The transfer of
the little family to Lenox soon occurred, and to the "red house,"
which was in existence until lately. I will quote a description of the
cottage and the views about the spot, given in a Stockbridge paper not
long after the small dwelling disappeared:--
"On a stand in the curious old hotel in Stockbridge is a charred chunk
of an oaken house-beam that is as carefully treasured as if it were of
gold; and every guest strolling through the parlor wherein it is shown
halts and gazes at it with a singular interest. A placard pinned to
the cinder explains in these words why it is treasured and why the
people gaze at it: 'Relic from the Hawthorne Cottage.' The Hawthorne
Cottage stood half a mile out of Stockbridge on the road to Lenox. It
was burned two months ago. It was a little red story-and-a-half house
on a lonely farm, and an old farmer, himself somewhat of a bookworm,
dwelt in it with his family at the time it mysteriously took fire. The
cottage was a landmark, because Nathaniel Hawthorne dwelt therein in
1850 and 1851 for a year and a half. A great many people go out to
see the ruins of it.
"Drive along a lonely winding road through a homely New England
district several hundred yards west of the pretentious mansions of
Stockbridge, pass through a breezy open patch of pines, and one comes
to a characteristic hillside New England orchard, the branches of
whose trees just now are bright with ripening red apples. On the
hillslope in the middle of the orchard and overlooking the famous
'Stockbridge Bowl'--a round deep tarn among the hills--are the brick
cellar walls and brick underpinning of what was a very humble
dwelling--the Hawthorne Cottage.
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