier he, or perhaps his twenty-three year-old son, was corporal in a company of fifty men, who on September 23, 1746 were "detached and marched to Boston on an alarm, on account of an expected attack from the French fleet under the Duke D'Anville." [2] To be sure, the company was away from Concord only ten days, but at that time such a march was notable. It must have been an interesting and valuable experience for the men, since trips to Boston could not have been of frequent occurrence. There was no stagecoach line, roads were poor, and the amount of time required by the journey could not generally be spared from work at home.

The trader Samuel Whitney, most important among the early owners of the house, was one of the leaders in town affairs during the momentous period immediately preceding and following the fight of April 19, 1775. He was a forceful man, a firm believer in liberty, and well connected in Boston through influential relatives and friends. His earlier commercial ventures in that city as a "trader" had been practically wrecked by depreciating currencies, the bankruptcies of various firms, and the decreasing trade with England. In 1767 he moved to Concord and in the next few years bought much property, helped by an inheritance from his mother. In 1769 he purchased John Breede's house and made it his home. He bought also a small house next door, which had been built about 1740. This he probably made into the country store or shop which he is known to have started about this time. This shop was mentioned later by a British spy in a report to General Gage who ordered his officers to search particularly the Whitney buildings.

Samuel Whitney's ability was at once recognized in Concord, and he was elected to important offices. He was made Muster Master of the Concord Minute Men, one of the three delegates to the Provincial Congress, and a member of many committees, especially those of Safety and Correspondence. In this last capacity he was particularly valuable, since he could secure early information from his friends and relatives in Boston, and discuss with them the serious situation when they came to visit him in Concord.

Thoughtful men foresaw that the rising opposition to British tyranny would lead to drastic action, possibly to fighting. It was recognized that, in such an event, large stores of weapons, bullets, powder, and provisions would be necessary. On October 24, 1774, at a town meeting of which Samuel Whitney was moderator, Concord voted that supplies of cannon ball, grape shot, and powder be purchased for the cannon which the Committee of Safety had brought into the town. Other public stores were collected and entrusted to those persons who were known to be workers for liberty, Samuel Whitney himself receiving eighty-two barrels of flour and other articles. British spies. however, visited Concord and reported to General Gage the location of many of the hiding places. By one of these spies Samuel Whitney was accused of concealing arms and ammunition.

Fortunately for the defenders of liberty, word came from Boston that General Gage was considering sending an expedition to capture the supplies. Many of the stores, including those entrusted to Mr. Whitney, were hurried into more secure hiding places or moved to other towns, even as far as Shirley.

The day of April 19, 1775 was one long to be remembered by Mr. Whitney, his wife, and children, as we learn from the Whitney family account, a valuable record since it was compiled in 1860 from memoranda preserved in the various branches of the family. It states that before daybreak the household was aroused by a near neighbor, young Dr. Samuel Prescott, who hurriedly told them of the approach of the British troops and of his own fortunate escape from a British patrol. Although the Whitney account does not give the details of his ride, we know from Shattuck's History of Concord that Dr. Prescott had "spent the evening at Lexington, at the house of Mr. Mulliken, to whose daughter he was paying his addresses." Hearing of the alarm in Lexington, Dr. Prescott had hurried towards home and had overtaken Paul Revere and William Dawes, who were then on their way to warn Concord. Traveling with them and helping them to spread the alarm at the farmhouses they passed, Dr. Prescott managed to escape when the other two men were stopped by an advance guard of the British.

After hearing Dr. Prescott's alarming news, Samuel Whitney hurriedly dressed and hastened off, "gun in hand" to warn others, but not before he had cautioned his wife to remain at home and to keep the children indoors. Fortunately most of the flour which had been stored by Mr. Whitney had already been moved to a safer place. There was much, however, for him to do in consulting with the other leaders, as well as in sending out further warnings and in making a few last minute shifts of the stores hidden in Concord.

Mrs. Whitney and her family were not long left in peace. The Lincoln Minute Men, aroused by messengers sent by Dr. Prescott, came hurrying down the lane which meets the highway nearly in front of the house. Rumors flew thick and fast about the happenings in Lexington. Soon came the sound of drums and fifes; the British soldiers were marching close by the house, the Grenadiers on the road in front, the Infantry on the hill behind.

The Whitney boys wanted to follow the British soldiers, but their mother threatened them with severe punishment if they left the house without her permission, and warned them of "their father's displeasure, which they well knew was not to be incurred with impunity." [3] In spite of her admonition thirteen-year-old David could not resist temptation and disappeared from home to the consternation of his family.

The anxious morning wore on. Suddenly Mr. Whitney came running down the hillside, having cut across the fields after the fight at the Old North Bridge. He said that the family must leave at once, since he feared that the house might be entered by the aroused British soldiers when they passed on their return to Boston. The homes of those active in colonial affairs were known, many of them having been visited; and threats had been made against the owners. In addition the British soldiers had started to burn public buildings. The older Whitney children were therefore hastily sent to a distant part of Concord, and Mrs. Whitney with four of the youngest boys--all under five years of age--was bundled into the country chaise, a high-wheeled carriage. They had proceeded but a short distance toward Bedford when a bullet went through the top of the chaise, grazing the head of the four-year-old boy. They were not further molested, however, and were hindered only by innumerable questions from the Minute Men of other towns, who were hurrying to join in the pursuit of the British. 

Late in the afternoon, after the sound of the firing had died down, Mrs. Whitney and the children returned to their home, to be greeted by David and his father, both of whom were unharmed. David, who had frightened his family by his disappearance in the morning, had calmly watched the fight at the bridge from a hill on the north side of the river, taking good care, however, to keep well out of his father's sight. He told his family that it never occurred to him that there was real danger, until he heard the whistling of the bullets. Then he hastily made good his escape and ran home.

 

 

The Whitneys lived in Concord until shortly after the evacuation of Boston by the British, when they moved to the city to be near relatives. David, however, was apparently attracted by country life, because he remained in Concord and was apprenticed to a farmer, Thaddeus Hunt. After attaining his majority, David, too, moved away, though he later returned on the occasion when he claimed a bride.

This short account of the Whitney family is incomplete without reference to a Negro slave of theirs, named Casey. In his early life he had had a bitter experience, for he had been captured in Africa when he was only twenty years old and brought to America, leaving behind his wife and child, Casey declared that each night he went home to Africa, returning in the morning. Henry D. Thoreau, commenting upon this homesick dream, in his diary under date of February 18, 1858, described the later adventures of Casey. It seems that one Saturday while Casey was chopping wood in the yard, one of the Whitney boys kept throwing snowballs at him. At last Casey, annoyed beyond control, hurled his ax at the lad. Whereupon, Samuel Whitney, the father, told Casey that he was an "ugly nigger" and threatened him with jail. The following Sunday Casey ran away, pursued by neighbors across the Great Meadows, which lay behind the Whitney hillside. He reached the river in safety and managed to hide himself in it, keeping his face only above water. After dark he secured food from a kindly woman and then betook himself far away. He enlisted and, after the war had ended, was given his freedom in return for his military service.

Although the Whitneys moved to Boston in 1776, their old house was not sold until 1778. It then became the home of a prosperous farmer, Daniel Hoar (who had been born in a neighboring house, now known as "Orchard House"), and later of his son, Daniel, Jr. The latter planned to bring to it his bride, Mary Adams; but his plans, after all preparations had been made, even to the completion of the wedding dress, came to a tragic end by his accidental drowning in Flint's Pond (now Sandy Pond).

After a few years Daniel's heirs, his brothers and sisters, sold the property to a wheelwright, Darius Merriam, of Concord. One of its small buildings he utilized as his shop, and in it turned out wheels, in the laborious fashion necessary before steam-driven machinery came into general use. He and his wife and two sons lived in the house for only a few years before he sold it to Horatio Cogswell, also a wheelwright. During the latter's ownership it was mortgaged to Albert Lawrence Bull, a cabinet maker, who is said to have lived in it. His brother, Ephraim Wales Bull, came to Concord that same year, 1836, and bought the neighboring place (now "Grapevine Cottage"). On its surrounding acres Mr. Bull, by trade a goldbeater, originated the Concord grape, now so famous [EE-cg]. He was an interesting man of an original turn of mind, who, as we shall see, became the friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne and of other owners of The Wayside. I remember gratefully his kindness to us neighborhood children, when years later he used to give us grapes and roses, or allow us to wander in his greenhouse.

In 1845 the old house again changed hands, this time to become the home of one of Concord's most famous families, the Alcotts. The house was indeed an old one now. It had stood at least 130 years, through the town's colonial period, the War for Independence, and the early years of the republic. Yet for it the date 1845 marked the beginning of a new type of pioneer life.

____

[1] Lemuel Shattuck, A History of the Town of Concord (1835), p. 66.

[2] Shattuck, op. cit., p. 71.

[3] Incidents in the Life of Samuel Whitney . . . Collected by his great-grandson, Henry Austin Whitney (1860), p. 28.

   

 

   

 

The turmoil and strife of meeting frontier conditions and of wresting political liberty had passed, but there was still turmoil and strife in men's minds. Liberty of thought and the sanctity of individual life were pressing questions. To the old house which had sheltered pioneers of the early days came other leaders, prophets of a richer intellectual life. One of the foremost of these was Amos Bronson Alcott. A philosopher, with a tender love for all defenseless creatures, he could not endure the shackles of the educational system of that day. He was a pioneer, indeed, for an education that should fit the individual for the joy of independent thought.

To the old house, on April 1, 1845, came this philosopher, his wife, and his four daughters, Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth, and Abba May, better known to us as Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy in Little Women [EE-lw]. They were very happy; at last a home of their own! Not only did they appreciate the comfort and space of a whole house, after renting rooms; even more, they enjoyed the sense of ownership and the hope of permanency. The last two years had not been very happy ones for the Alcotts. In the summer and fall of 1843, they had been members of the group which conducted the unfortunate experiment in community living at Fruitlands, in Harvard, Massachusetts. From Harvard they had moved to Still River, and then, to their great pleasure, they had returned to Concord, and their old friends. Even then, in spite of the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Hosmer, in whose house on Sandy Pond Road they had rented rooms, they were not entirely contented. They wanted their own home and an opportunity to support themselves adequately.

It was, therefore, a real joy to them to be able to buy a house and land. Mrs. Alcott had been a beneficiary under the will of her father, Colonel Joseph May of Boston. Since the estate had been distributed in the preceding August, part of Mrs. Alcott's share could now be used in purchasing the old Cogswell house, with its adjacent buildings, and an acre of land. Eight acres of especially fertile land across the highway were bought at the same time by the Alcotts' good friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and loaned to them.

 

 

Both to Mr. Alcott and to his family, the new property, which they named "Hillside," meant spiritual as well as physical well-being. To all of them it gave sufficient space in which they could comfortably maintain their family life, freed from too great proximity to others. To Mr. Alcott, who was forty-five years old, it gave opportunity, by tilling the soil, to contribute to the support of his family. Idealistic as he was and eager to be intellectually of service to the world, he nevertheless accepted the manual labor involved in this new opportunity and was thankful for relief from the discouragement of the preceding months.

He had not always been so helpless. In the early eighteen-thirties, he had had a school in Germantown and another in Philadelphia. In 1834 he opened the famous Temple School in Boston, which he conducted in the face of various difficulties until 1839. Although he had a real contribution to make to the progress of education, unfortunately for him and for the pupils of that day, his ideas seemed radical to their parents. He believed that education should be made interesting to young people and that it should stimulate and exercise their powers of observation and of analysis. This training in independent thinking was directly opposed to the educational principles of his day. Parrot-like memorizing of facts was all that was considered necessary, any deficiency on the part of the student being remedied by the application of the rod. Mr. Alcott and his friend, Henry David Thoreau, who taught the town school in Concord for a few weeks following his graduation from Harvard in 1837, did not agree with these principles and objected to the use of the ferule, even at the risk of losing their schools.

This courageous adherence to his convictions Mr. Alcott never lost. When in 1839 it came to the point of closing his Temple School in Boston, or of denying admission to a clean little colored girl, he chose the former alternative, loyal to his belief in equality of opportunity for all. The parents of his other scholars, already antagonistic, soon withdrew their support from his school.

Since Mr. Alcott could no longer utilize his intellectual ability in his favorite vocation, he determined to turn all of his powers to the physical task of farming this land which so providentially had been made available to him. His diaries describe, day by day, his hard manual work in preparing the earth, planting and tending his beds, and finally harvesting the crops. The list of his vegetables and fruits would be almost endless. Squash, cucumbers, lettuce, peas, beans, potatoes, beets, radishes, celery, tomatoes, corn, spinach, turnips, rhubarb, strawberries, quince, currants, apples, peaches, pears, buckwheat, and rye are some of them. Nor did he forget flower beds. Work in the soil was not new to him; he was a farmer's boy and had learned not only to plant and tend, but also to love all growing things. His was a mind which saw grandeur in simplicity, beauty in all forms of nature, and joy in truth, gentleness, and duty.

 

Although he always preferred to teach, he was glad that he had this farming ability which now led him to outdoor tasks. In these tasks his daughters often joined him, helping him to plant peas and beans, or to weed and keep neat the rows of vegetables or the garden paths. Elizabeth was the one most apt to help him, although Louisa also often worked manfully at the task. On one or more occasions Mrs. Alcott assisted him in setting out apple trees. The orderly arrangement of his garden across the road and, later, of the terraces behind the house was a source of great pleasure to him. His love of beauty challenged as well as recompensed. To him the creation of beauty in nature was a step toward God. In his diaries Mr. Alcott often rejoiced that he could bring order and beauty to this new "estate," as he affectionately called it.

Inside the house Mrs. Alcott planned the necessary changes. There was much to be done to repair the old house and to enlarge it. Mr. N. Hosmer, the carpenter, found that the wheelwright's shop was still sturdy and could be utilized. This small building was therefore cut in two, one part being added to each end of the house. The western addition, or wing, now provided a study for Mr. Alcott, as well as two small rooms on the first floor, the half story above having space for two or more additional rooms.

The better half of the shop, Mrs. Alcott wrote to her brother, Samuel J. May, was moved up to the eastern end of the building and converted into a bath-house and a woodhouse. She told of arrangements for "bathing tub and shower bath fixed with weight and pullies so that even Elizabeth can give herself a bath without help." This arrangement was a great accomplishment, almost a radical innovation, at a time when the physical difficulties of obtaining water from wells, combined with the usual custom of the Saturday night bath, conspired to keep from daily bathing all but the most devoted believers in cleanliness.

 

Mrs. Alcott added that they had built new stairs to the children's room; this was the southeast bedroom where "the east grows rosy with the coming day," as Louisa wrote in Little Women when describing the books which the girls found under their pillows on Christmas morning. The room is an interesting one, with its old colonial fireplace and the four corner "gunstock" posts which date back to Caleb Ball's time or earlier. Hidden behind hand-split laths and old plaster over the fireplace is some "shadow molded" vertical sheathing of that very early era. Behind the sheathing is a space which may have been used as a hideaway; certain recent discoveries point to that possibility. Perhaps Samuel Whitney utilized the space in 1775 for the concealment of colonial stores. It would have made a good hiding place for the escaped slave to whom the Alcotts gave protection in 1847. At that later date Louisa and her sisters had separate rooms in the western addition, but in 1845, when they first came to the house, this big southeast room was their bedroom.

Downstairs greater comfort was secured by combining the two small rooms at the rear of the house. Mrs. Alcott wrote that the little bedroom was moved to the west side of the old kitchen and intervening partitions were taken down. The large room thus formed was used by the Alcotts as their kitchen. Mrs. Alcott went on to say: "I have had the water brought into the kitchen and a new pump--had the well cleaned out and stoned round it." Full of enthusiasm she added that they were beginning on the fence, an examination having shown that its posts were nearly gone and that it was "in a state of decay throughout." Not daunted by the hard work, she wrote happily:

We are getting through with our repairs as well as we could hope--and begin to find a comfort which I had not realized in my most sanguine hopes.

This sense of enjoyment in their new home was shared by the girls, who were of the age to find adventure and pleasure in everything. Anna, the "Meg" of Little Women, had just had her fourteenth birthday. Twelve-year-old, long-legged, active Louisa, "Jo," was a joy to all with her ever-ready fund of jollity. Lovable "Beth" was nine years of age; and roly-poly Abba May, "Amy," with blue eyes and golden hair, the pet of the whole family, was only four years old. Their mother wrote:

My girls are doing well, Louisa enjoying the season--weeds with her father like a Trojan--Anna sticks to the books--and Elizabeth is smiling on every thing as if love was as cheap as dirt.

To the girls the old house, with its big attic, the barn, and the steep hillside at the rear were all special playgrounds. The barn won their particular regard. It served as a wonderful theater in which they could perform the exciting and romantic plays which Louisa created either from the fairy stories which they all knew, or from her imaginings about the adventures of cavaliers and their ladies. The hayloft became a particularly advantageous spot from which to lower the bag with the black pudding to rest on the nose of the old witch; or to which Jack the Giant Killer could climb. The large colonial attic was sometimes their theater; at other times it served for rainy day games, or, when life became too strenuous, for a quiet retreat where one could read and eat an apple.

 

One of their diversions was to listen to a story, and then to enact what they had heard. Christian, in Pilgrim's Progress, was a favorite character whose adventures they imitated. Louisa has described in Little Women the girls' journeys on the terraces, through the house, and up to the flat roof--the "Celestial City,"--where they "sang for joy in the sunshine."

Life was not all fun for the Alcott girls. For all their high spirits, they obeyed a regular routine which included time for household duties, for worship, and for conversation, as well as for play. Bronson Alcott, thought by many to be an impractical philosopher, had a keen sense of orderliness. Often in his diary he made a "Day's Order" for himself at the beginning of a month, outlining the various duties or other activities of a representative day. A similar "Day's Order" was frequently written for the girls, outlining their activities, the hours varying somewhat with the seasons. [EE-do] In winter the family rose at six, but in summer at five; an hour later came breakfast, time being allowed for bathing and dressing. At breakfast Mr. Alcott read from the Bible, discussed with them some problems of the day, and then they would all join in singing hymns, while Mrs. Alcott played the piano, "Seraphene." This little service was not formal; it was adapted to even the youngest, and was enjoyed by all. Mr. Alcott often mentioned in his diary the effect of a particular scripture reading or hymn upon one or another of the girls; sometimes Beth discussed the reading with him, sometimes one of the girls copied a verse in her journal.

The morning was filled with household tasks in which the girls helped their mother, after which there was a short recreation period, preceding two hours of study with their father. The noon dinner was followed by recreation, and by hours set aside for sewing, reading, and conversation with their mother. After supper there was reading aloud, or music, and other recreation, preceding an early bed hour. In the schedule plenty of time was allowed for games and for individual amusement of all kinds; yet each person's responsibility to share in the family work and pleasure was stressed. Beth, in her diary in 1846, just before her eleventh birthday, speaks almost daily of cleaning the knives and from time to time of ironing, of sweeping the sitting room and washing the hearth, or of washing the dishes.

An important part of the instruction which Mr. Alcott gave to his daughters was the composition and writing of a diary. Beth has stated that she first wrote her record of the day's events on a slate. After showing it to her father, she copied the corrected version in her Journal, using pen and ink. The parts of her Journal which have been preserved show her careful and beautiful penmanship.

During a good part of their stay at Hillside Mr. Alcott taught his girls for two hours a day. Beth in her diary often mentioned her pleasure in the lessons, giving examples of her drawing and arithmetic, or of some poem she had learned. Her father's conversational method is exemplified in some of her remarks about her geography lesson, when she wrote "we talked about" Rhode Island, or Massachusetts, as the case might be. He believed in making a geography lesson practical, and by way of illustration drew a map of Rhode Island for Beth in her diary. Louisa, in a sketch written in later years for a friend, has spoken appreciatively of her father's instruction.

Life was by no means all study and work for the Alcott girls. Beth describes many simple pleasures: going with their father to "Walden Wood" for trees to plant in their front yard, walking or sitting on the hill behind their home where they would make flower wreaths for their heads and enjoy the sunset or a rainbow. Often their mother was persuaded to leave her household duties and join the group.

Always ready for a lark and companionship, the girls had many friends among their neighbors. Beth frequently mentions Ellen and Edith Emerson, the Hosmer sisters, Cary Moore, Johnny and Warren Bull next door, and others with whom they visited back and forth. Usually these friends came for an afternoon's play, but sometimes there was a special celebration, such as a birthday party. Although such anniversaries were always remembered in the Alcott family, the entertainment generally took the form of asking two or three friends to join the family at their midday dinner or at supper. Beth's twelfth birthday, however, was made a special occasion, the scene being the arbor which her father had built on the hillside. Mr. Alcott, in writing of Beth in his diary, June 24, 1847, described the party:

It was celebrated in the evening, by lights in the arbour, music, and some tableau, arranged by her mother and sisters, and to which her little friends from the village were invited. The effect was very pretty, and gave infinite satisfaction to the little company.

Simplicity was the keynote of the Alcott girls' activities, whether in their special entertainments or in their usual occupations. Their games, for instance, were generally taken from their own experiences, such as Going to Boston, Sick Lady, or the perennial one, School. They were active children: Beth often mentions a run in the garden, or down a steep hill, or a sprint to the brook with Louisa, who was quite equal to successful competition with the boys. A neighbor, Clara Gowing, writing of her girlhood memories in The Alcotts as I Knew Them, has described Louisa when she was thirteen as "tall and slim," adding "she was the fleetest runner in school, and could walk, run and climb like a boy." [1] Yet with all their love of activity and companionship, the girls liked to be by themselves, writing or reading.

Louisa was an interesting combination of varied abilities, energies, and interests. Mrs. Alcott understood the warring factors in her daughter's temperament, and realized that loving and tender care was needed to help her to the full and happy development of her unusual gifts. Mrs. Alcott, therefore, encouraged her in her writing of poetry as an outlet for her emotions. The last verse of the poem "Despondency" [2] which she wrote at Hillside in August, 1845, when she was twelve, shows the triumph of her courage.

Then why be sad
When all are glad:,
And the world is full of flowers?
With the gay birds sing,
Make life all Spring,
And smile through the darkest hours.

The "gentle, persevering discipline" of Mr. Alcott, as his wife once described it, and the affection, high ideals, and religious faith with which the Alcott girls were surrounded in their home, are seen in another poems "My Kingdom," which Louisa wrote during that same August. This poem, with many quotations from Louisa's diaries and letters, has been published by Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney in Louisa May Alcott, Her Life, Letters and Journals. In the same book are quotations from Louisa's sketch of her childhood in which she described her "romantic period," when she was fifteen and loved to walk in the moonlight. It was during these girlhood years at Hillside that Louisa was first allowed to browse among Mr. Emerson's books, curled up in a comfortable chair in his study.

The Alcott girls' problems were closely watched by their mother who was privileged to read their diaries. Often she would slip a word of encouragement or of caution under a pillow or in a journal. At one time when Louisa was longing for a room of her own, her mother urged her to be patient. When her obedience was later rewarded, she wrote jubilantly in her journal:

March, 1846,--I have at last got the little room I have wanted so long, and am very happy about it. It does me good to be alone, and mother has made it very pretty and neat for me. My work-basket and desk are by my window, and my closet is full of dried herbs that smell very nice. The door that opens into the garden will be very pretty in summer, and I can run off to the woods when I like.

I have made a plan for my life, as I am in my teens and no more a child. I am old for my age, and don't care much for girl's things. People think I'm wild and queer; but mother understands and helps me, I have not told any one about my plan; but I'm going to be good. I've made so many resolutions, and written sad notes, and cried over my sins, and it doesn't seem to do any good! Now I'm going to work really, for I feel a true desire to improve, and be a help and comfort, not a care and sorrow, to my dear mother. [3]

It is thought that four small rooms in the western addition, two of which were on the ground floor, and two in the attic, were arranged for the children at this time. Louisa was evidently given one of the lower rooms since she mentioned in her diary the door opening into the garden, and the ease with which she could run into the woods.

All of the family enjoyed the woods, and often went to walk in them. The children, occasionally accompanied by their mother, loved to go with their father to find spruce, larch, and other trees, which they brought from Walden Woods or from the hill behind the house. Although only part of the steep slope was included in the purchase of the house, Mr. Alcott leveled and sodded terraces on the lower part, set out peach and apple trees, and with the help of a neighbor constructed a stone wall behind the barn. He arranged winding paths and rustic fences in order to give the proper setting for the various small buildings which he constructed: a bee house, and what he spoke of as a conservatory, for early vegetables. Yet always he looked longingly at the hilltop from which, as he wrote in his diary, there was "a commanding view of the valley of the brook and its serpentine windings through the meadows. . . ." He added:

. . . my garden is seen to great advantage from its top. I should like to build a Lodge there. There is already some shrubbery of pines and birches, and spruce and larch might easily be transplanted. The level plain [place?] above would be a fine scite [sic] for an orchard of peaches free from the early frosts of spring and summer.

Great was his pleasure when, late in 1846, his brother-in-law, Samuel J. May, bought three acres including the hilltop and allowed Mr. Alcott to include the new purchase in the Hillside property.

Among the rustic structures with which he adorned this "estate," the most ambitious was an arbor, or summer house, on one of the terraces. As with the other rustic buildings, he secured from the woods most of his materials for this arbor, small trees, osiers, or twisted branches whose curves particularly appealed to his fancy, so that he was obliged to buy only a comparatively small amount of lumber. The work was a gratification of his strong creative instinct. He made lattices of hemlock and willow, built eight gables, erected columns for a portico and floored the arbor, then thatched the roof with straw from the rye which he had grown and threshed. Finally, accompanied by Mrs. Alcott and Elizabeth, he returned from the woods with running pine and plush moss for the decoration of the seat and Gothic columns. The family was keenly interested in the progress of the arbor, and visited it each evening before supper. It was used for many occasions: Beth's birthday, as has already been mentioned, was celebrated in it with tableaux; Louisa in her description of her childhood wrote:

. . . strawberry parties in the rustic arbor were honored by poets and philosophers, who fed us on their wit and wisdom while the little maids served more mortal food. [4]

Mr. Alcott's creative desires were not satisfied by the terraces and rustic buildings on the hillside. In the space between the house and the road, pines and spruce were transplanted. Across the road in the garden plot he planted willows, which he trimmed. Many apple trees were set out, both on the terraces and in the garden. Paths were arranged in a manner, which, as he remarked with pleasure, "enhanced the view from the hilltop." His most important arrangement in this part of the grounds was a semicircular ditch which carried a stream to a little reservoir, or basin, at the foot of the pump, and then back to the brook near the bridge over which the lane leading to Lincoln passed. To make the reservoir more convenient for bathing in summer, he built a small house over it. The following entry in his diary shows how much thought had gone into the planning:

Over this basin, I mean to build a neat rustic structure, for Bathing, and an alcove for retreating from the summer heat and rains. The field at present, is without character, a bald plain, it needs some object of art to give a central point, around which other objects shall be grouped. This building will stand in the center of my garden and will be altogether a pretty spectacle from all points.

When the Garden House was nearly completed, he wrote that the columns of the piazza "have the effect of the most costly carved work; and the colouring, of spruce and willow interspersed, is inimitable by art."

These rustic additions to his estate were the object of curiosity in the village. Neighbors would stop to look and comment. Among those particularly interested was Mr. Emerson who had originally provided the eight-acre garden plot for Mr. Alcott's use. From the very beginning of the Hillside enterprise Mr. Emerson had encouraged his friend's efforts. The rustic arbor particularly pleased him, so much so that the following summer, 1847, he commissioned Mr. Alcott to build a similar one near the Emerson home. For this labor Mr. Alcott received fifty dollars. The recompense, welcome as it was, weighed but as a trifle in comparison with the satisfaction Mr. Alcott felt in his creative artistry. Heart and soul he threw himself into its design and building.

Of all Mr. Alcott's friends, Mr. Emerson was the one with whom he was most intimate. Often Mr. Emerson's tall figure would be seen coming along the road to Hillside, and his gentle voice would be heard inquiring for Mr. Alcott, Then they would enjoy a long evening of conversation in the study. Mr. Alcott believed in the virtues of conversation with its opportunity for the rapid exchange of ideas. In his diary he usually mentioned the topic of discussion. Describing the evening of May 28, 1846, he wrote:

We had some talk on Behmen's Doctrine of Signatures and on the Law of Images and Sounds. I said that when sound assumes figure, or approaches towards shape, one derives a high pleasure from it as in Epic song.  

He had begun his entry with the following interesting comment:

Emerson spent the evening with me; he showed me Carlyle's daguerreotype profile miniature which he has just received. I thought it very good--the same compression of lip and depth of eye, that I retain from memory of him.

What pleasure they must have had studying the picture by lamplight and reminiscing about their English friend!

On many Sundays Mr. Alcott spent part of the day "conversing" and walking with Mr. Emerson. Often they strolled in Walden Woods. One of their delightful Sunday observances was the gathering of their own children and also some of their neighbors' at the Emerson schoolroom. There would be a reading from the Bible or some other selection chosen by Mr. Alcott, followed by a brief discussion, in terms which the children could understand, of some subject of interest to them, In her diary Beth recorded such a Sunday in September, 1846:

Father went with us to meeting at Mr. Emersons. Elizabeth Goodwin brought in to the school room, a little dead squirrel in a paper coffin, and this gave us something to talk about.

Her father, describing the same meeting, wrote in his diary: 

Discoursed with the Children at Emersons on Respect for Human Life and Tenderness to the Inferior Animals. The Conversation descended to some of the causes which provoke ill-nature, and set creatures at variance. The doctrine of Diet was quite boldly elucidated--the children mainly inclined to take the side of clemency and elegancy against their own appetites.

Another of Mr. Alcott's friends, almost as intimate as Mr. Emerson, was Mr. Thoreau. He had built his hut at Walden Pond at about the time the Alcotts moved into Hillside. Often Mr. Alcott walked to the "Hermitage at Walden," as he once called it in his diary, and spent long hours with his friend, conversing or listening. He spent the afternoon and evening of December 31, 1846 there, while Mr. Thoreau read him many passages from his Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. On other occasions Mr. Thoreau would walk across the meadows to Hillside; one afternoon he read the first part of his lecture on Diogenes's life to a group of Mrs. Alcott's friends. In the evening the group went to the Lyceum to hear him read the second part. Many happy hours were spent in the Hillside study by Mr. Thoreau and Mr. Alcott, who wrote in his diary on January 13, 1848:

Henry Thoreau came in after my hours with the children, and we had a good deal of talk on the modes of popular influence. He read me a MS Essay of his on Friendship which he has just written. . . .

Not content, however, always to remain indoors, they often took long walks together in their beloved woods.

Another friend, whom Mr. Alcott learned to know better during 1847 and 1848, was the poet, William Ellery Channing. A walk with this friend, doubtless typical of many walks with Mr. Emerson and Mr. Thoreau, is beautifully described by Mr. Alcott in his diary, dated February 1, 1848:

Walked to Walden with Channing. He admired the clear serene blue of the Sky, which amidst the falling snow flakes, was almost as warm and hazy as the summer heavens. The Clouds piled above Wachuset in the west, were magnificent, and some lying in buried repose about its base, were worthy the pencil of Rhembrandt [sic]. Altogether our walk and conversation, especially on Goose Pond under the brow of the pine grove, was lively suggestive and memorable. We talked of Art, and the new Pantheon. We tried to name the Gods whom some Angelo or Raphael is to paint. C thinks Pantheism is the only religion now left for us and that the old Zoroastrian rites become us, in so fine a Nature as ours here in this new-World. The worship of the Sun at dawn and at setting would at least promote the circulation of the spirits in which Piety, and the elements of a lively worship, consist.

Returning, we talked of the possibility of some close union, if not of families, then meeting at a Common Room in the village, whensoever we might choose, for conversation and reading.

The gathering of a group for the discussion of philosophical subjects, or of topics of a timely interest, had long been dear to Mr. Alcott's heart. He had been delighted when some of his townspeople had asked him to meet with them regularly for such discussions. On Thursday, April 9, 1846, he wrote in his diary of his "circle for Conversation" which met that evening at Mrs. Barlow's in the village, and to which Anna accompanied her father. Weekly meetings were held that spring and fall. In March of the next year a group of Concord men met at Hillside to consider the possibility of a village club for discussion, but unfortunately the plan was not carried out. When Mr. Alcott talked with Mr. Channing, as described above, he was still hopeful. His wish was finally fulfilled late in 1848, after he and his family had left Hillside and had moved into Boston.

Alcott's desire for such meetings was stimulated by a very keen interest in the social problems of the day, especially in the anti-slavery movement and in peace and other questions connected with the Mexican War. He and his wife had for many years been warm friends of Theodore Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, and other farsighted men, and had kept in touch with their activities. Mr. Alcott described a meeting which was held in Boston, on May 28, 1847, at which twenty-six persons were present. Among them were such leading reformers as Mrs. Lucretia Mott, Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Parker, Charles Sumner, W. H. Channing, and Samuel J. May, as well as Mr. Emerson and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. Mr. Alcott wrote:

Met at Parkers the following Persons and discussed during the afternoon and evening, some of the great questions of the time--our main topic for conversation--the aspects and methods of Reform . . . The conversation was lively, unusually fine, and passages profoundly eloquent; this meeting, while greater numbers were brought together, and of a wider variety of sentiment, than in our former circles, was characterized by an uncommon courtesy, and depth of sentiment. There was the eloquence of character to dignify our convention. It was a setting of the times . . .

After further comments about the meeting, he wrote of his pleasure at being able to speak to such a group since it offered an opportunity "to move the living times, as they were its head and teachers." 

Both Mr. and Mrs. Alcott had long been interested in social problems. They had been prominent members of the community at Fruitlands, in Harvard, Massachusetts, which was organized by Alcott in company with the English mystic, Charles Lane. It was but one of the numerous co-operative communities devoted to plain living and high thinking which appeared in America during this period. The experiment, which lasted from June, 1843 to January, 1844, had left the Alcotts financially and physically exhausted. Although it failed, they were still keenly interested in the betterment of mankind.

Among the guests who were welcomed to Hillside during the first year of the Alcotts' residence there was Charles Lane, who had provided much of the money for the experiment at Fruitlands. After its collapse he and his son William, who had accompanied him to the United States, lived for a time with the Shakers. When the Alcotts had become fairly well settled at Hillside, Mr. Lane came to stay with them. Since he was soon to return to England, he brought his books to Hillside, and asked Mr. Alcott to take charge of them. Mrs. Alcott wrote of the meeting of the two friends: "The reunion between him and Mr. Alcott was quite affecting--for it was so unlooked for by the latter."

As it turned out, Mr. Lane's visit came at an opportune time for the Alcotts. Mr. Alcott, who was suddenly called to the sickbed of his brother Junius, needed someone to whom he could entrust the teaching of his children and the tending of his vegetables. Although Mr. Alcott was away only a week, Mr. Lane remained at Hillside for two months that summer and fall, and again for a short time the following year before his return to England.

When the British social reformer, Robert Owen, visited Hillside in the fall of 1845, the Alcotts listened eagerly while he told them of his hopes for socialized living. Mrs. Alcott wrote to her brother, Samuel J. May, that Owen "detailed minutely his scheme at New Lancaster--also at New Harmony." Her letter shows how much in sympathy she was with Owen's plans for a proposed new world order, and how heartily she agreed with his estimate of the five great evils from which he believed society was suffering. She wrote:

Mr. Owen is the most hopeful person I have ever met--feeling quite sure that he shall see a radical change while he lives. I admire his enthusiasm.

Since Concord wished to meet the distinguished visitor, Mrs. Alcott, ever hospitably inclined, rose to the occasion:

We got up a large party for him and by 8 ock our rooms were filled--much to his satisfaction and the delight of the company. Though unfeasted and unpledged--our guests left us feeling that the true hospitality was love and intelligence---- 

To an unusual extent Mrs. Alcott shared the varied interests of her husband. Both came from intellectual families. To both of them, even in childhood, books, especially the classics, had been part of their daily living. Both were firm abolitionists. Mr. Alcott indeed once took his life in his hands when, deserted by his friends, he mounted a flight of stairs in an attempt to rescue a runaway slave from his captors. Mrs. Alcott's realization of the need for social reform was fully as keen as her husband's. She was a member of a family with strong humanitarian interests. In her correspondence with her brother, Samuel J. May, a noted abolitionist, she made frequent sympathetic comments upon the progress of the movement and discussed the abilities of its leaders.

Early in 1847 the Alcotts themselves gave protection to an escaped slave. Mrs. Alcott wrote to her brother on January 13, describing this experience:

We have had an interesting fugitive here for 2 weeks--right from Maryland. He was anxious to get to Canada and we have forwarded him the best way we could. His sufferings have been great, his intrepidity unparalleled. He agrees with us about Slave produce--he says it is the only way the Abolition of the Slave can ever be effected. He says it will never be done by insurrection . . . 

Mr. Alcott wrote in his diary, describing the fugitive:

He is scarce thirty years of age, athletic, dextrous, sagacious, and self-relying, he has many of the elements of a hero. His stay with us has given image and a name to the dire entity of Slavery, and was an impressive lesson to my children, bringing before them the wrongs of the Black man, and his tale of woes.

The fugitive cut and stacked wood for Mr. Alcott on the Hillside terraces, but it is probable that a hiding place had been prepared against a sudden search by the sheriff. They may have utilized the space near the chimney of the southeast bedroom.

The anti-slavery movement was a very real link between the Alcotts and their friends in Boston. When he could no longer endure the drudgery of his farming, Mr. Alcott would go to Boston, see his anti-slavery friends, attend their private as well as public meetings, and come back with renewed courage to undertake again his manual toil. Occasionally he went to other cities. In November, 1846, he visited friends in Providence and made addresses before the Abolition Society