Last year when my daughter and I studied 19th century literature, we read the works and backgrounds of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau.
Despite learning how they all knew each other, influenced each other, and lived near each other, I didn’t realize that meant in such a small town, often times buying each other’s houses!
Hence the beauty of vacations/field trips!
FINDING GRAPES GROWING IN CONCORD
Then thinking our trip to Concord would primarily focus on the American Revolution, we ended up spending even more time time-traveling with the many mid-19th century authors who lived there.
Surprisingly their stories intermingled with our visit to the North Bridge, The Wayside, and Orchard House.
Arriving upon the closing of The Manse, and the end of day at Walden Pond, we spent the fading light walking the streets of Concord where we saw an abundance of grape vines!
Wondering if there might be a story of the intermingling of Concord’s literary circle and all these grapes, I did a bit of research…
EPHRAIM WALES BULL BEFRIENDS LITERARY NEIGHBORS
Born in Boston in 1806, Ephraim Wales Bull apprenticed in the trade of goldbeating, which entailed hammering gold into thin sheets for gilding.
Heeding the advice of his doctor, Bull relocated to the dryer, cleaner air of Concord to relieve his lung issues.
Purchasing a 17-acre farm at 451 Lexington Road, Bull found himself surrounded by numerous Concord authors whom he befriended.
Joining in their abolitionist endeavors, Bull continued his goldbeating trade.
Ephraim Wales Bull is described by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son, Julian: as eccentric as his name…was a genuine and substantial man, and my father took a great liking to him, which was reciprocated. –Patch
EPHRAIM WALES BULL SEEKS TO IMPROVE GRAPES
Discovering wild grapes on his farm, Bull undertook the prodigious task of breeding a grape that ripened before the bitter frost of the Massachusetts winters descended on the town.
Bull’s literary friends encouraged his goal to cultivate the perfect grape in the sandy soil of the south-facing slope of Revolutionary Ridge behind his home. –Patch
Experimenting with the wild fox grape seeds alongside cultivated Catawba vines to create a hybrid, Bull patiently worked with his plantings.
Twenty-two thousand seedlings later, he discovered the grape that successfully ripened in a short growing season, which he named after his new hometown, Concord.
Early ripening, to escape the killing northern frosts, but with a rich, full-bodied flavor, the hardy Concord grape thrives where European cuttings had failed to survive. –Concord Grape
Entering his Concord grapes in the Boston Horticultural Society Exhibition in 1853, Bull’s grapes won first place.
After he marketed the grape in 1854 for $5 a vine, he earned over $3000.
However, the purchasers then raised their own crops of Concord grapes with which they flooded the market at their sole profit.
Today the Concord grape is the most popular grape cultivated in America.
Buried many years later in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Bull’s epitaph reads: He sowed – others reaped
LITERARY NEIGHBORS REAP FRUIT OF BULL’S EFFORTS
Henry David Thoreau gifted his literary colleague, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a cutting of the Concord grape when he planted a cutting in his yard, which today emanates a luscious fragrace from vines entwined about the trellis.
In August 28, 1853, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his diary, “Walking down the street in the evening I detect my neighbor’s ripening grapes by the scent twenty rods off, though they are concealed behind his house. Every passer knows of them. Perhaps he takes me to his back door a week afterward and shows me with an air of mystery his clusters concealed under the leaves, which he thinks will be ripe in a day or two – as if it were a secret. He little thinks that I smelled them before he did.” –Edible Traditions
In 1856 Thoreau wrote in his journal, “Mr. Bull tells me that his grapes grow faster and ripen sooner on the west than the east side of his house.” –Edible Traditions
On September 8, 1858, he scrawled in his notebook, “What is a whole binful that have been plucked to that solitary cluster left dangling inaccessible from some birch far away over the stream in the September air, with all its bloom and freshness?” –Edible Traditions
HISTORIC CONCORD HOMES PURCHASED
Shortly after Bull’s passing in 1895, Harriet Lothrop purchased his home.
A few years later she also purchased Orchard House, former home of Louisa May Alcott.
All this while Lothrop resided in The Wayside, another historic home she had purchased with her husband.
WHO EXACTLY IS HARRIET LOTHROP?
Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1844, Harriet Stone grew up in a happy home where she loved to make the most of every opportunity.
LOVE OF BOOKS
Nevertheless, I dearly loved to get away and curled up in a big chair in the Library, or under a large table where the ample cloth fell down and successfully hid me from the children `tagging’ me, then it was that I peopled my world. – The Life and Writings of Harriett Mulford (Stone) Lothrop, Heidi Brautigam, Boston College, 1999
Always a bookworm, Harriet enjoyed several famed authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott.
WRITES CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Infusing her imagination into her writing, Harriet created stories of five children in a little brown house in the New England countryside published as a serial by D. Lothrop & Company of Boston in a children’s magazine.
PSEUDONYM OF MARGARET SIDNEY
The pseudonym Harriet chose for her stories of The Five Little Peppers was Margaret Sidney.
After publishing Harriet’s stories, and then recommending them to be collected into book form, published in 1881, Daniel Lothrop curiously visited the beguiling author in New Haven while en route to New York.
MARRYING HER PUBLISHER
Charmed, he married her that same year, 1881.
LIVING IN THE WAYSIDE
Beginning their married life in Cambridge, Harriet wrote about their deep love and happy life.
In 1883, Daniel surprised Harriet with a new home in Concord, The Wayside, previous home to some of her favorite authors, Louisa May Alcott and later Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The next year, in 1884, their daughter, Margaret, was born.
After busy, happy years with the family enjoying Concord friends, Daniel passed away in 1892.
Grieving for her beloved husband through commissioning a bust and creating a memorial room in The Wayside, Harriet also pushed through life to do God’s good work.
Needing to support herself and her daughter, she ran Daniel’s publishing company for two years.
After selling the company, Harriet continued writing books, remaining faithful to her husband’s company as publisher of her total of 40 books.
FOUNDER OF HISTORICAL SOCIETY
While writing books, she also supported and founded historical societies.
In honor of her husband’s memory, Harriet founded the Children of the American Revolution in 1895, because he often noted the need for patriotic societies across America founded specifically for children.
Their daughter, Margaret, was their first member, at 11 years of age.
With their shared love for history and historic preservation, no wonder they purchased The Wayside on Battle Road, where the British marched during the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Their shared love of history extended to historic preservation and restoration.
RESTORES HOME OF THE CONCORD GRAPES
That same year Harriet purchased the famed home of Concord grapes.
Only 350 feet from her home at The Wayside, Ephraim Wales Bull’s house at 451 Lexington Road had fallen into disrepair in his later years.
Harriet happily pursued this labor of love, perhaps again in honor of her husband, since they both shared a passion for historic preservation.
Naming the home Grapevine Cottage, she placed a commemorative marker next to the original Concord vine on the trellis by the house, documented by the historical society.
PRESERVES ORCHARD HOUSE
When Orchard House, former home of Louisa May Alcott, faced destruction by the town in 1900, Lothrop quickly purchased it.
A year later she sold it to the newly formed Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association for $1.
Margaret carries on her mother’s preservation work
When Margaret grew up, she attended Smith College for her bachelor’s degree, then she obtained her master’s degree at Stanford University in California, where she later taught.
In those years, her mother lived part time at The Wayside and part time in California with her daughter.
Meanwhile Harriet rented The Wayside when she wasn’t there.
After Harriet’s passing in 1924, her daughter, Margaret carried on her mother’s preservation work of The Wayside.
As a result of Margaret’s own labor of love of historic preservation, Minute Man National Historic Park (which now owns The Wayside), obtained massive research on the Alcotts, Hawthornes, and Lothrops…all prior residents of The Wayside…and next door neighbor to the Concord grape creator.
