The Alcotts
Shortly after the failure of the Fruitlands experiment, educator and philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott and his family moved to Concord. Beginning in October 1844, the family first lived in the home of a friend named Edmund Hosmer. Alcott's wife Abby May had recently inherited about $2,000 and they intended to use the money to buy a home. Neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson helped the family find the property to buy: a home most recently owned by a wheelwright named Horatio Cogswell. Emerson also loaned the family $500 for their purchase. Bronson took no part in the transaction being, as his wife explained, "dissatisfied with the whole property arrangement" and did not believe he could own any part of the Earth. No one seemed to know much about the history of the home, though Henry David Thoreau told the story that one of its previous owners believed he would never die and his ghost was rumored to haunt it. The Alcotts moved in on April 1, 1845; they named the home "Hillside".
The Alcotts immediately began renovating what was originally a colonial saltbox home. A shed on the property was cut in half and attached to either side of the main house. Outside the house, they added terraces, arbors, and pavilions. They also added a bedroom for their 13-year old daughter Louisa May Alcott in March 1846. It was the first room she had to herself. She wrote in her journal, "It does me very good to be alone, and Mother has made it very pretty and neat for me." In this home, Louisa and her sisters lived many of the scenes that later appeared in her book Little Women, including the amateur plays they performed. She also began writing what would become her first book, Flower Fables.
Bronson opened the home to many people, including Sophia Foord, a teacher with whom he hoped to open a school. He also offered the home as a site for the Underground Railroad. The family likely hosted several escaped slaves; Louisa May, years later, referred to more than one, writing, "fugitive slaves were sheltered under our roof". Due to the requisite secrecy, however, few records of specific fugitives survive. Bronson referred to a 30-year old man who was "athletic, dextrous, sagacious, and self-relying" who stayed there for a week in 1847 on his way to Canada. Bronson hoped the experience would serve as a lesson to his family.
By 1848, the family debated about moving. Bronson liked Concord because of the neighbors he could converse with. Abby, however, saw the town as a symbol of their poverty and desired a move to the city of Boston to be closer to friends, relatives, and potential work. She won the debate and the family rented out the Hillside and moved to the South End by that winter.
Read more about this topic: The Wayside