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totally-lit-road-trips · 10 months

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Chapter 22: Farm & Orchard

Welcome back to my Totally Lit Road Trip blog, where the lit stands for literary!

Today’s adventures took us all around Concord, MA, as we learned about Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott, as well their relationships with each other and other authors in the area. I think it says a lot about the authors that despite age and gender differences, they inspired each other’s writing and played a role in each other’s lives.

Jess and I started our morning at Thoreau Farm, where we were treated to a private tour, because we were the only ones there. Our tour guide, Barbara, is an amazing historian who told us the saga of the Thoreau family’s life on this farm. Even though Henry David Thoreau only lived there for eight months after he was born, the farm played a large role in his writing due to the stories his mother told him about the place. His grandmother, Mary Jones, was living in the house with her husband, and when he died, the “widow’s third” rule went into effect, meaning that even though she couldn’t own the house, she could legally continue living in 1/3 of it. Mary “swapped” homes with her daughter Cynthia (Thoreau’s mother), since she was younger and would have an easier time farming the land to make a profit. This is how Thoreau came to be born on a farm not technically owned by anyone in his family.

In 1995, when the last living owner of the house passed away, developers wanted to purchase the land and build condos. This prompted a group of historians and literature lovers to create a trust and raise the nearly $1M needed to purchase the land and restore the house. Rather than restoring it to its original form, as a lot of historical societies do with old houses, the trust wanted to refurbish in a way that would honor Thoreau’s memory and lifestyle. Given that he was a huge proponent of finding harmony in nature, the house was refurbished using recycled material and environmentally friendly paint, and uses solar panels to provide most of its electricity.

One interesting tidbit about the house is that its original foundation was about 300 yards away from where it lies now, and no one really knows why it was moved. It certainly would have been easier to just build a new house on the place where it is now, and historians have not discovered a reason for its move.

Inside the house you can see most of the original floorboards and walls, which were repainted to match the original colors in the house, although they left a few spots un-painted for comparison.

On our tour, Barbara told us about Thoreau and his siblings. He and his brother John both (unsuccessfully) proposed to the same woman. A few weeks later, John cut himself shaving and ultimately died of lockjaw. Thoreau was so distraught over the death of this brother that he wound up developing what we now know were psychosomatic symptoms which mirrored John’s so strongly that his family was convinced Thoreau must have cut himself as well. He eventually recovered, and went on to write A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, about a boat trip he took with John before his passing.

Thoreau’s younger sister Sophia (pronounced So-Fye-Uh) was an accomplished artist, and drew the cover art used for Walden, the book for which Thoreau is probably most well-known. Additionally, the family were abolitionists, and his older sister, Helen, founded the first woman’s abolitionist group.

Thoreau Farm is also still a fully functional farm, and volunteers from a non-profit organization called Gaining Ground farm the land and donate all the produce to local food pantries and meal programs. We took a few minutes to stroll around their crops, and it was really impressive.

My favorite new plant discovery came in the form of Egyptian Walking Onions, which were growing in one of the small garden plots near the house. When I said I wondered how they tasted, Barbara gave us permission to pick a few, if we would try them and let her know what they tasted like. Can confirm they tasted like red onions, just in miniature form! The Egyptian Walking Onions are an heirloom plant, meaning the seeds were from Thoreau’s time period.

(The little purple buds in the phot above are actually the Egyptian Walking Onions! They’re very small, but very tasty!)

After a quick and delicious lunch at Nashoba Brook Bakery, we headed over to Orchard House, the family home of Louisa May Alcott.

As you approach the house, the first thing that stands out is the lovely little garden out front, which is planted with the same plants and flowers that each of the four March sisters plants in her own little garden plot in Little Women. The plots are labeled accordingly with the sisters’ names - Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.

The first part of the tour takes place in the Concord School of Philosophy building, which Alcott’s father built in 1879. He was a Transcendentalist, who believed in education reformation. He believed in things like recess and field trips, and opposed corporal punishment, which was widely used at the time.

In the Concord School of Philosophy, you’ll find benches that were created for the schoolhouse scenes in the 2019 Little Woman film, and donated to Orchard House after filming. You can sit on them as you view a short documentary about Orchard House, narrated by a very compelling “Louisa May Alcott”, played by Jan Turnquist. You can watch the documentary here, if you are a member of Thirteen PBS.

After viewing the documentary, it was time to tour the house. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed, so if you want to see the residence in all its glory and fine detail, you’ve got to come visit for yourself.

We learned that the family bought Orchard House when Louisa was 25 years old. Prior to that, the family had lived in 29 houses over a span of 30 years, which sounds exhausting. After purchasing the house, which was only a few rooms, Alcott’s father had a nearby tenant house rolled in using logs, and attached it to the main house, making the whole residence much more spacious for his family. Louisa and her sisters helped with painting and setting up the house, although her sister Beth died before the family officially moved in. Beth’s melodium (a reed organ that resembles a small keyboard) and her portrait reside in one of the sitting rooms.

Due to the success of Alcott’s writing, she was able to furnish the family home with a lot of nice things, many of which are still present in the house today. She was also able to finance her youngest sister May’s art lessons in Europe, which were necessary because in America, art was not seen as a viable career for a woman. May had a small studio room in Orchard House where she gave art lessons, and one of her students, Daniel Chester French, eventually went on to design the Lincoln Memorial.

May spent many years in Europe learning art from the masters, eventually marrying and having a daughter, whom she named after her sister Louisa. Unfortunately, May passed a way shortly after giving birth, and then Lulu was sent back to America to be raised by Louisa for about nine years. Lulu eventually moved to Switzerland, where she lived until her death in 1975 at the age of 95.

May’s artwork lives on, however, as it can be found in every room in the house. From sketches to paintings to ink drawings all over the windowsills and walls, May’s art gives visitors glimpses into the lives of the Alcotts and the art styles of the time period. Due to a current art exhibit with the Concord Library, more of May’s art was on display than usual, including a silk dress which she hand painted. In addition, the wedding dress of the eldest sister, Anna, was also on special display in Louisa’s bedroom. The silvery gray silk was certainly unlike any modern wedding dress you’d see today, but it had a very sophisticated look nonetheless.

Some other items of note in the house were Louisa’s boots and writing desk. The boots are kept in a costume trunk from when the sisters and their friends would put on plays. The very same boots are mentioned in Little Women as belonging to Jo, who wears them to play Roderigo, the same role Louisa wore the boots for in real life. Louisa’s writing desk, though small in size, was large in what it represented - her family’s faith in her writing ability. During her lifetime, it was unfitting for a woman to have her own writing desk, as writing wasn’t seen as an appropriate career for them, similar to art. Louisa’s father build the desk for her, showing how strongly he believed in her.

Something I already knew before visiting Orchard House, but that I still think is interesting and important to mention is that when Alcott was writing Little Women, she fully intended for Jo, the character modeled after herself, to remain a “spinster,” just as Alcott was. However, her publisher absolutely forbid that, so as a “compromise,” Alcott created a sort of unexpected character for Jo to marry, rather than the fan favorite pick, Laurie.

One thing I didn’t know before our tour was how involved the Concord authors were in each other’s lives. Nathanial Hawthorne lived next door to the Alcotts, and Thoreau and Emerson were contemporaries of Louisa’s father, Amos Bronson. They even joined the family for Anna’s wedding.

After our tour of Orchard House, Jess and I explored downtown Concord a bit, and visited a few antique stores, a chocolate shop, and a cheese shop. Then we went back to our hotel to unwind for a bit before heading to Copper House Tavern for dinner. We both had fancy burgers that were quite scrumptious, and very satisfying. Now we’re back at the hotel resting up for tomorrow. We’ve got a lot planned, and it looks like rain all day, but luckily most of our adventuring will take place in doors.

Tune in tomorrow for some more literary adventures in Concord!

<3 Theresa

#totally lit road trip #totallylitroadtrip #concord #henry david thoreau #louisa may alcott #massachusetts #totallylitroadtrips #totally lit road trips #little women #walden

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