Literary Site: Edith Jones (Wharton) Childhood Home - New York, NY

Edith Jones (Wharton) Childhood Home
New York, NY

GPS: N 40° 44.505 W 073° 59.420

Short Description: 

A red plaque identifies the childhood home and her accomplishments of author Edith Jones (Wharton). The building is now a mostly a commercial building on 14 W. 23rd Street in Manhattan.

Long Description:

Edith Wharton was born on January 24, 1862 to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander in New York City. In 1885 she married Edward Robbins Wharton. In 1902, she built The Mount, an estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, which expresses her principles of garden and interior design.

A red plaque identifies the childhood residence and the accomplishments of author Edith Jones (Wharton). Edith wrote her first novel, Fast and Loose, and poems, Poetry Verses while living here. The plaque is inscribed:

Edith Wharton

1862 - 1937

-----------

14 West 23rd Street

Manhattan

This was the childhood home of Edith Jones Wharton, one of

America's most important authors, at a time when 23rd Street marked

the northern boundary of fashionable New York. Here, in her father's

extensive library, young Edith Jones discovered the world of literature.

Wharton wrote with authority on gardens and design, but was most

celebrated for her fiction. her novels and stories characterized by

her intelligence, perception and great beauty of her prose.

She revealed the life of the soul with courage and clarity.

Wharton lived in France for the latter part of her life, but the

complex world of patrician New York remained the source of her

greatest fiction. This includes The House of Mirth (1905) and The

Age of Innocence, for which, in 1921, she became the

first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

The Historic Landmarks

Preservation Center

October 5, 2011

PLAQUE PROGRAM CONCEIVED BY BARBARALEE DIAMONSTEIN SPIELVOGEL

She was a writer of books on design, novels, short stories and poetry. The following is a listing of her works from Wikipedia (q.v.)

Novels:

The Touchstone, 1900
The Valley of Decision, 1902
Sanctuary, 1903
The House of Mirth, 1905
Madame de Treymes, 1907
The Fruit of the Tree, 1907
Ethan Frome, 1911
The Reef, 1912
The Custom of the Country, 1913
Summer, 1917
The Marne, 1918
The Age of Innocence, 1920 (Pulitzer Prize winner)
The Glimpses of the Moon, 1922
A Son at the Front, 1923
Old New York, 1924
The Spark (The 'Sixties), 1924
The Mother's Recompense, 1925
Twilight Sleep, 1927
The Children, 1928
Hudson River Bracketed, 1929
The Gods Arrive, 1932
The Buccaneers, 1938
Fast and Loose, 1938 (first novel, written in 1876–1877)

Poetry:

Poetry Verses, 1878
Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse, 1909
Twelve Poems, 1926

Short story collections:

The Greater Inclination, 1899
Souls Belated, 1899
Crucial Instances, 1901
The Reckoning, 1902
The Descent of Man and Other Stories, 1903
The Other Two, 1904
The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories, 1908
Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910
Xingu and Other Stories, 1916
Old New York, 1924
Here and Beyond, 1926
Certain People, 1930
Human Nature, 1933
The World Over, 1936
Ghosts, 1937
Roman Fever, 1934
"The Angel at the Grave"

Non-fiction:

The Decoration of Houses, 1897
Italian Villas and Their Gardens, 1904
Italian Backgrounds, 1905
A Motor-Flight Through France, 1908 (travel)
France, from Dunkerque to Belfort, 1915 (war)
French Ways and Their Meaning, 1919
In Morocco, 1920 (travel)
The Writing of Fiction, 1925 (essays on writing)
A Backward Glance, 1934 (autobiography)
As editor The Book of the Homeless, 1916
Edith Wharton died of a stroke on August 11, 1937 in Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt (now rue Edith Wharton). She is interred in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France.

Literary Site: Wallace Stevens Walk - Hartford, CT

Wallace Stevens Walk

Hartford, CT

Start 690 Asylum Avenue

GPS: N41° 46.113; W72° 41.257

Short Description:

The Wallace Stevens Walk follows the footsteps of poet from his workplace at the Hartford Insurance Co. at 690 Asylum Avenue. From there, go west on Asylum Avenue until a Terry Road. Make a right on to Terry Road and then a left onto Westerly Terrace to reach his home at 118 Westerly Terrace.  Along the way are 13 granite stones, each inscribed with a verse from his poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird".

Long Description:

Wallace Stevens  was an American poet born in Reading, PA in 1879. He attended Harvard University and the New York Law School then, in 1916, he joined the Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company, serving  as vice president from 1934 until his death in 1955. He is considered one of the foremost modern American poets and was awarded the Pulitizer Prize in 1954 for his work Collected Poems.

Wallace Stevens never learned to drive. He would  walk to and from work, often composing poetry along the way.  Thirteen granite stones are erected along his path. Each inscribed with a stanza from his poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,  

The only moving thing  

Was the eye of the blackbird.  

GPS:  N41° 46.113; W72° 41.257

II

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

GPS: N41° 46.171; W72° 41.456

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

GPS: N41° 46.198; W72° 41.554

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

GPS: N41° 46.286; W72° 41.830

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

GPS: N41° 46.320; W72° 41.948

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the blackbird

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

GPS: N41° 46.350; W72° 42.054

VII

O thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?

GPS: N41° 46.337; W72° 42.132

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the blackbird is involved

In what I know.

GPS: N41° 46.429; W72° 42.286

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

GPS:  N41° 46.596; W72° 42.657

X

At the sight of blackbirds

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out sharply.

GPS: N41° 46.710; W72° 42.690

XI

He rode over Connecticut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For blackbirds.

GPS: N41° 46.919; W72° 42.680

XII

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

GPS: N41° 46.997; W72° 42.764

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-limbs.

GPS:  N41° 47.097; W72° 42.767

Wallace Stevens Home - 118 Westerly Terrace

While living in this home Wallace Stevens  wrote and published several collections of poems. Wikipedia list the following publications.

Poetry

Harmonium (1923)
Ideas of Order (1936)
Owl's Clover (1936)
The Man with the Blue Guitar (1937)
Parts of a World (1942)
Transport to Summer (1947)
The Auroras of Autumn (1950)
Collected Poems (1954)
Posthumous collections
Opus Posthumous (1957)
The Palm at the End of the Mind (1972)
Collected Poetry and Prose (New York: The Library of America, 1997)
Selected Poems (John N. Serio, ed.) (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)

Prose

The Necessary Angel (essays) (1951)

Posthumous publications

Letters of Wallace James Stevens, edited by Holly Stevens (1966)
Secretaries of the Moon: The Letters of Wallace Stevens & Jose Rodriguez Feo, edited by Beverly Coyle and Alan Filreis (1986)
Sur plusieurs beaux sujects: Wallace Stevens's Commonplace Book, edited by Milton J. Bates (1989)
The Contemplated Spouse: The Letters of Wallace Stevens to Elsie Kachel, edited by D.J. Blount (2006)

Literary Site: Harriett Beecher Stowe Home - Hartford, CT

Harriett Beecher Stowe Home

Hartford, CT

GPS: N41° 46.002; W072° 42.023

Short Description: 

The Hartford, CT home of Harriett Beecher Stowe is located at 77 Forest Street in an area once known as Nook Farm.

Long Description:

Harriett Beecher was born in Litchfield, CT on June 14, 1811. When she was 21 she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where her father was president of Lane Theological Seminary. In 1836, she married a professor at the Seminary, Calvin Ellis Stowe.

The family moved to Brunswick, ME when Calvin took a position a Bowdoin College. It was here she wrote, in 1851, the widely read, anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is credited with inspiring a more fervent abolitionist movement in the north.

After her husband retired they moved to the writers colony at Nook Farm in Hartford, CT, where she continued to write. In 1873, she moved into into a brick Victorian Gothic cottage-style house on Forest Street where She remained for 23 years until her death on July 1, 1896. While in Hartford she wrote some of her best known works including: The American Woman's Home (1869), Lady Byron Vindicated (1871) and Pogunuc People (1878).

A pair of plaques on her home are inscribed:

HARRIETT BEECHER STOWE

DAUGHTER OF 

THE REVEREND LYMAN AND ROXANNA FOOTE BEECHER

BORN LITCHFIELD CONNECTICUT 14 JUNE 1811

MARRIED AT CINCINNATI OHIO 6 JANUARY 1836

TO CALVIN ELLIS STOWE

WROTE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AT BRUNSWICK, MAINE IN 1851

RESIDED IN THIS HOUSE FROM 1873

UNTIL HER DEATH 1 JULY 1896

"AS COLUMBUS SOUGHT AN OLD CONTINENT AND DISCOVERED

A NEW ONE SO HARRIETT BEECHER STOWE MEANT TO WRITE

AN ARGUMENT ON AN OLD THEME AND SUCCEEDED IN

WRITING AN IMMORTAL CLASSIC"

WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

and

THIS TABLET PLACED BY 

THE HARTFORD COLONY

NATIONAL SOCIETY

NEW ENGLAND WOMEN

13 JUNE 1955

Wikipedia list the following books written by Harriett Beecher Stowe:

The Mayflower; or, Sketches of Scenes and Characters Among the Descendants of the Pilgrims (1834)
Mark Meriden (1841)
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853)
Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856)
The Minister's Wooing (1859)
Agnes of Sorrento (1862) (reading online)
The Pearl of Orr's Island (1862)
The Chimney Corner (1866) (chapters published in Atlantic Monthly Volume 18)
The American Woman's Home (1869) (with Catherine Beecher) (see summary and links to the book here)
Old Town Folks (1869)
Little Pussy Willow (1870)
Lady Byron Vindicated (1870)
My Wife and I (1871)
Pink and White Tyranny (1871)
Woman in Sacred History (1873)
Palmetto Leaves (1873)
We and Our Neighbors (1875)
Poganuc People (1878)
The Poor Life (1890)
He's Coming Tomorrow (unknown)

As Christopher Crowfield

House and Home Papers (1865)
Little Foxes (1866)
The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center was established to preserve and interpret Harriett Beecher Stowe's home and historic collections, to promote discussion of her life and work, and to inspire commitment to social justice and positive change.

The home is open by guided tour.
Monday-Saturday: 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Sundays: Noon - 5:00 PM
Last tour steps off at 4:30 PM
Open M.L. King Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Columbus Day.
Closed Tuesdays from January to March, New Year's Day, Easter Sunday, July 4, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Literary Site: Mark Twain House and Museum - Hartford, CT

Mark Twain House and Museum

Hartford, CT

GPS: N41° 46.018; W072° 42.070

Short Description: 

The Mark Twain House and Museum is located at 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, CT.
Location: Connecticut, United States

Long Description:

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens who was born in Florida, MO on November 30, 1835. Early in life his family moved to Hannibal, MO on the Mississippi River. His experiences with the people of the river inspired his most famous characters and novels - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Samuel and Olivia "Livy" Clemens were married in 1870 and moved to Hartford in 1871. They then purchased land on Farmington Avenue and in 1873 they commissioned New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to design their house. The three story house is 11‚500 square feet and has 25 rooms. When built in 1874 it was lit by gaslight, had seven bathrooms with hot and cold running water and flush toilets, and a shower. Cost of construction was between $40,000 to $45,000.

Mark Twain lived in this Gothic mansion in Hartford, CT from 1874 until 1891. During the seventeen years that he lived in the Hartford home, Mark Twain completed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)., The Prince and the Pauper (1881), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).

Coastal Lighthouses: Ten Pound Island Light Station - Gloucester, MA

Ten Pound Island Light Station
Gloucester, MA

GPS: N42° 36.110; W070° 39.931

Short Description:

Ten Pound Island Light Station is located on a small island at the eastern end of Gloucester Harbor.

Long Description:

Ten Pound Island Light Station was established in 1821 to mark Gloucester's inner harbor. The conical cast iron tower replaced the original stone tower in 1881. The tower is 30 feet tall and topped with a fifth-order lantern. Other buildings include a granite oil house (1821) and a keeper's dwelling. Ten Pound Island Light Station was decommissioned in 1956 and replaced by a modern optic on top of  an old bell tower on the island. The same optic was subsequently moved to a skeleton tower on the island. The original Fresnel lens was removed from the lantern and is currently on display at the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland, Maine.

The light station can be viewed from the Gloucester waterfront. 

Data from Wikipedia:

Year first constructed 1821

Year first lit 1881
Automated 1934
Deactivated 1956 - 1989
Foundation Brick
Construction Stone and cast iron
Tower shape Conical tower
Markings / pattern White with black lantern
Height 39 feet (12 m)
Focal height 57 feet (17 m)
Original lens 5th order Fresnel lens
Current lens 250 millimetres (9.8 in) lens
Range 5 nautical miles (9.3 km; 5.8 mi)
Characteristic Isophase Red 6 seconds
Fog signal Original: Bell
Now: Horn: 2 every 20 seconds
Admiralty number J0284
ARLHS number USA-839
USCG number 1-9895

Coastal Lighthouse: Eastern Point Lighthouse - East Gloucester, MA

Eastern Point Lighthouse

East Gloucester, MA

GPS: N42° 34.867; W070° 39.851

Short Description:

Eastern Point Lighthouse is located at the entrance to Gloucester Harbor.

Long Description:

Construction of Eastern Point Lighthouse began in 1831 to protect shipping in and out of Gloucester Harbor from dangerous off-shore rocks. Originally, it beamed a fixed white light. In 1848, the original lighthouse was replaced by a 34' structure and the white light was replaced by a fixed red light. In 1857, a fourth-order Fresnel lens was installed that had a visibility of about 12 miles as well as a fog bell. The famous painter of seascapes, Winslow Homer, lived at the light house in 1880. In 1882, the light was replaced by a fourth-order flashing red light.

In 1890, the present 36' light tower was built. The station was electrified in 1896 and received city water in 1901. The lighthouse was fully automated in 1985. The Eastern Point Lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

The coordinates are for the parking lot where you can safely view the lighthouse from behind the fence. To enjoy same perspective as on postal card you must scramble down the rocks on the east side of the lighthouse at low tide on a calm day. The view is well worth the effort. The postal card was one of three issued in 1972 as part of the Tourism Year of the Americas.

Cape Cod lighthouse: Highland (Cape Cod) Light North Truro, MA

Highland (Cape Cod) Light

North Truro, MA

GPS: N42 2.359; W70 3.722

Short Description:

Highland Light, a.k.a. Cape Cod Light, is the oldest lighthouse on Cape Cod. It is located on Atlantic Ocean  on the northeast part of Cape Cod

Long Description:

From Wikipedia website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Light

In 1797,  George Washington established a wood lighthouse at this place to warn ships about the dangerous coastline between Cape Ann and Nantucket. It was the first light on Cape Cod. In 1833, the wood structure was replaced by brick and in 1840 a new lantern and lighting apparatus was installed. In 1857 the lighthouse was declared dangerous and demolished, and the current brick tower was constructed, with a first order Fresnel lens from Paris. Along with the lighthouse, there was a keeper's building and a generator shed, both of which can still be seen today.

In 1932 the lamp was upgraded to a 1000-watt beacon. The Fresnel lens system was replaced by a Carlisle & Finch DCB-224, with a second unit as backup. Fresnel lens was largely destroyed when it was removed in 1998.. In 1998, a VRB-25 optical system was installed.

Because of cliff erosion the lighthouse was moved 450 feet to the west.  It is now on the grounds of the Highland Golf Course.

Year first constructed 1797
Year first lit 1857 (current structure)
Automated 1987
Foundation Natural/emplaced
Construction Brick
Tower shape Conical
Markings / pattern White with black lantern
Height 66 feet (20 m)
Focal height 170 feet (52 m)
Original lens 1st order Fresnel lens
Current lens VRB-25
Range 18 nautical miles (33 km; 21 mi)
Characteristic Fl W 5s, lighted continuously
Fog signal none
Admiralty number J0390
ARLHS number USA-110
USCG number 1-500