Hawthorne's Legendary House of Seven Gables

When I discovered that the infamous Salem Massachusetts, was an easy train ride from Boston on my second visit to New England, I had to go. And as... more

by Mark E Tisdale

Title

Hawthorne's Legendary House of Seven Gables

Artist

Mark E Tisdale

Medium

Photograph - Black And White Photo

Description

When I discovered that the infamous Salem Massachusetts, was an easy train ride from Boston on my second visit to New England, I had to go. And as much as I loved Boston, Salem was every bit the quintessential New England landmark I had expected. While it was a modern city, it was packed full of heritage like the famous House of The Seven Gables, pictured here!

It was the dead of winter, and I was literally one of only three people who took a tour of this literary legend, but Salem in February is probably not on everyone's itinerary. But it should be! Look at that fab light and those gnarly limbs reaching into the winter skies above Salem. What a treat!

The House of The Seven Gables itself turns out to be rather interesting. It's made famous of course by Nathaniel Hawthorne's seminal work, The House of The Seven Gables. The thing is the house today looks neither like it did in Hawthorne's day nor as it looked in Colonial times. Hawthorne's description was based on stories told to him. The house had been altered much by his day and was further altered by the time in more recent history when it was saved from the wrecking ball.

It's a story I've heard over and over about places restored in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Rather than restoring it to its original appearance, they restored it to a very romantic notion of what they believed a colonial house should look like. Normally, the history nerd in me is bothered when buildings are not kept true to their historic character. Yet in a weird way, this all fits for me this time. The novel was fiction and even the legendary House of The Seven Gables has become a fictional representation of the past. And a beautiful one at that, don't you think?

Straight from the pages of a book...

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December 6th, 2012