Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804. His parents were Captain Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hawthorne. Nathaniel added the w to his name when he began publishing. He graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1825. While at college he became friends with the future President Franklin Pierce.

Between 1825 and 1850, Hawthorne wrote more than 100 tales for magazines. These were later collected and published in Twice-Told Tales and other works.

The Old Manse or minister's home was the place in which Ralph Waldo Emerson lived as a young man. From 1842 to 1845 Nathaniel Hawthorne rented the Old Manse. He wrote about the house and surrounding landscape that later appeared in his American Notebooks and Mosses from an Old Manse.

In the book, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, "Henry's friend pulled all the weeds in Mr. Hawthorne's garden." In real life Henry David Thoreau planted a garden at the Old Manse as a welcome/wedding gift for Hawthorne and his bride. The garden is still planted each year using seedlings from the original plants.

Click on the link to view the QuickTime movie. Hawthorne's Garden

From 1846 to 1849, Hawthorne worked in the Custom House in Salem, Massachusetts as surveyor of customs. It was in Salem that Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850 and the House of the Seven Gables, published in 1851.

Click on the link to view the QuickTime movie. Does Mr. Hawthorne like nature? Is he writing?

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Hawthorne's Stencil Plate
Courtesy of Cornell University Library
Nineteenth Century Periodicals Collection
The Salem of Hawthorne. [The Century; a popular quarterly. / Volume 28, Issue 1, May 1884]

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Wayside c1901
Courtesy of The Library of Congress

Nathaniel Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864 and is buried on Authors' Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery located in Concord.