The Wayside
| The Wayside | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
 |
|||
|
|||
| location | Concord , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 27 '32 " N , 71 ° 19' 59" W | ||
| surface | 4.5 acres (1.8 ha ) | ||
| Built | circa 1714 | ||
| Architectural style | Colonial style | ||
| NRHP number | 80000356 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | July 11, 1980 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | December 29, 1962 | ||
The Wayside (nickname "Home of Authors", German house of writers ) is a historic residence in Concord in the state of Massachusetts in the United States on the site of the Minute Man National Historical Park . It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
architecture
On the almost 2 hectare site next to the house there is a barn, a well, a memorial commemorating the hundredth birthday of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the remains of a slave accommodation.
Residential building
The house, built entirely of wood on a foundation of field stones , has two floors and a gable roof , from which a three-story tower protrudes at the rear. The building has been rebuilt several times over the years by its respective owners, so that it no longer corresponds to its original appearance at the beginning of the 18th century. The oldest part of the house has a rectangular floor plan with two rooms on each floor, which are arranged around a central chimney. Each room had its own fireplace and thus an important heating option in the cold winters of New England .
In 1845 Amos Bronson Alcott bought the house and lived there with his family until the end of 1848. He added the central dormer window to the building he called "Hillside" and enlarged a window to a door with pilasters on both sides. Half of an outbuilding was demolished and partially attached to the main house to the east and west to create space for a bathroom, two new bedrooms and a study, among other things. The spacious kitchen (today the Old Room ) was created by merging two smaller rooms. In addition, Alcott painted the entire house in reddish brown and built a gazebo and a summer house (both in 1846).
In 1852 Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family moved into the house and renamed it "The Wayside". They remodeled the east wing, added a pantry, and renewed the east fireplace. In the same year, however, Hawthorne was sent to England as consul of the United States, so that the family could not return to the house until 1860. Further extensive modifications followed; Among other things, the three-story tower was added at this time and the barn built in 1845 west of the house was moved.
In the new tower of the building, Hawthorne set up a private study that is accessible by a spiral staircase. The furnishings consist of bookshelves and Hawthorne's desk, and the ceiling is decorated with paintings by Arthur Gray from 1871. His family lived in the house for four years after Hawthorne's death in 1864.
In 1879, George Parsons Lathrop , editor of the Saturday Evening Courier , bought the house with his wife Rose Hawthorne Lathrop until it was taken over by Harriett and Daniel Lothrop in 1883 . They used it mainly as a summer house until 1924 and changed the exterior paintwork to green and gray. They also connected the building to the municipal water supply and carried out many modernizations and conversions over the years, including adding an elevated veranda in the style of Regency architecture on the west side of the house . In 1888 a coal stove was installed in the basement of the house, which provided heat for radiators in eleven rooms. The installation of the first telephone followed in 1891. In 1922 the heating system was modernized and the house was painted in its current color.
Alcott and Hawthorne also undertook extensive landscaping work on the property. Alcott built a total of 12 terraces on the slope to create flower beds and vegetable gardens as well as to plant ornamental and fruit trees. He also built fences, paths, a beehive , a greenhouse and a gazebo for growing vines . In 1859, while Hawthorne was away, Alcott had new paths laid out on the neglected property and several hundred larches and spruces planted, which he imported from England especially for this purpose. The trees along the Hawthorne Path were completely destroyed during the 1938 hurricane , but most of the other trees have been preserved.
Barn and other structures
The barn, built entirely of wood in 1716, is located about 5 m east of the main building and is one and a half stories high. It was moved to its current location in 1860 after being downsized in 1845. Structural changes were made between 1883 and 1932. The building has a rectangular base area of approx. 8.3 mx 6.8 m and rises around 7 m with its wooden shingled gable roof.
Alcott used the barn to store his crops and therefore had it moved from its original position south of the road to a location west of the main house. Hawthorne moved them to their current location and connected them to the house, but this was reversed by Lothrop. Towards the end of the 19th century he made extensive structural changes to the barn, which largely gave the building its current appearance. Today the structure serves as a visitor center for The Wayside .
The site also contains the remains of a 17th century house that is believed to have served as slave quarters. The finds there are used to understand life in Concord in the 18th century and are therefore more associated with Minute Man National Historical Park than with The Wayside .
Between the main house and the barn is a well that was built by Hawthorne and has been closed with a metal plate since the 1960s.
Historical meaning
The house The Wayside is for the United States is particularly important because there with Amos Bronson Alcott , his daughter Louisa May Alcott , Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harriett M. Lothrop (better known by her pen name Margaret Sidney ) at different times several significant writers of the 19th Century lived with their families. This is why the building is nicknamed the “Home of Authors”.
Due to the frequent visits of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson to the Alcotts and the Hawthornes, the building also has a strong reference to the transcendentalism movement in Concord in the mid-19th century. Louisa May Alcott also taught children in the barn.
The National Park Service took responsibility for the property and buildings after Margaret Lothrop's death in 1965 and incorporated it into Minute Man National Historical Park .
See also
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts
- List of entries on the National Register of Historic Places in Concord
literature
- Bronwyn Krog: National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form. (PDF) United States Department of the Interior , National Park Service , August 15, 1978, accessed January 6, 2017 .
Web links
- The Wayside in the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System
- Official website