Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1899-07-27
Americas Greatest Novelist and the
Places he E>Ios Made Memorable.

II a popular vote could be taken, it
would probably be established that in
the minds Of the American people the
greatest author America has ever pro-
duced was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ger
tainly no greater novel than "The
Scarlet Letter" has ever been produced
by any of our countrymen, and few
novels in the English language surpass
it in human interest and insight. Every
intelligent visitor to the ancient town
of Salem is sure to ask to be directed
to the old house at 81 Union street
where Nathaniel Hawthorne first saw
the light of day on the 4th of July, 1904.
The house is q small clapbOarded
building, with the big single Chin
ney that characterized the homes of
long ago. 1t was evidently built with
out any regard for show 1t has eight
rooms and there is a small garden or
yard back of it. Directly back of it
is the house in which Hawthorne lived
with his widowed mother and sisters
after his return from Bowdoin College.
Here in an atmosphere utterly lacking
in anything stimulating or inspiring
Hawthorne wrote his "Twice-Told
Tales" and here in a dimly lighted
and cherries room he wrote: "In This
Dismal Chamber Fame Was Won" 1t
is but few steps from this house to
the Salem custom-house, where Haw-
thorne spent some years in most I'M
congenial work, against which his spir-
1t chafed, but which he could not give
up because of his poverty. His en-
Vlronment here was so dreary and de-
pressing that one wonders how it could
ever have been the scene of one of his
most charming and picturesque bits of
autobiography. Near by is the ia
nous town pump made immortal by
Hawthorne's pen. 1t is not far to the
old graveyard referred to in Doctor
Grimshawe" The House Of the
Seven Gables" is near at hand. and it
is thought that the Matthew Maule of
the story of the Seven Gables" had
his prototype in a certain Thomas
Maule referred to in the annals of Sa-
lem. This Thomas Maule was a de-
spised Quaker, and the records of Sa-
lem show that in 1869 Samuel Robin
son and Samuel Ira Locke were fined
twenty shillings each for entertayninge
Of him" Other names mentioned in
the annals of Salem were undoubted-
ly the originals of some of the charac-
tiers in Hawthornes stories. At the
Essex Institute in Salem may be seen
the old desk at which Hawthorne
worked in the custom-house, and on
the lid of which he one day scratched
his autograph with his thumb nail. In
the custom-house one may see the
room i'll which, so says tradition, THE
Scarlet Letter" was found. 1t was in
Hawthorne's day at the custom-hou
an unfinished room full of barrels and
boxes packed with old papers, letter
and records of every sort
Salem is rich in memories of Haw-
thorne 1t was here that his mighty
genius developed It was of his old
room in his house back of the one in
which he was born, on Union street,
that he wrote: IF ever | have a BIZ
ographer, he ought to make great men
ton Of this chamber in my memories,
because so much Of my lonely youth
was wasted here, and here my mind
and character were formed: and here
have been glad and hopeful, and here
I have been respondent, and here / sat
long, long time, waiting patiently for
the world to know me, and sometimes
wondering why it did not know me
sooner or whether it would ever know
me at all. BY and by the
world found mt out in my lonely
chamber and called me forth-not,