What Do We Save?
A little side quest jaunt from the Hudson Valley to the Berkshires, led by William Cullen Bryant
Whenever a site visit is on the horizon for my spouse, it means it’s time to break into the history and research materials we can gather about that site. Sometimes those materials are provided for us by the site. Sometimes it’s digging on my own. I had the thought recently, as I was doing one of these, that it can be a little bit like a congressional intern reading and summarizing a bill for a member of Congress. Not exactly like that, but somewhat.
Do you know how entwined the people of 19th century Hudson Valley were? They all knew each other. They all socialized. Thomas Cole. Frederick Church. Washington Irving. William Cullen Bryant.
I wasn’t doing research on William Cullen Bryant. Really, I wasn’t. But my brain did what my brain does, and I started following a train of thought that brought me back to connections from previous rabbit holes. And Bryant was coming up quite a lot because he was friends with the people I was doing research on - fellow romantic era writers and artists.
William Cullen Bryant was a big name in 19th century New York. Made famous by his romantic poetry and as the editor of the New-York Evening Post, he was so well-known that today you can find his name plastered all over the city - most notably on Bryant Park.1 He bought a property on Long Island that he named Cedarmere in 1843. Then he bought the farmhouse where he grew up in 1865. That farmhouse in Cummington, Massachusetts is now run and owned by The Trustees of Reservations.
This comes back around, in a way, to what I have posted before about the power of place. I have been to the William Cullen Bryant Homestead. I don’t think I had heard of William Cullen Bryant before that visit. It’s an interesting conundrum that a lot of historic sites face, when the person who was initially so famous that people made pilgrimages to see where they lived, is no longer a well-known name.
However, it was this visit to the Bryant Homestead, and my work with The Trustees, that had me stumbling - quite coincidentally - on an article that has stuck out in my mind ever since.
While I was working at Castle Hill on the Crane Estate, a fellow Trustees property, I started pulling up newspaper articles from the 1929 Boston Globe to try and situate every day at the house in the approximate day from that year, to try and bring the tour program to life. And one article grabbed my attention pretty quickly.
It was a Boston Globe article about the William Cullen Bryant Homestead becoming part of The Trustees of Reservations property portfolio. “BRYANT HOMESTEAD DEDICATED TO PUBLIC,” proclaimed the headline. “Calvin Coolidge and Wife Attend 150th Anniversary Observance At Cummington.”2
The 300 devoted souls who gathered under the great Bryant maples for the exercises rejoiced in the unexpected presence of Mr and Mrs Calvin Coolidge who drove up from Northampton and sat under umbrellas through the whole dripping afternoon.
Mr Coolidge refused to lengthen the program by adding an impromptu speech. But he consented to sit with Mrs Coolidge on the platform that held also the trustees for public reservations.3
This appearance would certainly lend credence to the nickname “Silent Cal”, it would seem. But it certainly adds a certain amount of pomp and circumstance to the endeavor of dedicating a new Trustees property to have a recent-though-former president attending.
According to The Berkshire Eagle, “The dedicatory program marked the opening of Cummington’s three-day observance of its 150th birthday.”
In opening [Walter Prichard Eaton] called the hill where the homestead stands, the birthplace of American Poetry. In conclusion he suggested that the homestead become not a shrine. Massachusetts has enough of them, he said. Rather make it become a place where botanists, ornithologists and aspiring poets might come for rest and work.4
Today, the William Cullen Bryant Homestead is closed to the public. The grounds are still available to explore, but the house is not. As far as creating a place where aspiring poets might come, the views and walks around the property are just as inspiring as they were for Bryant.
But it does bring to mind the question of what do we save, and why?
Bryant’s friend, Washington Irving wrote about a Spanish Moorish castle-fortress, kickstarting an effort to save it - though as far as Irving’s own home, Sunnyside, the original house was completely lost under the layers of renovation that Irving applied to it. Meanwhile, Thomas Cole and Frederick Church were painting the Hudson River Valley, preserving the image for future generations. While the views from Thomas Cole’s house are not what they once were, the ones from Frederick Church’s Olana certain have much of what he himself saw.
According to the guidebook from Sunnyside, this romantic era house - often used in advertisements for a variety of products as the “American home” - was one of the first homes from the 19th century to be preserved for future generations. Before that the preservationist movement mostly focused on colonial and first period homes.
Sometimes we save buildings because the land around them is really the focus. Sometimes we save buildings because of who lived there. Sometimes we save buildings because the owner wanted them to survive. Using these buildings as a place to tell the story and keep history alive is part and parcel with keeping visitors coming. What is the story? What is the spirit of place? Why should people keep coming?
These are all questions we need to answer - over and over - to keep the places real and relevant to today’s ever changing world.
Side note: Bryant Park has the best public restrooms in New York City. If you ever visit, you’ll know why. Or you can watch Got2GoNYC on Instagram for her video review.
“BRYANT HOMESTEAD DEDICATED TO PUBLIC”, The Boston Globe, 24 Aug 1929.
“BRYANT HOMESTEAD DEDICATED TO PUBLIC”, The Boston Globe, 24 Aug 1929.
“Honor Bryant’s memory as Cummington begins its 150th anniversary celebration”, The Berkshire Eagle, 23 Aug 1929. https://www.berkshireeagle.com/history/eagle-archives-william-cullen-bryant-homestead-dedication-cummington-anniversary-celebration/article_9da91722-4027-11ee-97e1-3bc2efa179e9.html