Happy Birthday to Nathaniel Hawthorne and the country!

An American author born on the Fourth of July. What could be better for this holiday weekend?

Nathaniel Hawthorne (4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts as Nathaniel Hathorne and one of his ancestors was a judge during the Salem Witch Trials, known for his harshness in questioning the accused. Hawthorne added the “w” to his name, possibly to distance himself from this ancestor. After his father died in 1808 the family moved to Raymond, Maine, to be near his mother’s family. He attended Bowdoin College beginning in 1821, graduating in 1825. There he met future president Franklin Pierce and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Hawthorne contributed stories to many publications and his college friend Horatio Bridge financially helped him publish a collection in 1837 called Twice Told Tales. In 1839 he accepted a position at the Boston Custom House. He married Sophia Peabody in 1842 and they had 3 children. They first lived in The Old Manse in Concord and here he wrote stories published as Mosses from an Old Manse. His first novel The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850.

The family moved to Lenox and there Hawthorne met Herman Melville, with whom he became good friends. While in the Berkshires he wrote The House of Seven Gables. He also published more stories and another novel The Blithedale Romance. During the Pierce administration Hawthorne was appointed U.S. Consul in Liverpool. After his tenure there the family toured Europe and returned to the U.S. in 1860. He published his last novel The Marble Faun that year. Several other novels were unfinished at his death in 1864.

The portrait of Hawthorne as a young man (above) hangs in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. One of the nice things about growing up in Maine was its proximity to Massachusetts and all the historic sites there. I was able to not only visit the Peabody, but saw Hawthorne’s birthplace, the House of Seven Gables, the Witch House (all in Salem), and his home in Lenox (near Tanglewood). I’ve read most of Hawthorne’s novels and stories and seeing all these places brings them to life. How fortunate America is to have produced this man of letters.