Wheeler-Minot Farmhouse | |
Location | Concord, Massachusetts |
---|---|
Coordinates | 42°28′07.5″N71°18′40″W / 42.468750°N 71.31111°W |
Area | 20.3 acres (8.2 ha) |
Built | 1730 |
Architectural style | Colonial, Georgian |
NRHP reference No. | 04000190 [1] |
Added to NRHP | March 19, 2004 |
The Wheeler-Minot Farmhouse, also known as the Thoreau Farm or the Henry David Thoreau Birthplace, is a historic house at 341 Virginia Road in Concord, Massachusetts, United States. It is significant as the birthplace of writer Henry David Thoreau. [2] The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. [1] It currently serves as a historic house museum and is open to the public.
The Wheeler-Minot Farmhouse is set on a 20-acre (8.1 ha) property on the north side of Virginia Road in eastern Concord. The house is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, five bays wide, with a side-gable roof, large central chimney, clapboard siding, and a fieldstone foundation. The center entrance is flanked by pilasters and topped by a dentillated cornice. [2]
The farmhouse was originally built circa 1730 by John Wheeler. [3] Later, the farm was purchased by Deacon Samuel Minot for his second son Jonas. [4] Jonas Minot was the stepfather of Thoreau's mother, having become the second husband of his maternal grandmother. [5]
Though the building has been extensively modified over the years, this house was the farmhouse of a prominent area farm for 200 years.
Unlike other writers and thinkers associated with Concord—including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Amos Bronson Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott—Henry David Thoreau was the only one born in the town. [6] He was born on the family farm on July 12, 1817. [7] He lived in town for most of his life.
Shortly after Thoreau's death in 1862, scholars, disciples, and tourists began to seek out the author's birthplace. [8]
The house was acquired in 1995 by the Thoreau Farm Trust, a non-profit organization. The site underwent an extensive restoration and is now a museum open to the public on weekends between May and October.
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a plant-based diet. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights.
Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. In the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the Sudbury and Assabet rivers join to form the Concord River.
Walden Pond is a celebrated pond in Concord, Massachusetts, in the United States. A good example of a kettle hole, it was formed by retreating glaciers 10,000–12,000 years ago. The pond is protected as part of Walden Pond State Reservation, a 335-acre (136 ha) state park and recreation site managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. The reservation was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 for its association with the writer Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), whose two years living in a cabin on its shore provided the foundation for his famous 1854 work, Walden; or, Life in the Woods. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 ensured federal support for the preservation of the pond.
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is a rural cemetery located on Bedford Street near the center of Concord, Massachusetts. The cemetery is the burial site of a number of famous Concordians, including some of the United States' greatest authors and thinkers, especially on a hill known as "Author's Ridge."
The Old Manse is a historic manse in Concord, Massachusetts, United States, notable for its literary associations. It is open to the public as a nonprofit museum owned and operated by the Trustees of Reservations. The house is located on Monument Street, with the Concord River just behind it. The property neighbors the North Bridge, a part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
The Wayside is a historic house in Concord, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott and her family, who named it Hillside, author Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, and children's writer Margaret Sidney. It became the first site with literary associations acquired by the National Park Service and is now open to the public as part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
Minute Man National Historical Park commemorates the opening battle in the American Revolutionary War. It also includes the Wayside, home in turn to three noted American authors. The National Historical Park is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service and protects 970 acres (392.5 ha) in and around the Massachusetts towns of Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord.
Orchard House is a historic house museum in Concord, Massachusetts, United States, opened to the public on May 27, 1912. It was the longtime home of Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) and his family, including his daughter Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), who wrote and set her novel Little Women (1868–69) there.
The Concord School of Philosophy was a lyceum-like series of summer lectures and discussions of philosophy in Concord, Massachusetts, from 1879 to 1888.
The Ralph Waldo Emerson House is a house museum located at 18 Cambridge Turnpike, Concord, Massachusetts, and a National Historic Landmark for its associations with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. He and his family named the home Bush. The museum is open mid-April to mid-October; an admission fee is charged.
The Thoreau–Alcott House is a historic house at 255 Main Street in Concord, Massachusetts, United States that was home to the writers Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott at different times.
Wheeler House or Wheeler Home or variations may refer to:
Fairyland Pond is a pond within Hapgood Wright Town Forest, a conservation area in Concord, Massachusetts. It is a popular recreation area, notable for its old-growth forest and its association with many literary figures from Concord’s past.
Mary Colman Wheeler was the founder and first head of the Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island.
Roland Wells Robbins (1908–1987) was an American archaeologist, author, and historian who is known for discovering the site of Henry David Thoreau's house at Walden Pond. His other discoveries include the Saugus Iron Works and the John and Priscilla Alden Family Sites.
Minot Pratt (1805-1878) was a founder, a director and head farmer of the Brook Farm experimental community, a printer, a friend of noted Concord, Massachusetts, writers, Henry David Thoreau, Amos Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and a naturalist in Concord, Massachusetts. At his death in 1878 it was written of him: “his recreation, and one might say, his worship, was among the wild-flowers and woodlands, which he knew almost as familiarly as Thoreau did. Thoreau was a ‘poet-naturalist,’ Minot Pratt was a farmer-naturalist, -- but in both the love of nature was far stronger than the mere scientific thirst for knowledge. They revered nature and treated her with the modesty due to a maiden, and with the respect of a young lover. This sentiment did not wither as age came on.”
Concord's Colonial Inn is a historic inn in Concord, Massachusetts. Its original structure is still in use and was built in 1716. It became a hotel in 1889.
Sophia Foord (1802-1885) was an American schoolteacher and abolitionist from Dedham, Massachusetts.
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