Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Biography, Books, Quotes, The Birthmark, Education, Facts (2003)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (/ˈhɔːˌθɔːrn/; born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist, Dark Romantic, and short story writer.
He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, the only judge involved in the Salem witch trials who never repented of his actions. Nathaniel later added a "w" to make his name "Hawthorne" in order to hide this relation. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824,[1] and graduated in 1825. Hawthorne published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828; he later tried to suppress it, feeling it was not equal to the standard of his later work.[2] He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment as consul took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to Concord in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, and was survived by his wife and their three children.
Much of Hawthorne's writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, Dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his college friend Franklin Pierce."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWw2hPveA00

Images:
1. Sophia Peabody Hawthorne and Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. Hawthorne children - Una, Julian, and Rose ca. 1862
3. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s birthplace in Salem, illustration published in Witchcraft Illustrated, circa 1892
4. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Background from {[https://historyofmassachusetts.org/nathaniel-hawthorne/]}
The Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Rebecca Beatrice Brooks September 15, 2011
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a writer from Massachusetts during the 19th century.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was born and raised in Salem, is best known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family had deep roots in Salem. As a result, the town and Nathaniel’s Salem ancestors themselves greatly influenced his writing.
Born in Salem on July 4, 1804, Nathaniel Hawthorne was the great-great grandson of the Salem Witch Trials judge John Hathorne.
Hawthorne was haunted by his connection to his ancestor and it is speculated that he may have eventually added the “W” to his last name to distance himself from his great-great grandfather. Hawthorne published two stories under the name “Hathorne” in 1830 but started spelling his name with a W after this date
Nathaniel Hathorne is not only related to John Hathorne but also to a number of the accused witches from the Salem Witch Trials: Mary and Philip English, John Proctor and Sarah Wilson, as well as one of the accusers: Sarah Phelps.
Nathaniel’s great uncles, Captain William Hathorne and Daniel Hathorne, married two of Mary and Philip English’ granddaughters, Mary and Susannah Touzel. Nathaniel’s cousin, Elizabeth Hathorne, married John Proctor’s great-great-great grandson, Thorndike Proctor.
Elizabeth had a reputation for being cold and aloof, especially after she was widowed, and Hawthorne once stated that although he loved his mother, they were never close, according to the book The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne:
“Nathaniel Hawthorne’s relationship with his parents has been characterized in many ways. He himself recognized as his mother lay dying in 1849 that his relationship with her was not quite natural: ‘I love my mother, but there has been, ever since my boyhood, a sort of coldness of intercourse between us, such as is apt to come between persons of strong feelings, if they are not managed rightly…I shook with sobs. For a long time, I knelt there, holding her hand; and surely it is the darkest hour I ever lived.’”
Hawthorne had a love/hate relationship with Salem too, according to the book The Salem

World of Nathaniel Hawthorne:
“He often saw Salem as a sleepy, run-down town full of unpainted wooden buildings, living on past glories in a present that was dull and unalluring.”
In 1821, his family managed to scrape together enough money to send Hawthorne to Bowdoin College in Maine. After four years at Bowdoin, he returned to Salem in 1825 and began working on his first novel Fanshawe. The novel was published shortly after in 1828, at his own expense, but Hawthorne disapproved of it and tried to destroy all copies.
Hawthorne continued writing and published many short stories including The Hollow of the Three Hills, Roger Malvin’s Burial and An Old Woman’s Tale.
Although Hawthorne descended from a long line of sea captains, he decided against entering into the profession. It is not known why he veered away from going to sea, but it is most likely because of the danger associated with the profession. Many of his sea-faring relatives died at sea, including his father. Hawthorne probably did not want to join them.
Nonetheless, he felt guilty for not following in the footsteps of his more prosperous ancestors, according to an autobiographical sketch he wrote for the introduction to the Scarlet Letter, which he titled The Custom-House:
“Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browed Puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins, that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have ever cherished, would they recognize as laudable; no success of mine—if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. ‘What is he?’ murmurs one gray shadow of my forefathers to the other. ‘A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation—may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!’ Such are the compliments bandied between my great-grandsires and myself, across the gulf of time! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine.”
In 1837, Hawthorne published another novel titled Twice-Told Tales and met his future wife Sophia Peabody. The couple married in July of 1842 and rented a home in Concord where they were neighbors with fellow Concord writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and the Alcott family, including young Louisa May Alcott.

The Hawthornes struggled with debt and a growing family and eventually returned to Salem in 1845. There, Hawthorne took a job as Surveyor of the Port at the Salem Custom House. He held the job for a few years until he lost it when there was a change in the administration.
His frustration drove him to leave Salem again, calling it a “abominable city,” and move to Lenox, Mass where he continued to write.
Hawthorne published his most well-known work, The Scarlet Letter, shortly after in 1850, bringing him fame and financial relief. He then began working on The House of Seven Gables, a novel based on the old Pyncheon family in Salem.
In 1852, Hawthorne purchased the Wayside from the Alcotts in Concord. This home was the only house Hawthorne ever owned.

The Hawthorne Family Curse:
Many of Hawthorne’s novels and stories, which tend to be about overbearing Puritan rulers ruthlessly persecuting others, were inspired by Hawthorne’s ancestors, John Hathorne and his father William.
William Hathorne was a local judge who earned a reputation for cruelly persecuting Quakers, most notably ordering the public whipping of Ann Coleman in 1662.
Hathorne feared that his family suffered from a curse brought on by John and William’s persecutions of Quakers and alleged witches. Although the Hathorne family was once wealthy and prosperous, the future generations slowly lost the family’s fortune and land until there was almost nothing left, prompting the rumor about a curse.
In The Custom-House, an introductory sketch to the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel criticized both John and William Hathorne, apologized for their actions and asked for the curse to be lifted:
“But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination, as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked and steeple-crowned progenitor,—who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace,—a stronger claim than for myself, whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor, as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in the Charter Street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them, in another state of being. At all events, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them—as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist—may be now and henceforth removed.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Writing Style:
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a part of the American Renaissance that occurred in the 19th century, which is considered the romantic period in American literature.
Yet, Hawthorne’s writing style was considered old-fashioned even for the time period he was writing in. As a result, some literary critics have dubbed his style “pre-modern,” according to the book Nathaniel Hawthorne American:
“His style for instance, though at its best a wonderfully effective instrument for the expression of his sensibility, is likely to strike us as not nearly as modern as Thoreau’s. It was slightly old-fashioned even when he wrote it. It is very deliberate, with measured rhythms, marked by formal decorum. It is a public style and, as we might say, a ‘rhetorical’ one – though of course all styles are rhetorical in one sense or another. It often prefers the abstract or generalized to the concrete or specific word. Compared to what the writers of handbooks, under the influence of modernist literature, have taught us to prefer – the private, informal, concrete, colloquial, imagistic – Hawthorne’s style can only be called pre-modern.”
Since most of his stories consisted of moral, cautionary tales about guilt, sin and retribution, many readers consider his work to be dark and sometimes gloomy.
Hawthorne himself even once described The Scarlet Letter as “positively a hell-fired story, into which I found it impossible to throw any cheering light.”
Hawthorne continued to write more novels throughout the 1850s until he was appointed to the consulship in Liverpool, England by his old college friend President Franklin Pierce.
While in Europe he wrote The Marble Faun, based on his sight-seeing experiences in Italy, and Our Old Home before moving back to his house in Concord in the early 1860s.
Hawthorne suffered from poor health in the 1860s and died in his sleep during a trip to the White Mountains with Franklin Pierce on May 19, 1864. He is buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

Sources:
Waggoner, Hyatt H. Nathaniel Hawthorne American. University of Minnesota Press, 1962.
Moore, Margaret B. The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne. University of Missouri Press, 1998.
“Biographical Information Relating to Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Hawthorne in Salem, http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Life&Times/BiographicalInfo/Introduction.html

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Nathaniel Hawthorne As Viewed by His Contemporaries (2004)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnbEg_Hm2qc
Images:
1. Nathaniel Hawthorne photographed by Mathew Brady circa 1855-1865
2. Judge John Hathorne
3. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s grave at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Mass
4. Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrated in an 1870 publication

Background from {[http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Life&Times/BiographicalInfo/Introduction.html /]}
Page citation: {[http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/11708/]}
Biographical Information Relating to Nathaniel Hawthorne: Introduction
Material prepared by: Terri Whitney, Department of English
North Shore Community College, Danvers, MA

Photograph of Nathaniel Hawthorne from a daguerreotype,1848(?) (courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA)

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. He spent time in Maine as a youth and spent some time living in Boston, but much of his life until 1850 he spent in Salem. Moreover, the events of 1692 in Salem haunted him, especially as his great-grandfather was a judge in the witchcraft trials.
It was in Salem, too, where Hawthorne met Sophia Peabody whom he married on July 9. 1842. The Hawthornes lived in Concord after they married, but they returned to Salem late in 1845, and in 1846 Hawthorne took the position of Surveyor of the Port at the Salem Custom House. After losing his job (original article from the Salem Register part 1, part 2) in June of 1849 because of a change in political administrations, and after his mother died not long after, Hawthorne announced his wish to leave Salem, which he called "that abominable city," saying that he now had no reason to remain.
In May of 1850, the Hawthornes moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. It was while living here that Hawthorne met Melville on a picnic on Mt Graylock in the summer of 1850. Thereafter Hawthorne and his family lived in Boston and Concord, before leaving in March of 1853 for Liverpool, England where Hawthorne assumed the position of Consul, an appointment made by his friend and former Bowdoin classmate, President Franklin Pierce.
Hawthorne's last home was at the Wayside in Concord. He was in failing health in his final years, but in May of 1864 he left Concord to meet Franklin Pierce in Boston where they took a train to NH. On May 18, 1864, they arrived at the Pemigewasset House in Plymouth, NH.; that night Hawthorne died in his sleep.
Thus after the Hawthornes left Salem in 1850, they never returned there to live. And yet, Salem continued to permeate Hawthorne's life, as it remained the setting for many of his literary works.

Page citation: {[http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/11660/]}
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Early Life: Introduction

This section of the Website focuses on Hawthorne's life up until his graduation from Bowdoin College in 1825.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne at 27 Union St. Less than four years later, in the winter of 1808, Hawthorne's father, a ship captain, died of yellow fever at sea, off Surinam. In 1809 Hawthorne, his mother, and sisters moved a block away to the Manning house on Herbert St. (now 10 ½; some sources list 12 Herbert St. which does not currently exist but may have in Hawthorne's time); there Hawthorne shared a room with his Manning uncles on the third floor. Hawthorne spent much of his youth in this house and referred to it as "Castle Dismal."
When he was almost six, Hawthorne was instructed by Francis Moore in a schoolhouse on Herbert St. that had opened in 1810. Moore left Salem in 1812 after receiving his M.D. from Harvard, and Hawthorne's schooling was continued by Joseph Emerson Worcestor in a building near where the Andrew-Safford house was built in 1818.
Hawthorne attended Worcestor's school until November, 1813 when he was injured while playing ball. Although the extent of the injury is unclear, Hawthorne had a long convalescence. In fact, it was only with the intervention of his mother and his Uncle Robert that he left his bed after several months and began walking on crutches. Hawthorne's mother believed her son's eventual recovery was the result of a cold water cure advocated by Dr. Smith of Hanover, New Hampshire, which entailed pouring cold water over the foot every morning. Whatever the reason for his recovery, it was not a smooth one. Hawthorne relapsed at one point and returned to using crutches. The reasons for the lengthy convalescence may be psychological, rooted in the memory of his father's death as well as of the deaths of his Manning grandmother. It was during this period that Hawthorne became a voracious reader, and he was instructed at home by Joseph Worcester.
Hawthorne also spent idyllic days in Maine in his youth, however. Dr. Melinda Ponder says that letters to Robert Manning, Hawthorne's uncle, suggest that Hawthorne and his family may have spent time in 1810 visiting Raymond, Maine, near Sebago Lake. Hawthorne was still convalescing in 1816 when his family began to spend considerable time in Raymond, Maine, first visiting Hawthorne's mother's brother, Richard Manning, who had a house there, and later in the house Richard built for his sister next to his own. (This house was purchased in 1922 by the Hawthorne Community Association, and they remain the caretakers.) A visitor to this house today can see the crutches which Hawthorne used while living there. In 1816 Hawthorne returned to Salem, on the request of his Uncle Robert. Hawthorne's mother and sisters remained in Raymond, however.
In 1818 Hawthorne once again moved to Maine to attend boarding school in Stroudwater, near Portland. In February of 1819, he returned to Raymond, cutting short his term by six weeks, and in November of 1819, he returned to Salem where he attended Samuel Archer's school in preparation for college. Between late August and late September of 1820, Hawthorne and his sister, Louisa, published seven issues of The Spectator, a witty imitation of the Salem Gazette containing short literary pieces, news, and advertisements, and circulated it to members of the family. Although revealing Hawthorne's comic side, pieces in The Spectator often focused on death, perhaps another indication, along with Hawthorne's self-imposed long convalescence from his injury as a youth, of a deep pain from the loss of his father. Also beginning in 1820, Hawthorne received tutoring from Benjamin Oliver in Salem. The following August, Hawthorne left for Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He never went back to Raymond, even on vacations from Bowdoin, since his mother had moved back to Salem in 1822.
The Bowdoin Hawthorne attended had only three buildings: Maine Hall, Massachusetts Hall, and the chapel. There were 38 freshmen and five faculty members when Hawthorne matriculated. The curriculum focussed on the classics and on religion, not surprising as most colleges in America were originally created to educate ministers.
Hawthorne's roommate for his freshman and sophomore year was Alfred Mason, son of a prominent Portsmouth, N.H. attorney. Mason's affluence contrasted with Hawthorne's meagre allowance from his Uncle Robert, and Hawthorne frequently wrote letters to his family that had the message, "send money." Despite being seemingly always short of funds, however, Hawthorne led an active social life. Alfred Mason introduced him to Horatio Bridge, and he also met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jonathan Cilley, and Franklin Pierce. Horatio Bridge and Franklin Pierce became close and lifelong friends. It was with these friends that Hawthorne gambled, drank at Ward's Tavern, smoked, and violated other college rules, sometimes getting caught and fined. The Peabody Essex Museum has a letter from Hawthorne to his mother in which he announces , "If I am again detected I shall have the honour of being suspended." Hawthorne did manage to avoid suspension, however, and graduated on September 7, 1825.

Page citation: {[http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/11709/]}
Hawthorne's Adult Life: Introduction

After his graduation from Bowdoin in 1825, Hawthorne returned to Salem to live with his mother and sisters at 10 1/2 Herbert St. in Salem. Sometime between his graduation and 1827, he changed the spelling of his name from Hathorne to Hawthorne. Hawthorne spent the next years living in Salem and launching his career as a writer. He lived a somewhat solitary life, but he travelled around New England to the Shaker village in Canterbury, NH in 1831 and to the Erie Canal and Niagra Falls in 1832.
Hawthorne did go on walks in Salem, and he and his sisters would visit friends at their houses. It was not usual, however, for Hawthorne to call on families whom he knew only casually. On November 11, 1837, however, at the invitation of Elizabeth Peabody, daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Hawthorne and his sisters, Elizabeth and Louisa, called on the Peabodys at their home on Charter St. in Salem. It was on this occasion that Hawthorne first met Sophia Peabody, sister of Elizabeth and Mary, and the woman to whom he would become engaged the following year. Helped by Elizabeth Peabody, in January of 1839, Hawthorne obtained a position as measurer of salt and coal in the Boston Custom House. In late October he moved into rooms at 54 Pinckney St. with the Hillards and then to 8 Somerset Place in Boston. Hawthorne left his position at the Boston Custom House in the spring of 1840, and in the spring of 1841 he moved to Brook Farm, a utopian community in West Roxbury, Masschusetts. Soon disillusioned, however, Hawthorne left Brook Farm, and on July 9, 1842, he married Sophia Peabody at the house of her parents in Boston.
They moved into the Old Manse in Concord, rented from Emerson, with garden prepared by Thoreau. Here the Hawthornes had their first child, a daughter, Una, in 1844, and they all lived happily, if under some financial strain, in Concord until 1846 when, strapped for money, Hawthorne took a position as Surveyor of the Port at the Salem Custom House.
A son, Julian, was born in the summer of 1846, and in 1847 Hawthorne moved his family, including his mother and sisters, to 18 Chestnut Street in Salem; two months later they moved to larger quarters at 14 Mall Street. Hawthorne had a study on the third floor; his mother and sisters lived on the second floor, and the children resided on the first floor. In 1848, Hawthorne became manager of the Lyceum of Salem and invited Emerson and Thoreau to lecture.
The following year was a particularly trying one for Hawthorne. On June 7, 1849, he was fired (original article from the Salem Register part 1, part 2) from his position as Surveyor of the Port at the Salem Custom House when Zachary Taylor, a Whig, was elected president. Then, less than two months later, on July 31, his mother died. These catastrophes were followed by a fecund period in his writing, however. It was in September of 1849 that Hawthorne began the novel that was to become The Scarlet Letter. In that novel he includes an opening chapter, "The Custom-House," based on his own experience as surveyor, which aroused controversy because of its unflattering portrayal of Salem and its residents. The novel was published the following year by Ticknor and Fields. A year later, in April of 1851, Hawthorne published The House of Seven Gables, and he wrote "Feathertop," his last tale. Then in 1852, he published The Blithedale Romance, based on his experiences at Brook Farm. That year, too, was a tragic one for Hawthorne; his sister, Louisa, died in a steamboat explosion on the Hudson River in New York.
In March of 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Hawthorne Consul in Liverpool, England. In July Hawthorne moved his family to Liverpool from Concord, and he assumed his position as Consul on August 1. In October of 1855, in an attempt to improve her health, Sophia went to Lisbon. She took Rose, the Hawthornes' second daughter, born on May 20, 1851, and Una with her, and they stayed in Lisbon until June. Julian remained with Hawthorne in Liverpool.
In November of 1856, Melville visited Hawthorne in Liverpool, and he visited him again for a short time in May of the following year. In October of 1857, when Pierce did not receive the presidential nomination, Hawthorne left his position as American Consul in Liverpool, knowing that his appointment would end. In January of the following year, Hawthorne and his family travelled to France, and from January 17 to May, 1858, they lived in Rome. From May to October, Hawthorne and his family lived in a villa in Florence. Hawthorne wrote about his experiences in Italy in his notebooks, and he began work on the romance published in America under the title, The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni. Also while in Italy, Hawthorne met William Cullen Bryant, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the American sculptor William Wetmore Story. In June of 1859, Hawthorne and his family moved to England where Hawthorne finished writing The Marble Faun which was published in London in February of the following year under the title Transformation and was published the following year in America.
Hawthorne and his family moved back to the Wayside in Concord, MA in February of 1860. At that time Hawthorne renovated the house, adding a tower that became his study. Two years later, in March of 1862, Hawthorne, Ticknor, and U.S. Representative Charles Russell Train called on President Lincoln in a visit arranged by Hawthorne's friend, Horatio Bridge. A short time later, Hawthorne published "Chiefly About War Matters By a Peaceable Man," an essay on the Civil War, which reports on his visit with Lincoln. In May of that year, Hawthorne attended the funeral for Henry David Thoreau who died of tuberculosis.
In January of 1864, Bronson Alcott called on Hawthorne to try to learn the cause of Hawthorne's coolness toward him and his family. Hawthorne tactfully identified Bronson's wife, Abba, as the problem. A few months later, Hawthorne travelled to New Hampshire with Franklin Pierce. It was on this trip on May 18/19 that Hawthorne died in his sleep. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, MA near Emerson and Thoreau along what is now known as Author's Ridge.

Page citation: {[http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/12334/]}
Nathaniel Hawthorne at Bowdoin: Introduction

This section of the Website focuses on Hawthorne's life at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, from 1821 to 1825.
In August, 1821, Hawthorne left for Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He never went back to Raymond, even on vacations from Bowdoin, since his mother had moved back to Salem in 1822.
The Bowdoin Hawthorne attended had only three buildings: Maine Hall, Massachusetts Hall, and the chapel. There were 38 freshmen and five faculty members when Hawthorne matriculated. The curriculum focussed on the classics and on religion, not surprising as most colleges in America were originally created to educate ministers.
Hawthorne's roommate for his freshman and sophomore year was Alfred Mason, son of a prominent Portsmouth, N.H. attorney. Mason's affluence contrasted with Hawthorne's meagre allowance from his Uncle Robert, and Hawthorne frequently wrote letters to his family that had the message, "send money." Despite being seemingly always short of funds, however, Hawthorne led an active social life. Alfred Mason introduced him to Horatio Bridge, and he also met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jonathan Cilley, and Franklin Pierce. Horatio Bridge and Franklin Pierce became close and lifelong friends. It was with these friends that Hawthorne gambled, drank at Ward's Tavern, smoked, and violated other college rules, sometimes getting caught and fined. The Peabody Essex Museum has a letter from Hawthorne to his mother in which he announces , "If I am again detected I shall have the honour of being suspended." Hawthorne did manage to avoid suspension, however, and graduated on September 7, 1825.

Hawthorne at Brook Farm: Introduction

Genesis of Brook Farm
In September 1836, a group of intellectuals, primarily disaffected Unitarian ministers from Boston and Concord, met to discuss theological and philosophical issues, including church reform. Originally called "Hedge's Club" or "The Hedge Club" (or just "The Club"), it was named for Frederick Henry Hedge, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and one of the Unitarian ministers in this circle; in the 1840s the group changed its name to The Transcendental Club. This group introduced The Dial literary magazine in July 1840 as a way to publicize their views, and its first editor was the club member and formidable intellectual, Margaret Fuller. She was not the only female participant of this club which included such leading intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott. Elizabeth Peabody, sister of Sophia Peabody, and Lidian Emerson, Emerson's wife, were among the several women members. Sophia herself, secretly engaged but not yet married at this time, also attended some meetings of the Transcendental Club with Hawthorne.
One member of the club, Harvard graduate George Ripley, announced to his congregation at the Purchase Street Church in south Boston on March 28, 1841, his plans to resign from his position and indeed to leave the ministry altogether. For two summers in 1839 and 1840, he and his wife, Sophia, had spent July and August in West Roxbury staying with friends on their dairy farm eight miles from Boston. Sterling F. Delano suggests that during a summer of reading and reflection at the Ellis Farm in West Roxbury in 1840, Ripley may have read Albert Brisbane's new book, Social Destiny of Man; or Association and Reorganization of Industry, which set forth the utopian ideas of French philosopher Charles Fourier (19). Also during that summer, Ripley and his friend, Theodore Parker, another Unitarian minister, attended the "Groton Convention," a meeting of those interested in religious reform. Among those in attendance was Bronson Alcott who was inspired by this meeting to start the ultimately short-lived utopian community of Fruitlands in Harvard, MA in 1843. For Ripley, too, this meeting "proved to be a defining moment" (Delano 22).
By September of 1840, Ripley was talking to friends about starting a communal society aimed at creating harmony of intellectual pursuits and physical labor. He eventually settled on the 170 acres of meadows and woods at the Ellis Farm in West Roxbury as the most desirable location. Ripley attempted to interest Emerson, who was in a position to help finance the venture, and met with him, as well as Margaret Fuller and Bronson Alcott, in October and followed up with a letter to Emerson in November. Emerson seems to have been genuinely conflicted about this decision, but ultimately he demurred, sending a letter to Ripley on December 15 explaining his decision. Sterling F. Delano explains that Ripley's overture required Emeroson "to confront the problem of society versus solitude" (29). Although Emerson did not provide the financial support that Ripley had hoped for, Ripley forged ahead, and at the end of March, 1841, he moved to the farm, followed soon after by his wife. He created The Association, a company in which members of this new community, called the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education, would buy shares at $500 each. Those members who worked on the farm would receive free room and board and could send one of their children to the school on the farm. One aspect of this community which distinguished it from communities such as the Shakers or Hopedale Community, whose members were required to take a pledge of Christian religious faith, was that Brook Farm did not require its members to adhere to any religious belief.

Page citation: {[http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/12333/}]
Hawthorne at Brook Farm: Introduction
Material prepared by: Terri Whitney, Department of English
North Shore Community College, Danvers, MA

Genesis of Brook Farm
In September 1836, a group of intellectuals, primarily disaffected Unitarian ministers from Boston and Concord, met to discuss theological and philosophical issues, including church reform. Originally called "Hedge's Club" or "The Hedge Club" (or just "The Club"), it was named for Frederick Henry Hedge, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and one of the Unitarian ministers in this circle; in the 1840s the group changed its name to The Transcendental Club. This group introduced The Dial literary magazine in July 1840 as a way to publicize their views, and its first editor was the club member and formidable intellectual, Margaret Fuller. She was not the only female participant of this club which included such leading intellectuals as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott. Elizabeth Peabody, sister of Sophia Peabody, and Lidian Emerson, Emerson's wife, were among the several women members. Sophia herself, secretly engaged but not yet married at this time, also attended some meetings of the Transcendental Club with Hawthorne.
One member of the club, Harvard graduate George Ripley, announced to his congregation at the Purchase Street Church in south Boston on March 28, 1841, his plans to resign from his position and indeed to leave the ministry altogether. For two summers in 1839 and 1840, he and his wife, Sophia, had spent July and August in West Roxbury staying with friends on their dairy farm eight miles from Boston. Sterling F. Delano suggests that during a summer of reading and reflection at the Ellis Farm in West Roxbury in 1840, Ripley may have read Albert Brisbane's new book, Social Destiny of Man; or Association and Reorganization of Industry, which set forth the utopian ideas of French philosopher Charles Fourier (19). Also during that summer, Ripley and his friend, Theodore Parker, another Unitarian minister, attended the "Groton Convention," a meeting of those interested in religious reform. Among those in attendance was Bronson Alcott who was inspired by this meeting to start the ultimately short-lived utopian community of Fruitlands in Harvard, MA in 1843. For Ripley, too, this meeting "proved to be a defining moment" (Delano 22).
By September of 1840, Ripley was talking to friends about starting a communal society aimed at creating harmony of intellectual pursuits and physical labor. He eventually settled on the 170 acres of meadows and woods at the Ellis Farm in West Roxbury as the most desirable location. Ripley attempted to interest Emerson, who was in a position to help finance the venture, and met with him, as well as Margaret Fuller and Bronson Alcott, in October and followed up with a letter to Emerson in November. Emerson seems to have been genuinely conflicted about this decision, but ultimately he demurred, sending a letter to Ripley on December 15 explaining his decision. Sterling F. Delano explains that Ripley's overture required Emeroson "to confront the problem of society versus solitude" (29). Although Emerson did not provide the financial support that Ripley had hoped for, Ripley forged ahead, and at the end of March, 1841, he moved to the farm, followed soon after by his wife. He created The Association, a company in which members of this new community, called the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education, would buy shares at $500 each. Those members who worked on the farm would receive free room and board and could send one of their children to the school on the farm. One aspect of this community which distinguished it from communities such as the Shakers or Hopedale Community, whose members were required to take a pledge of Christian religious faith, was that Brook Farm did not require its members to adhere to any religious belief.

Hawthorne at Brook Farm
While Emerson had declined the invitation to live at Brook Farm, Hawthorne accepted. Hawthorne had left his position at the Boston Custom House on January 1, 1841, after a Whig, not a Democrat, was elected president. Although Hawthorne was in search of gainful employment, it seems hard to understand why Hawthorne, a man who was never much of a joiner, never was a member of any church, who cherished his solitude, and who was skeptical of movements to reform society, would have been enticed to join Brook Farm. Brenda Wineapple, however, finds Hawthorne's participation in Brook Farm not so surprising. She cites Margaret Fuller's remark that "'solitary characters tend to outwardness,--to association,--while the social and sympathetic ones emphasize the value of solitude, --of concentration,--so that we hear from each the word which, from his structure, we least expect'" (qtd. in Wineapple 147). Also, Wineapple points out, "In need of a home, an income, and a place to write, Hawthorne gladly gambled on Ripley's arcadia. The union of thinker and worker was irresistible to a man whose conscience still carped about idleness and still considered writing a frivolous pastime, no matter how much he wanted to do it" (147).
At the time Ripley was organizing Brook Farm, Hawthorne was living at 54 Pinckney St. on Beacon Hill in Boston with George Hillard, an attorney and friend of the Peabody sisters, and his wife. He moved there from the boarding house on Somerset Place where he had settled when he first began working as measurer at the Boston Custom House on Jan. 11, 1839. He worked hard taking inventory of ships coming into Boston harbor, but it was not the days of hard work, but rather the tedium of the days when there were no ships arriving that were the most difficult. Still, these were the early days of his courtship of Sophia, and his letters addressed to "Mine own Dove" reveal that she was ever on his mind. It was at this time that Sophia painted two works that she sent to Hawthorne for his new quarters, both of which are today in the collection of the Peabody Museum of Salem, MA. One, Isola San Giovannii (1839-40), includes two figures, a man and woman standing on a bridge, which Sophia may have meant to represent the two of them. Hawthorne, it seems clear from his letters which are filled with confessions of his ardent love, was entirely besotted with Sophia, and this, perhaps even more than his resignation of his job at the Boston Custom House, may explain why Hawthorne decided to join Brook Farm at this time. He purchased two shares, one for him and one for Sophia, though he did not request that Sophia join him at the outset. He did, however, have high hopes that this community would be an idyllic setting for the start of his life with Sophia after their marriage.
Hawthorne, who was among the early group of about fifty members of Ripley's utopian community, arrived at Brook Farm by stage from Boston in a snowstorm on April 12, 1841. It is also in a spring snowstorm that Coverdale arrives at the Blithedale community in The Blithedale Romance, the novel that, despite Hawthorne's protestations to the contrary, contains many references to Hawthorne's experiences at Brook Farm. The novel is not meant as a fictionalized version of Brook Farm, however; for one thing, it examines a range of social movements such as feminism, spiritualism, and prison reform, but Hawthorne does incorporate characters, settings, and experiences from his days at Brook Farm. Moreover, he includes references to other events that occurred after his days at Brook Farm, including the drowning of Martha Hunt, a young woman whose body Hawthorne helped find in the Concord River in July 1845 when he and Sophia were married and living at the Old Manse.
Residents of Brook Farm lived in communal houses, one of which was the farmhouse, also known as the Hive. Downstairs in the Hive were the dining and sitting rooms, used as the common rooms by all the residents of this building. Hawthorne had the front right room which he believed was the "'best chamber in the house'" (qtd. in Delano 50). From this location, Delano points out, Hawthorne "could combine society and solitude, browsing through the volumes of Ripley's library [which was on shelves just outside Hawthorne's room] while he quietly observed" like the protagonist Miles Coverdale in Hawthorne's thinly disguised satiric novel in 1852 about communal life, The Blithedale Romance, "the comings and goings of his housemates" (50). Hawthorne spent his days laboring in the fields with the other men while the women tended to the domestic duties, an arrangement that soon changed to allow a more equitable division of labor. At first, Hawthorne expresses to Sophia his satisfaction with his long days of chopping hay and wood, and after Sophia visits him in late May, she tells Hawthorne in a letter, "'Most joyfully could I dwell there for its own beauty's sake'" (qtd. in Delano 52).
By June, however, Hawthorne's letters to Sophia indicate that the glow of life at Brook Farm is dimming as the long work days leave Hawthorne feeling as uninspired to write as did his days in the Boston Custom House. Indeed, he seems less and less inclined to see Brook Farm as the ideal place to begin married life with Sophia. Sterling Delano points out that Hawthorne "was especially disheartened by the mounds of manure --which Ripley kept cheerfully referring to as the 'gold mine' that needed to be continuously spread around the farm" (56). Delano notes that in a letter from Hawthorne to his fiancée at the beginning of June, "he angrily referred to the manure pile as 'that abominable gold mine!'" (56).
After a trip to Salem in September, Hawthorne writes of feeling completely detached from life at the farm, and although he does not see himself as residing happily in Salem, he also does not indicate that Brook Farm is a place that will suit him and his beloved. His entry in his notebook for September 3 reads:
But really I should judge it to be twenty years since I left Brook Farm; and I take this to be one proof that my life there was an unnatural and unsuitable, and therefore an unreal, one. It already looks like a dream behind me. The real Me was never an associate of the community; there has been a spectral Appearance there, sounding the horn at daybreak, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes, and raking hay, toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to assume my name. But this spectre was not myself. (AN)
Though upon his return to the farm later in the month he became a boarder rather than a laboring member of the Brook Farm community, he still found the atmosphere not conducive to his creative impulses, although he did manage to enjoy walks during crisp fall days during which he discovered wild grapes. Even after being made a trustee of the Association of Brook Farm, however, he was unwilling to commit himself to staying through the winter.
In Hawthorne's letters to Sophia indicating his growing disenchantment with Brook Farm in the early fall of 1841, he also expresses concern about Sophia, specifically her curiosity about mesmerism, the new rage. Elizabeth Peabody, Sophia's sister, believed that a mesmerist offered a possible source of a cure for the headaches which had plagued Sophia for so long, but Hawthorne beseeches his fiancée, " Take no part, I beseech you, in these magnetic miracles. I am unwilling that a power should be exercised on you of which we know neither the origin nor consequence, and the phenomena of which seem rather calculated to bewilder us than to teach us any truths about the present or future state of being." In Blithedale, Hawthorne explores the power of the mesmerist which, Hawthorne believed, had the potential to violate the sanctity of the individual soul. Hawthorne makes other references in Blithedale to his experiences and thoughts while at Brook Farm. For example, Priscilla in Blithedale sews purses, and while at Brook Farm Hawthorne met a new member, a young girl from Boston who was a seamstress. She made a distinct impression on him, and he writes about her in his letters. Hawthorne also includes scenes of a picnic and masquerade party in the novel which are based on such actual events at Brook Farm, specifically a birthday picnic for six-year old Frank Dana. As part of the festivities, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others donned costumes and performed a frenzied dance.
In November Hawthorne departed from Brook Farm for good. He left, Wineapple argues, "for the same reason he went there. He misjudged both himself and the situation. He realized the farm could never support him and Sophia. He couldn't write there. Nor could he tolerate the idea of a cold winter far from Sophia or a future of mind-numbing toil" (154). He had written in his notebook on September 22, when he returned to Brook Farm after a visit to Salem, " I have not the sense of perfect seclusion which has always been essential to my power of producing anything"(AN). At this juncture, Hawthorne divided his time between Boston and Salem. He attempted to recover the money he had invested in Ripley's community but was unsuccessful.
Thus Brook Farm did not turn out to be the place where Hawthorne would take his new bride. Instead, after their wedding in the Peabody house on West St. in Boston on July 9, 1842, the newlyweds travelled by carriage to Concord where they moved into the Old Manse, a roomy house on the Concord River very near the Old North Bridge, which Hawthorne had rented from Samuel Ripley, a minster from Waltham who had inherited the property from his father, Ezra, in 1841. Not surprisingly, this lovely house with its garden planted for the couple by Henry David Thoreau, not the communal dormitories of Brook Farm, provided the idyllic setting which Hawthorne had sought to begin life together with the woman he so adored.
Works Cited
• Delano, Sterling F. Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2004.
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel. American Notebooks. http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/pfanb01.html
• Wineapple, Brenda. Hawthorne: A Life. NY: Knopf, 2003.

Page citation: {[http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/10211/]}
The Old Manse in Concord (photography by Terri Whitney)
After Nathaniel Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody on July 9, 1842, in Boston, the couple left by carriage for Concord. They moved into the gray frame house Hawthorne referred to as The Old Manse in 1846 in his collection of short stories, Mosses from an Old Manse. The Hawthornes rented the house which was built c. 1770 by Rev. William Emerson for his wife, Phebe. When Emerson died in 1776, Phebe married Ezra Ripley, and they remained in the house. Ezra Ripley died in 1841, and the Old Manse was available for rent by the Hawthornes who lived there until 1845.
During their residence in the Old Manse, they had their first child, Una, who was born on March 3, 1844. In 1845, the Hawthornes left Concord for Salem after being unable to pay the rent on The Old Manse for several months and because the Ripleys wished to return to the house. To save money, the Hawthornes moved to 12 Herbert St. where they lived with the Salem Hawthornes.
The Emerson-Ripley descendants owned the house until 1939 when it was sold to The Trustees of Reservations; it is this organization which owns and maintains the house today. Among the furnishings still in The Old Manse, which is open to tourists, is the desk at which Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote. Also at the Manse is a re-creation of the vegetable garden which Henry David Thoreau planted for the Hawthornes before they arrived; the garden is based on the journals of Hawthorne and George Bradford.



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