The William Cullen Bryant Homestead 155 acres (0.63 km2) is the boyhood home and later summer residence of William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878), one of America's foremost poets and newspaper editors. It is located at 205 Bryant Road in Cummington, Massachusetts, currently operated by the non-profit Trustees of Reservations, and open to the public on weekends in summer and early fall. An admission fee is charged.
The Homestead was originally built in 1785. It was purchased by Bryant's grandfather, Ebenezer Snell, in 1789. The Homestead is set on a hillside above the Westfield River valley with views of the Hampshire Hills. Bryant bought back the family home in 1865 and renovated it extensively after it had been out of the family for about 30 years. The house is filled with Bryant's furnishings and mementoes. The site includes a stand of old-growth forest, a grove of 150-foot (46 m) pine trees, and nearly 200-year-old sugar maple trees.
The Homestead was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
Famous quotes containing the words william, cullen, bryant and/or homestead:
“While Darwinian Man, though well-behaved,
At best is only a monkey shaved!”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“Lord, I fashion dark gods, too,
Daring even to give You
Dark despairing features”
—Countee Cullen (1903–1946)
“These are the Gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
And fresh as the young earth, ere man had sinned—”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“Called on one occasion to a homestead cabin whose occupant had been found frozen to death, Coroner Harvey opened the door, glanced in, and instantly pronounced his verdict, “Deader ‘n hell!””
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)