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Pages from Jean’s
Journal
March 12, 2006
Boston
The drive into Boston brought
me much apprehension, because of the day’s coldness and slight logistical
delays. It was my first time here: the raison d’etre of my taking
this six day trip.We were “there” at the drop off spot, a fancy new office
building, approximately two corners around from the Massachusetts
State House. We rapidly walked with the group to Boston Commons
and the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, designed by Augustine St.
Gaudens. We were met by a National Park Service ranger in uniform,
his winter one, I might add.
I felt right in my element,
having seen Glory, the film he queried us about to see a show of
hands of how many had seen it. I raised mine high, as I had seen Glory, seven
times probably. I have also been an interpretive park ranger, in
uniform, so that only enhanced my comfort level of the next three hours.
I revere Augustus Saint Gaudens, wishing just as I’d wished to go to
Boston that I could go to the National Historical Site which honors him,
in New Hampshire sometime.
Though I enjoyed every moment
of the lengthy talk at the Shaw Memorial and the Beacon Hill walking
tour, the most memorable part of the tour Ranger Smith led was arriving
at the Abiel Smith house, adjacent to Boston African American Meeting
House and hearing my classmates’ readings and also seeing the museum with
the held over William Lloyd Garrison exhibition.
There were photographs on all
three floors of the house, too many to absorb in our time there. The
effect was stunning, seeing all of the white and black, female and male
eighteenth and nineteenth century abolitionists represented in one place,
on the walls of the exhibit panels.
The striking design drew in the
museum viewer. At the conclusion of our time there, Dana Smith, our
guide, pointed out to me on the “African-Americans in Beacon Hill Map
(Antebellum Boston 1850)” several of the particular individuals he had
discussed as we made our way to the Meeting House: the Hayden place,
the John Coburn building, and on Pinckney Street where he started us out,
John Smith’s home, the Phillips School and Middleton. He also wrote down
on my map “Holmes Alley,” by which we made our way to the Meeting House
buildings, of Boston African American NHS.
The day for my friends and I
wrapped up near Faneuil Hall, since some neighbors had strongly suggested
to go there, and Quincy Market. In the darkness, a moonlight night,
though we passed by “15 State Street,” now made into a National Park
Service visitor contact station. The building formerly housed the
National Park Service Regional Offices, now instead located in
Philadelphia.
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March 13, 2006
Authors’ Ridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts
The day had turned even more gloomy as we disembarked the Schrock Tours bus and
entered Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. We made our way to the northeastern
part of the cemetery, known as “Author’s Ridge.” The first graves we
encountered were those of the Alcotts. It was all too much for me to
absorb at once, as earlier this day we had been to the family home of the
Alcott family, The Orchard House, and then, as we embarked to “the
ridge,” all of Concord writers and their family members were there
– in this cold place.
The Hawthorne graves and
Emerson graves (including those of all family members) were somewhat
easier to view, since the Alcotts bear so much personal knowledge for me,
for I have read so much of, in particular, Louisa May Alcott’s work.
I pointed out that the
gravesites of Elizabeth Peabody and those of Mr.and Mrs. Daniel Chester
French and Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Sanborn are there. Classmate Tracey
(Rissler), bless her, walked with me to those
sites.
Though I normally possess a
fantastic sense of direction, “finding everything by my nose,” I always
say, I deferred to Tracey every single day, since she has an exceptional
sense of direction.
I left the cemetery so edified
that I had seen the Church and Sanborn resting places, just as I’m
certain Dr. Tate felt the same satisfaction in seeing Elizabeth Peabody’s
grave. Peabody is buried in a single plot, just next to a road, with
other plots surrounding it on all sides.
This school year has brought so
many memories, seeing the Thomas Gallaudet statue by Daniel Chester
French in Washington, D.C., in November, and following our trip, I
learned that, Augustus Saint Gaudens and Daniel Chester French consulted
one another on the statue French sculpted with Saint Gaudens’ help, of
General Lewis Cass at the nation’s Capitol building.
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March 14, 2006
Walden Pond
Our collective day at Walden
Pond State Reservation was delightful, despite the cloudiness and the
fog. Students read their assigned Henry David Thoreau readings. All of this portion took place at the cabin replica,
the residence Thoreau resided at between July 1845 to September 1847.
This is where Ralph Waldo Emerson owned property he allowed Thoreau to
build and live on, with the requirement his
dismantle his quarters when he was through.
When I would recreate myself, I seek the thickest and
most interminable and most dismal swamp. I enter the swamp
as a sacred place – a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the
marrow of Nature. ~Henry David Thoreau
(From ‘TheWetlands,’ Nature Exhibit, Harpers Ferry National
Historical Park, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia)
I very much liked the Walden
State Park interpretation the park provided in the way of “Jeff,”
our morning’s guide. He had done his legwork, for he pointed out
that Monday, March 13, of 1857, the individual we hear so much of in
Jefferson County, West Virginia, John Brown, had spoken in Concord, at
the invitation of Franklin B. Sanborn, Concord resident, educator,
writer and abolitionist.
Walking the trail back to the
main portion of the reserve, Jeff pointed out the Amtrak train he had
heard coming. Just as the Transcendentalists who’d been on this path
before, we were also able to observe the train passing through, on its
way from Boston to Concord. After Thoreau completed his
experiment, Emerson sold the cabin to his gardener, who in turn sold it
to farmers, who stored grain in the building in Concord,
itself. In 1868, the cabin, then in Concord, was dismantled for
scrap lumber.
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