Orchard House was for years the home of
the Alcott family where Louisa wrote and May painted and their father
studied philosophy. A broken rustic fence one of the last traces of Mr.
Alcott's mechanical skill forms the slight barrier between the grounds
at the Orchard House and Wayside, which Mr. Alcott bought in 1845 and a
few years later sold to Nathaniel Hawthorne who owned it at the time of
his death. The house is a strange mixture of the old and new, as the
rear part bears evident traces of antiquity, at the right were the
Hawthorne parlors and reception rooms, at the left of the entry his
library, sometimes called the den, and in front a small room with a low
window separates the dining room from the reception room and the whole
is crowned with a tower built by Mr. Hawthorne for a study where he
found the quiet and seclusion which he loved. Much of Mr. Hawthorne's
composition seems to have been done as he wandered up and down the shady
paths which wind in every direction along the terraced hillside, and a
small crooked path is still shown as the one worn by the restless step
of genius. Mr. G.P. Lathrop who married Rose Hawthorne sold the place to
Daniel Lothrop, the Boston publisher, who has thoroughly repaired it and
greatly added to its beauty by reverently preserving every landmark in
his improvements, and now in summer his accomplished wife, known to the
public by her _nom de plume_ of Margaret Sidney, entertains many
noted people at Wayside.
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