Arrowhead (Herman Melville House) - Construction and Early History

Construction and Early History

Construction of the oldest portions of the house known as Arrowhead took place in the 1780s. Built by Captain David Bush, the wood frame and clapboard house was apparently used as an inn. The Bush family sold the property Pittsfield Doctor John Brewster in 1844, and he eventually sold the property to Herman Melville, which then included 160 acres (65 ha) of farmland. The house at that time consisted of a simple rectangular structure with five window bays across and two deep, with a large central chimney. There is some evidence that the house may originally have had three stories, but at the time of the Melville purchase in 1850 it only had 2 1/2.

Read more about this topic:  Arrowhead (Herman Melville House)

Famous quotes containing the words construction, early and/or history:

    The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.
    Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)

    Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.
    C. John Sommerville (20th century)

    The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)