TRAVEL AWAITS: How to do a Literary Tour of New England

The full article was published by Travel Awaits on Jan. 15, 2020.

We camped at the Gateway to Cape Cod RV Campground south of Boston, Massachusetts for three weeks one summer. We used it as a base to see the origins of the American Revolution along Boston’s Freedom Trail and Concord, Massachusetts, 40 minutes from Boston, where the first skirmishes happened. This last visit rounded out our view of American history and showed us the other revolution — the literary kind.  

Author's Ridge in Concord, Massachusetts

First Stop: Concord, Massachusetts

My husband's friend who had invited us took us to The Authors Ridge at Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where five great American authors rest in peace:  essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, The American Scholar, Nature),  philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1863, Walden, Civil Disobedience), Romantic novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864, The Scarlet Letter, House of the Seven Gables), educator Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), and his daughter Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888, Little Women).

Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts

He also took us to see The Old Manse, home of the Emerson family where the four often met. It became the center of their Transcendentalist Movement and they became known as the Concord Quartet who fanned the ideals of individual liberty and equality. They influenced the abolitionist sentiment in the North, inspiring the Civil War. The visit helped me decide to turn my then little journal into the blog that I now publicly share.

Second Stop: Salem, Massachusetts

in front of Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables

We also went to Salem, Massachusetts, 40 minutes from Boston, the site of the infamous 1692 witch trials to see the Witch Museum, the Witch House (a trial judge’s house), and the Trial Memorial. And we visited Nathaniel Hawthorne’s birthplace relocated to a spot near the only living colonial home in North America, the House of the Seven Gables, the inspiration for Hawthorne’s classic novel of the same name. 

Third Stop: Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Just 20 minutes west of Boston is Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard, established in 1636, is located. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) whose poem Paul Revere’s Ride memorialized what sparked the revolution, served as a professor there. When he retired into full-time writing, he bought and lived in the house George Washington used as his HQ during the start of the American Revolution. The Longfellow House is now a National Historic Site.

Twain House & Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut 

Fourth Stop: Hartford, Connecticut

We also made a day trip to Hartford, Connecticut, two and a half hours away.  The famous author Mark Twain (1835-1910, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)  made it his home. It's where he wrote many of his masterpieces but also where, unfortunately, he lost much of his wealth disappear due to poor investments.

The amazing thing is that the Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) Center also stands there right beside the Mark Twain House on the same small block! They are a generation apart but she helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War with Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Both authors provided scathing looks at entrenched racist attitudes.

Fifth Stop: Derry, New Hampshire

Frost Farm in Derby, New Hampshire

After our stay in Massachusetts, we brought our RV north to Chichester, New Hampshire for some RV repair. We discovered that the home of Robert Frost (1874-1963), called the Frost Farm, is in Derry, New Hampshire, just 40 minutes south. He did not quite make it as a farmer, however, so he relocated to Great Britain until the breakout of WWI. Upon his return, he bought Frost Place, in Franconia, up in the beautiful White Mountains.

In these two homes, he wrote most of his poetry, including the following most famous lines in “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.” They vividly express how my husband and I feel when, even if we still have to travel great distances, we pause because we suddenly find unrivaled beauty.

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. 

Walden Pond

Many more authors call the area home — Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, and even Stephen King, to name a few. Book lovers will love this kind of tour. But it would have been better had we done it during fall when the region blazes in bright autumn colors. Even so, this convinced me to focus on writing as the main preoccupation of my retirement. And I have published two books since!

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