Unlikely Neighbors…A Humorist and an Abolitionist!

Image from The Bully Pulpit.

MARK TWAIN

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910) was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, but was best known by his pen name Mark Twain. His father, an attorney, died when Twain was 11. He left school after fifth grade to become an apprentice printer and typesetter and then went on to become a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River.

Denise: There’s a little Mark Twain in all of us!

In 1865, he experienced his first success as an author when he wrote a humorous short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.  It gained him international attention.  He was widely acclaimed for his wit and humor in both prose and satire.  Some of his greatest works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1875) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), often called The Great American Novel.  His boyhood is reflected in Life on the Mississippi.   He is considered one of the greatest humorists of our time; William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature”.

Twain lost much of the wealth he gained from his writing and speaking engagements due to poor investments. One such failed venture was the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that was overly complex and faulty. He finally had to file bankruptcy, but chose to pay his creditors although he was not legally responsible to do so.

Mark Twain’s house.

He married Olivia Langdon in Elmira, New York in February 1870. She was from a “wealthy but liberal family”.  Through Olivia, he met abolitionists and activists for women’s rights and social equality, including Harriet Beecher Stowe who was his neighbor in Hartford, Connecticut. 

He and Olivia had four children: a son Langdon who died at 19 months and three daughters, Susy (1872–1896), Clara (1874–1962),and Jean (1880–1909). 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Image from Signature.

“So, you are the little woman who brought on this big Civil War.” 

These were the words of Abraham Lincoln spoken to Harriet Beecher Stowe when she visited Washington DC in 1862.

Stowe was born in the Northeast, but after losing her mother at the age of five, her father, a pastor, moved the family to Cincinnati, Ohio.  While living there, she encountered fugitive slaves traveling via the Underground Railroad into freedom, thus her compassion for those enslaved grew. Stowe wrote the controversial and widely read novel called Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).  At the age of 40 and following the loss of her son, Samuel, she had a vision at church of a dying slave.  Her personal loss and that vision were the inspirations for writing the story.

It first appeared as a sketched series in The National Era newspaper and was later published as a book and then a play.  Ten thousand copies sold in the first week following its release, and it reach phenomenal popularity in both America and Britain.  The only book that sold more copies in the 19th Century was the Bible.  Since then, it has been translated into more than 70 languages and has had a global impact on abolition movements throughout the decades.

Hanging out at Harriet’s.

We visited her home in Connecticut, where she was the neighbor of Mark Twain during the later stages of her life.  It was there that she slipped into dementia and often re-wrote her famous novel from memory as if she were scripting it for the first time.  She died in her upstairs bedroom there in 1896 surrounded by several of her children, her sister, and a few other close relatives . 

This is one of three Stowe homes that can be visited today.  The others are in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Brunswick, Maine.  Another home in Mandarin, Florida, which was located in a former slave territory, is no longer standing. When encouraging others to speak up about injustice, we can learn from her memorable words, “There is more that can be done with pens than with swords.”

More facts about Stowe:

• She was born in 1811 and died in 1896.
• She was the first female American author to obtain international notoriety.
• She outlived four of her seven children.

A Sofa Conversation about Marcia Davenport

Marcia Davenport (photo: The Movie Pictures Organization)

What a rare and treasured opportunity it was to have a genuine sofa conversation with Stephanie Zimbalist, the niece of acclaimed American author, Marcia Davenport.  We met in the author’s mother’s former Connecticut home known as The Rafters.  Miss Zimbalist recalled the unique circumstances regarding Mrs. Davenport’s popularity, which drew the attention of readers worldwide.  She was the daughter of the great opera singer Alma Gluck and the stepdaughter of violin virtuoso and teacher Efrem Zimbalist. She also served as a music critic for The Herald Tribune, and founded Stage, a music magazine. She never played an instrument or sang, but she grew up surrounded by the world’s most renowned classical musicians and opera singers of her time. 

Mrs. Davenport’s extensive background and fourteen years of intense research qualified her to write the most celebrated biography of her favorite composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  Her work led her to follow in his footsteps as she gathered incalculable information by traveling to Vienna, Salzburg, and beyond.

“I had to read the biography with a dictionary, because every page had a word that I had never heard of.  Even if I had heard it, Marcia used it in a unique imaginative way. I thought I really knew English well, but then—guess what? She’d teach me something new.  In fact, the story she told of Mozart was so rich and well-crafted that I felt as though I’d known the composer intimately.” 

She credits her aunt’s knowledge and command of language and word-smithing to the outstanding instructors at her alma mater, Wellesley College. She spoke of another of her aunt’s books called, The Valley of Decision.  The 800-page bestseller traces the beginnings of the steel industry through many generations of a Pittsburgh family, from 1873 through WWII.  It became a film starring Gregory Peck and Greer Garson.  When we asked her impression of that book, Stephanie said, “It was like diving off a cliff and plunging deep into the well of its world.  Searing and cell-changing – like all of her books.” 

Mrs. Davenport once explained to her niece that writing was not simply a secondary job. It was intense and consuming, and required all of her attention.  It was not uncommon for her to get down on her knees amid clippings and notebooks and pens and legal papers scribbled with notes and pushing them around every inch of the living room floor.  Writing was not just cerebral, Marcia said.  It was physical.

Jackie and I were encouraged to read and savor Marcia Davenport’s books, so that we too could experienceher incomparable gift. Before leaving The Rafters, we ordered, My Brother’s Keeper. It is the story inspired by Homer Lusk Collyer and Langley Wakeman Collyer, two infamous brothers from Harlem known for their bizarre hoarding behaviors and hallway booby traps. In March 1947, both were found dead in their home. But why? Marcia wove a fiction backwards, to their births.  We can’t wait to get back to Indiana, so we can make this great novel part of our summer reading program.

Additional notes about Marcia Davenport:

• She was born on June 9, 1903, and died on January 16, 1996.
• Too Strong For Fantasy is the name of her biography of her mother Alma Gluck.
• She was engaged to the Czech diplomat and foreign minister, Jan Masaryk.
• In 1991 Barry Paris the esteemed author wrote “Indomitable,” a 44-page profile of Mrs. Davenport in The New Yorker.

Posthumous Fame and Closeted Manuscripts

Imagine this. You live a solitary life in a small town, then years after your death, you become a renowned poet.  Or you work tirelessly writing your novels in hopes of becoming recognized, but your fame comes after your death.  These are the stories of Emily Dickinson and Herman Melville.

EMILY DICKINSON IN AMHERST

Photo: Chicago Tribune (Notice the size of her desk.)

Saturday, Denise and I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Amherst, Massachusetts.  From our second floor window, we could see directly into Emily Dickinson’s second floor room where she spent so many of her 55 years of life writing poetry! She was born there on December 10, 1830 and died there May 15, 1886. 

Her father, Edward was a young attorney who received his education at both Amherst and Yale. Her mother was also an Emily (Norcross).  The family house, The Homestead, which we visited today was built by Edward’s father, Samuel Dickinson, in 1813. 

Dickinson was one of America’s most original poets. She published less then a dozen poems while she was living, but wrote nearly 1800 during her lifetime. Most were discovered my her younger sister after Emily’s death.

The Poetry Foundation website says: “She took definition as her province and challenged the existing definitions of poetry and the poet’s work.”

The fist volume of her poetry was released in 1890, four years after she died and became a quick success with eleven editions in less than two years. She studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years then went to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a short period before going back to the family home. Such an education was exceptional for a woman in her day.

She spent most of her time at home and later became quite reclusive and was perceived by townsfolk as eccentric. She chose to wear white clothing. 

Dickinson never married, and most of her relationships with friends and colleagues were entirely by correspondence.

Some other interesting bits of information we learned during our tour today:

• She wasn’t a transcendentalist, but she appreciated nature as they did.
• She studied science and loved gardening and kept a collection of pressed flowers and leaves. 
• She often used slant rhyme and was a fan of end-sentence dashes. 
• She wrote about God but struggled with formal religion. 
• The poems published before her death had been edited to fit into familiar form and often without her name attached for credit. 
• She rarely titled her poems.
• She enjoyed the company of children. 
• She kept her poems in a trunk and stitched the pages together to form booklets.
• Only one of her white dresses survives. 
• Her room was bright and sunny.
• Her desk was small, about the size of a TV tray.
• She wrote poems on envelopes, candy wrappers, scraps of paper, and anything else she had handy.
• Her closest friend was her sister-in-law who endured both the loss of a son and the pain of an unfaithful husband. 
• That sister-in-law and her husband (Emily’s brother) lived next door in a house built by Emily’s father. It was named The Evergreen.
• Their son (Emily’s nephew) died as a child, and his room was then locked shut for nearly a century.
• She preplanned her own funeral and had her body carried out by the family’s hired immigrant workers through the library, the farm, and on to the family’s plot.
• Vinnie, her sister, was passionate about having the poems published after Emily’s death, but eventually had to go to her brother’s lover to get it accomplished.
• Emily asked Vinnie to burn her letters to keep them confidential. Vinnie carried out that wish.

HERMAN MELVILLE AT ARROWHEAD

Herman Melville. By Joseph O. Eaton – Library of Congress.

Jackie and I grew up in the shadow of a broad-shouldered, salty, old fisherman who allowed us to play on the riverbanks and sea shores while he gigged frogs, trapped crawdads, and fished for tuna.  It’s no wonder that Herman Melville’s epic story, Moby Dick (originally titled The Whale) draws us in and captures our attention.

Melville was born in 1819 and died in1891 in New York City.  In his early childhood, he contracted scarlet fever, which permanently impaired his vision.  His father died when he was a young boy, and within ten years his own epic adventure began.

In 1839 and at the suggestion of his brother, he signed on to a whaling ship in Nantucket as a green hand.  His ship sailed to London then around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America.  In the South Pacific, he and a crew mate deserted their ship and were captured by indigenous natives believed to be cannibals. The leaders of the tribe found Melville likable so did not harm him.  He later escaped and sailed on another whaling ship called the Lucy Ann. He was part of a mutiny, and was jailed. Eventually, he wound up in Hawaii before catching a ride on a ship back to Massachusetts.

The desk where Melville wrote Moby Dick.

During his time at sea, Melville read the diary of The Essex, which made a profound impact on him. In a film review by The Sounds of the Bayside, Ron Howards’ movie, In the Heart of the Sea, depicts how Melville came across the monuments account.  The review states:

The film employs the framing device of Melville coaxing the story of the Essex’ fate from one of its survivors, former cabin boy Tomas Nickerson. Nickerson recalls how, in 1820, the Essex, shrouded in tension due to the antipathy between first mate Owen Chase and green horn captain George Pollard was obliterated by a gigantic white sperm whale. Their ship smashed, the crew, cast adrift on the ocean, were forced to adopt the most desperate and hideous measures to survive.

It is believed that Melville got Nickerson intoxicated to obtain the fateful account.  Once he had the information, Melville could not get the graphic details out of his mind and was greatly impacted by how the three survivors relied on the wind and cannibalism to endure. 

Melville drew from his own rich adventures to write his first books, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847).  But those experiences combined with his knowledge of the Essex were the inspirations for his 585-page novel, which was originally just a short story.  It was Nathaniel Hawthorne, a friend of Melville’s, who suggested that the book be expanded into the comprehensive manuscript that we have today.  It is hard to imagine that the epic novel only sold 400 copies in America during Melville’s lifetime.  It did not become world renowned until, Melville’s granddaughter found the manuscript in a breadbox and had it published years after his death.

Dear Mr. Melville,

I wish you could know how greatly your book has been cherished and loved globally.  I want to thank you for writing the most treasured book on my shelf among my classic novels.  It captures the internal and external struggles of every man.  It takes us on a great and historic adventure.  And it helps us understand the good and evil within our own hearts and minds.

Respectfully,

Denise Howell, A 21st Century English Teacher from Indiana

Other facts about Melville’s life:

• His dad died when he was young.
• He married Elizabeth Shaw in 1847. She was the daughter of the Chief Justice of Massachusetts.
• They had four children.
• He was a customs officer for 20 years in New York City.
• He published a collection of poetry called Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War in 1866. In 1876, he published Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land
• He died of a heart attack in New York City on September 28, 1891.
• Moby-Dick was categorized as American romanticism and was made into a movie in 1956.

Hey Henry! We love micro-living too!

Standing in front of Thoreau’s birthplace

Many of you know that Jackie and I have enjoyed micro-living lifestyles for many years.  We believe that living simply makes us better stewards of what has been given to us, and it is our way of reducing our carbon footprint on the planet. Additionally, we both value the importance of conducting primary research when we write. That means that we give priority to first-hand research instead of always relying on books, websites, or data gathered by someone else.   We regard Henry David Thoreau as a kindred spirit in both of these areas.  He lived in a tiny house in the woods, and he did his own first-hand research.

Thoreau was one of the most well-known transcendentalist writers in American history. Spiritually, these men and women believed in a circle of life concept.  Additionally, they trusted that everything they needed would come from nature.  So Thoreau set out to prove his beliefs by living it out in a two year experiment. His book, Walden, also called Life in the Woods, was a diary of his experience.  Walden, has been read for literary purposes in classrooms everywhere for its detailed imagery.  Equally, it has been studied by environmentalists as a document of research regarding the earth’s response to the seasons and man’s ability to survive in nature.

The pond where he conducted his research was located on a property owned by another famous author and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson gave Thoreau permission to build a small cabin near the water’s edge.  He purchased a 180 square foot structure from a local family for less than $30.  He disassembled the shelter, moved it in a wheelbarrow, and reconstructed it near Walden Pond.  He added a small underground cellar where he kept his food. 

I had the opportunity to visit several of Thoreau’s dwellings.  I walked around Walden Pond in a gentle rain and added a rock to the pile of stones left by the thousands of other sojourners seeking a glimpse of his legacy.  Later, I was able to go into the room of the small farmhouse where he was born. Yesterday, I sat on the stoop of his trendy row house in Beacon Hill where he once socialized with other up-and-coming authors of his time.

SHARED IDEAS
Jackie and Denise	Henry David Thoreau
Live in 500 square feet	Lived in 180 square feet
Live in the Crosley Forest	Lived in Emerson’s Woods
Live on the Muscatatuck River	Lived on Walden Pond
Appreciates nature	Appreciated nature

 

SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY

This cemetery attests to how Concorde dominated 19th century American literature.  The graves sites of Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and the Alcott’s, are all located on Authors Ridge.

Boston’s Beacon Hill

BEACON HILL AUTHORS

Beacon Hill is one of the most historical and beautiful neighborhoods in America. It was also home to many renowned writers. Today, we walked the fabled streets there to visit five of them that had been highlighted in an article written by Arlene Vadum titled, A Short History of Boston’s Beacon Hill. 

Watch the video to see firsthand the Beacon Hill homes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, Louisa May Alcott, and Sylvia Plath.

To read Vadum’s article in it’s entirety, CLICK HERE.

THE LOVE BETWEEN AN AUTHOR AND HIS SUMMER HOME

Fondly referred to by his friends as Tark

Knowing we were from Indiana, a guide at the Longfellow home in Portland, Maine, told us not to miss the connection that Booth Tarkington had to Kennebunkport. So we set out early this morning to find his home there, which has now been turned into high-end condominiums.

An article written by columnist Sharon Cummins explains the love story between the famous two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and his adopted seaside village:

News of the death of Booth Tarkington in 1946 fell like a blanket of grief over the town of Kennebunkport. For more than 40 years the author had whole-heartedly embedded himself in his beloved summer community in a way that changed the town and the man forever.

Newton Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis, Ind. on July 29, 1869. He attended Purdue University and then Princeton University, but didn’t graduate from either institution. He sought work as an illustrator and a writer during the 1890s but it took almost a decade before he could make a living at it. Finally, in 1898, he sold a manuscript entitled The Gentleman from Indiana, which became a bestseller in 1900. 

To read Cummins’ entire article, CLICK HERE!

“GOD WILL GIVE HIM BLOOD TO DRINK”

These are the legendary words that cursed an ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne regarding fraudulent accusations during the Salem Witch Trials. While Hawthorne’s second cousin, who inherited the home, often had him as a guest, he likely never lived there.  We know that he had tremendous knowledge of the 17 rooms that made up the 9,100 square foot mansion.  Many have said that Hawthorne wrote of the house as if it were alive…

The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance…It was itself like a great human heart, with a life of its own, and full of rich and sombre reminisces. 

Located blocks from where  the Salem Witch Trials took place, the house is ominous and mysterious. It has secret cubby holes and staircases, creaky floors, and dark attic rooms.  You can imagine our excitement when we were invited to step through a trap door in the parlor and ascend up a steep hidden stairwell. Our arms brushed the narrow clammy brick walls, and our hearts raced as we felt the damp updraft of cool air pulling toward the third floor.

When we stepped into the original gabled attic, our guide, Dan, explained that we were standing in one of America’s oldest residential living spaces.  The home was built in 1663, more than 100 years before our country became a nation!  And there we were standing on the original plank floors, looking up at its hand-hewed beams, and catching our breath in a memorable moment of surrealism.

We have been through many old homes on this journey, but nothing could compare to the atmosphere of the House of Seven Gables.  Now take a look for yourself and walk up the hidden stairway with us.

Listen My Children and You Shall Hear…

Longfellow’s home in Portland, Maine

We’d like to begin by thanking Anne, the sister of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, for gifting the home which we visited today to the Portland, Maine Historical Society. Because of that decision, she assured that nearly everything in the home remained original and that it will continue to honor her family, especially her brother Henry.

The house in downtown Portland, Maine, once housed three generations of a significant family who impacted many aspects of American life—culture and politics and literature. Henry’s grandfather, General Peleg Wadsworth, built it in 1785-1786.

The last resident was his sister, Anne Longfellow Pierce, who was widowed when she was young. She died in 1901. Virtually all of the household items and artifacts are original to the Wadsworth and Longfellow families.

Jackie at Longfellow’s writing table

According to their website:

Peleg and Elizabeth Wadsworth raised ten children in the house before retiring to the family farm in Hiram, Maine, in 1807.

The Wadsworth–Longfellow House is also an important architectural artifact of New England’s past. Originally a two–story structure with a pitched roof, it was the first wholly brick dwelling in Portland. Zilpah and Stephen Longfellow(Henry’s parents) added a third story in 1815. 

From the Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org

The most widely known and best-loved American poet of his lifetime, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow achieved a level of national and international prominence previously unequaled in the literary history of the United States.

Poems such as “Paul Revere’s Ride,” Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie (1847), and “A Psalm of Life” became mainstays of national culture, long remembered by generations of readers who studied them in school.

Denise and I were both shocked and heartbroken to hear our guide relate

Longfellow after the death of his wife Frances

the tragic story of how Longfellow lost his second wife, Frances Appleton, in 1861.  After sustaining burns when her dress caught fire, he tried to save her. However, she died the following day. He also had burns on his face and hands. He later grew a beard to cover the scars and had difficulty writing poetry for a time.  After that, he primarily focused on translating works from foreign languages.

He died in 1882 at the age of 75.

NOTE:  When first planned this trip, we also wanted to see the home of E. B. White in Brookline, Maine, as well as the barn that inspired his famous story, Charlotte’s Web, however, we learned they are not open to the public. Instead, we will head toward Boston tomorrow, stopping overnight in Ogunquit, Maine, for the best fried clams in New England.

Some of Longfellow’s famous quotes:

• The nearer the dawn the darker the night.
• Music is the universal language of mankind.
• For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.
• Youth comes but once in a lifetime.
• Into each life some rain must fall.

The Road Less Traveled

Have you ever taken a walk through a woods or a pasture (without your cell phone)?  Have you taken the time to lie in the cool grass or lean against a sycamore for the purpose of catching a cat nap?  A reader may think that Robert Frost simply wants to share an experience with nature.  After all, he was inspired by some of the greatest transcendentalist writers in America: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller… 

But Frost took these nature encounters to a deep intimate and personal level.  He sought the heart of the person standing by the creek or the one strolling on a quiet path. Some of his poems are personal experiences while others are narrated from an omniscient perspective. 

In Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Frost is sharing a personal experience.  Research on at his home in Bennington, Vermont revealed two lesser known facts.  He wrote this poem in the summer, which required him to center inwardly on the imagery of his own experience and memory in order to transport the reader to the winter season.  Secondly, the poem was not just about a snowy woods.  Frost is a master at using symbolism, so what is he implying in the last stanza of his classic poem?

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It depicts the a common human conflict, which lies within each of us.  On the one hand, we accept the demands made on our lives to be obedient to our work, to be faithful to our obligations, and to be attentive to the needs of those in our care.  On the other hand, we desire recreation, long to be uninhibited, and yearn for freedom.  Most of his poems using symbolism wrap nature around  a deeper interpersonal meaning. Here is a brief look at a few poems and concepts to consider.

• Picking Apples = a worker’s reward for his toils
• Fire and Ice = passion and hate
• Birches = suffering
• Mowing = satisfaction
• Desert Places = isolation

When you read Frost, slow down. His pieces are short, but they should be lingered over like a slow walk in the woods without your cell phone.  Today we finish up our visits to the homes of Robert Frost, but we have miles to go before we sleep, miles to go…

THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO KNOW ABOUT FROST:

• Lived: March 26, 1874 to January 29, 1963
• Attended Harvard
• Loved farming as much as wrting
• Awarded four Pulitzer Prizes
• Taught at Amherst, Pinkerton, Middlebury
• Read at President John F. Kennedy’s inaguration

Performers and Painters

STORIES TOLD ON STAGE

Napoleon once said, “It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.”

We drove four hours to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,  to see a performance composed by Hugh McElyea, a acquaintance of Denise’s.  The musical was titled, Tenebrae:The Passion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We are both generally familiar with stories of Christian martyrs, but this account is one we knew little about.

Photo from Dispropaganda

Dietrich was born to a large family in Poland on February 4, 1906. He grew up to write about Christianity and it’s role ina secular society. He was a German pastor, theologian, spy, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His theological writings were very influential among Christians and his book The Cost of Discipleship is considered a classic.

He was known for opposing National Socialism, and eventually his ties to the conspiracy in 1944 to overthrow the Nazi regime led to his execution by hanging at the Flossenbürg concentration camp in April 1945.  His death occurred just weeks before the end of the war.

STORIES TOLD WITH A BRUSH—NORMAN ROCKWELL

Many of our stops allowed us to learn more about those great Americans who told stories by using a pen or typewriter, but today we learned about a remarkable man who told his stories with a brush!

The Norman Rockwell Exhibit in Arlington, Vermont, focuses on his work from 1939 to 1953. Those were the years he lived there and also the place where he used over 200 local residents as models for his famous works. Rockwell once said, “Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.” – Norman Rockwell

 

From Sleepy Hollow to West Point

If you ever find yourself needing to drive OUT of NYC, there is a no-fail trick—leave before 5:15 AM! It worked beautifully for us. We were actually having bagels and killing time near Washington Irving’s Sunnyside home before 6 A.M.

The Legend behind the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

In a dark hazy forest full of dancing shadows and uncertain noises a lanky school master emerges from the pages of a leather-bound novel and meets a fate as horrific as any reader might imagine.  What is a good legend without a chase, a headless horseman, and an unsettled ending?

A narrow winding road led us from Tarrytown, New York to the enchanted cottage of Washington Irving.  It is situated in the Hudson Valley between a sloping riverbank and a low lush hollow of dense trees and fragrant wildflowers.  After 17 years in Europe, Irving returned to this area where he grew up the youngest of eight children. 

Later, after he had become America’s first internationally known writer, he was able to afford the secluded ten-acres of land where he designed his innovative cottage filled with charm and whimsy, known to many as America’s home.

As we walked along a pebble path toward the home, we could hear the sounds of a gentle breeze rustling the leaves, and we could image the approaching hooves of a ghost rider’s stallion behind us.  Hal, our guide, was dressed in post-revolutionary casual wear and resembled the likeness of a possible house guest with uncanny knowledge of every detail of Mr. Irving’s life and home.

The cottage was softly draped with English ivy, trumpet plants, and fragrant wisteria.  Its English chimneys, Spanishturret, and Italian pagoda porch were influenced by Mr. Irving’s global view of architecture.  The inside interior is full of surprises, which were far ahead of their time.  A skylight, hot and cold running water, coal heat, and closets were rare in the early 1800s.  The arched ceilings, curved walls, and irregular angles were artistic and welcoming to the many residents and visitors of the home.

Irving once fell in love with a young woman, but she died at the age of 17 before they could married.  He wore a clip of her hair in a locket around his neck and never considered another romance thereafter.  Regardless, his life was filled with family, friends, and children.  His brother, Ebenezer, and two of his nieces lived in the home with him much of their lives.  Another 7-year-old great niece had her own room in the house.  Her name was Katrina Van Tassel, named after Irving’s character, Ms. Tassel, in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  When his cook and grounds keeper fell in love and were married, Irving built them a small two-bedroom cottage where they raised eleven children. Irving, who was named after George Washington, was fondly referred to by his many nieces as Uncle Wash.

More interesting details and tidbits:

• Irving enjoyed napping and had a cot or daybed in almost every room.
• He own one of the first reclining chairs.
• Rip Van Winkle was another classic written by Irving.
• Gardening was a lifetime passion, and he planted all of the greenery around his home
• After being sick for sometime, he asked his niece Sarah as she helped him get ready for bed one night, “When will this ever end?”  Then he dropped to the floor and died there in his bedroom at the age of 76.
• He used many pen names including Diedrich Knickerbocker, which became the namesake of the New York Knicks in 1946 
  

  Edgar Allen “Perry” Poe at West Point

Did You Know…

…Edgar Allen Poe was Court- Martialed at West Point?

We didn’t. In fact, it was that singular bit of information that prompted us to visit the academy today. So Denise and I boarded the tour bus in front of the visitor’s center for the one and a half hour ride. 

And indeed, Edgar Allan Poe had enlistment there as a young man using a fake name and a wrong age! It turned out that he hated it so much that he skipped classes and finally confessed to his lies in hopes of being expelled. This led to not only getting kicked out but to a court-marshal as well.

However, while we were on the tour, we learned other interesting facts. 

West Point is in New York on the Hudson River. General George Washington called it the “most important strategic position in America during the American Revolution.”

Consisting of 16,000 acres, it is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. Beginning in

Cadets doing push ups

1778,Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons and his soldiers crossed the Hudson River and climbed up to its plain. From that day on, West Point has been occupied by the US Army. 

ANOTHER INTERESTING STORY…

In 1915, a particular young cadet was quite a prankster. All the enlistees were instructed to attend a special event one evening and emphatically ordered to wear their military dress gray jacket. That evening, the cadet showed up—just as he was instructed— in his gray jacket … and nothing else!

His name was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He went on to become an American army general and statesman as well as the 34th President of the United States!