The Wayside Years (1852-53 and 1860-64)

By the time Nathaniel Hawthorne bought The Wayside in 1852, his masterpieces had been published; The Scarlet Letter in 1850, and The House of the Seven Gables in 1851; his short story collections; Mosses from an Old Manse, 1846 and Twice-Told Tales, 1837. Yet, as a pioneer of American Literature, Hawthorne's writing did not bring him great wealth, and The Wayside was the only home he ever owned.

The years in which Nathaniel Hawthorne owned The Wayside were among the most turbulent in America's history. The nation was fragmenting over the issue of slavery, with passions inflamed both pro and con. Left to his own devices, Hawthorne would have preferred to remain a non-participant in the angry debates, but such was not the case. He was closely associated with men and women on both sides of the issue - from his abolitionist neighbors, the Alcotts, Emersons, and Thoreaus, his sisters-in-law, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Mary Mann - to his pro-Union friend and benefactor, Franklin Pierce.

Writing at The Wayside

Hawthorne's writing at The Wayside had been interrupted by 7 years that he spent in Europe. Before leaving The Wayside in 1853, Hawthorne completed his Tanglewood Tales, for Girls and Boys and a campaign biography for Pierce, who was a candidate for U.S. President. Upon his return to Concord in 1860, Hawthorne made some major additions to his home, including a three story Italianate tower with his study or "sky parlour" on top. After the Civil War began, Hawthorne, deeply troubled by the war and his health in decline, went to Washington, D.C. where he met President Abraham Lincoln, and toured the battlefields at Manassas and Harpers Ferry, VA, scene of John Brown's Raid. When he returned to The Wayside, Hawthorne ascended to the top of his Tower and wrote down his observations in "Chiefly About War Matters" which appeared in the July, 1862 Atlantic Monthly.

In his Tower, Nathaniel Hawthorne completed his last published work, Our Old Home, which he dedicated to his friend Franklin Pierce. He also attempted some romances - including The Dolliver Romance and Septimius Felton - a Revolutionary War tale set at The Wayside and combining parts of a legend that Henry David Thoreau told him about an earlier resident who believed he would never die. These remained unfinished at the time of Hawthorne's death in May 1864.

"There in seclusion and remote from men
The wizard hand lies cold,
Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,
And left the tale half told."
"Hawthorne"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1864

Nathaniel Hawthorne - A Literary Chronology

"But as far as my experience goes, men of genius are fairly gifted with the social qualities; and in this age, there appears to be a fellow-feeling among them, which had not heretofore been developed. As men, they ask nothing better than to be on equal terms with their fellow-men; and as authors, they have thrown aside their proverbial jealousy, and acknowledge a generous brotherhood."

"The Hall of Fantasy," 1843

1804: Born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4 to Captain Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne. Thomas Jefferson was president.

1821: Hawthorne started Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Earlier that year, he wrote to his mother that he did not want to study to be a minister, lawyer or physician (traditional professions), and asked her, "What do you think of my becoming an author, and relying for support upon my pen?"

1825: Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College; 18th in a class of 38, and returned to Salem. He remained friends with his fellow students, future President and Brigadier General Franklin Pierce, Horatio Bridge, who went on to a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy, and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

1837: Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales was published, many of the stories having already appeared in magazines. Longfellow wrote in his review, "Live ever, sweet, sweet book. It comes from the hand of a man of genius." That same year, Hawthorne's future neighbor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, delivered his "American Scholar Address," which Oliver Wendell Holmes referred to as "America's Declaration of Intellectual Independence."

1842: On July 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in Boston. She and her sisters, Mary, who married the educator Horace Mann the following year, and Elizabeth, were friends with the Emersons and Alcotts. The Hawthornes moved to Concord and rented the Manse next to the historic North Bridge, an Emerson family home.

1844 -1845: March 3, 1844, Una Hawthorne was born at the Old Manse. From October 1844 - October 1845, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson and Louisa Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau lived in Concord. The Alcotts lived at "Hillside" (renamed The Wayside by Hawthorne.) On July 4, 1845 Thoreau began his two-year residence at Walden Pond.

1846: In May, Hawthorne began working at the Custom House in Salem. June, Mosses from an Old Manse was published; on the 22nd, Julian Hawthorne was born in Boston.

1847: In November, Longfellow's Evangeline was published. The theme had first been suggested to Hawthorne, who handed it over to Longfellow.

1849: Death of Edgar Allan Poe, who together with Hawthorne is credited with creating the American short story. While Poe, writing as a literary critic, gave Hawthorne's stories mostly favorable reviews - and singled out for praise "Wakefield," "The Minister's Black Veil" and "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" to name a few - Hawthorne had still been moved to write in a letter to Poe in 1846: "I confess, however, that I admire you rather as a writer of Tales, than as a critic upon them."

1850: August 5, Hawthorne met Herman Melville in Lenox, MA. Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, written in Salem, was published.

1851: Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, written in Lenox, MA was published. Melville's Moby Dick, written in Pittsfield, near Lenox, and dedicated to the "genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne" was published. On May 20, Rose Hawthorne was born in Lenox.

1852: The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne's third novel, was published a month after he moved into The Wayside. In it, Hawthorne revisited Brook Farm and put forth his views on Transcendentalism and reform. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in book form. Hawthorne had attended Bowdoin College with her husband, Calvin.

1853: In July, Hawthorne and his family left The Wayside for seven years in Europe; Hawthorne first served as U.S. Consul at Liverpool, England.

1859: Before returning to America, Hawthorne completed his last novel, The Marble Faun. It was published in England under the title, Transformation.

1862: Back at The Wayside, Hawthorne wrote of his travels to the Civil War battlefields at Manassas and Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and his visit to Washington, D.C. where he met President Abraham Lincoln. In July, it appeared in the Atlantic Monthly as "Chiefly About War Matters" by "A Peaceable Man."

1863: Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches, the last book to appear during Hawthorne's lifetime, was published. It was dedicated to his friend, Franklin Pierce. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn was published. Its tentative title, Sudbury Tales, would have caused less confusion for future owners of The Wayside in Concord.

1864: Following his death on May 19th, Hawthorne was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord on the 23rd. His mourners included: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson and Louisa May Alcott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, scientist Louis Agassiz and his publisher, James T. Fields. Abraham Lincoln was president.
	Hawthorne and the other Concord Authors are buried on Authors' Ridge