Experiencing The Wayside as Hillside, Home of the Alcotts

BY SUSAN BAILEY

Nothing brings historical figures to life more than visiting where they lived. The popularity of house museums such as The Wayside and Orchard House attest to that premise. By peering through windows, touching the walls, walking the floors, and observing artifacts, the tour can transform into a pilgrimage.

Although the setting of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is Orchard House, The Wayside is where much of the action takes place. The Alcotts owned the property from 1845-1852, naming it Hillside. Because the house has been renovated many times since 1852, it is difficult to imagine how it appeared during the time of the Alcotts. Fortunately, because of the work of Margaret Lothrop and Minute Man National Historical Park, writings describe Hillside in detail, both inside and out. Another vital document by ten-year-old Elizabeth Sewall Alcott provides an eyewitness account of daily life at the home. Her record of the three years she lived there is her only surviving journal and provides another look at how the “little women” lived.

So that you, too, can envision Hillside, this article includes a plan of the first floor labeled to conform to how the Alcotts used each room. Anecdotes from Lizzie’s journal, other family members, and their student boarder, Frederick Llewellyn Willis, add some color. Armed with the knowledge mentioned above and a little imagination, one can piece Hillside back together into the glorious and much-admired Alcott homestead.

Original floor plan courtesy of Minute Man National Historical Park with labeling by the author.

ADDITIONS AND RENOVATIONS / OLDER GIRLS’ BEDROOMS AND BRONSON’ STUDY

Initially, Hillside was a small 145-yearold colonial with two to three bedrooms. Bronson enlarged the structure using a wheelwright shop on the property. Along with his carpenter friend Edmund Hosmer, Bronson cut the shop in two and grafted the halves onto the east and west sides of the house. He added a porch to the front and a peak to the center of the roof.1 The western addition created two first-floor bedrooms, one for Anna and the other for Louisa, plus a study for Bronson. The east wing included a bathing room, laundry area, and woodhouse. According to Abba Alcott, the bathing room accommodated a “tub and shower bath fixed with weight and pulleys so that even Elizabeth [could] give herself a bath without help.”2

KITCHEN

Enlarging the kitchen requiring removing a wall between two smaller rooms (one of which could have been a bedroom). The fireplace with an oven, since rebuilt, represents the area where Abba did her cooking. She noted that “I have had the water brought into the kitchen and a new pump—had the well cleaned out and stoned round it.” Lizzie frequently wrote in her journal “of cleaning the knives and from time to time of ironing, of sweeping the sitting room and washing the hearth, or of washing the dishes.”3

UPSTAIRS BEDROOMS

The original entrance (since closed off with a bay window) opens to a stairway built by Bronson that leads to the east chamber where all four girls slept until Anna and Louisa got their own rooms. The sisters played out parts of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress on these stairs, carrying their burdens. The bedroom contains an old colonial fireplace which conceals a space that the Alcotts may have used to hide slaves making their way north.4

Front stairs where the girls played The Pilgrim's Progress

Photo courtesy of the author

Bronson and Abba occupied the west chamber, a favorite play space for Lizzie and Abby May, as noted in Lizzie’s journal: “We played have a ball and danced;” “We played with our dollies in mother’s chamber;” “After dinner, I washed the dishes and Catherine, and Abba and I played in Mothers’ chamber. I was a sick lady and Abba was a doctor.”5

DINING ROOM

Back on the first floor, the dining room (presently the sitting room) stands to the left of the stairs. Willis recalled Bronson’s “table talks” during meals where the former educator made metaphysical topics understandable to the youngest listener.6 During breakfast, Bronson read scripture and sang hymns with the girls. His diary mentions Lizzie discussing the reading with him; sometimes, the girls would copy verses into their journals.7

The dining room doubled as the schoolroom where Bronson conducted two hours of study per day. Lizzie’s diary documented arithmetic lessons involving multiplication and long division. She wrote lists of spelling words and copied poems. In the study of botany, Lizzie viewed flower parts under a microscope. Geography involved drawing maps, including one Lizzie drew of Hillside. Journal writing required writing a description of her day on a slate; once approved by Bronson, she would copy it into her journal with perfect penmanship.8

PARLOR

The parlor (currently the dining room) is on the east side. Willis described the space as “an expression of inherent simplicity and charm” “with its pretty chintz curtains, its cool matting, its few fine engravings, its Parian busts of Clytie and Pestalozzi, . . . its books and cut flowers, and its indescribable atmosphere of refinement.”9 Here the older girls sewed while their mother read from Scott, Dickens, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Shakespeare. Each week, the family gathered in the parlor where Bronson read aloud his daughters’ journals. Lizzie was too shy to have hers read, and he respected her feelings.10

LANDSCAPING

Like the home, the property, too, was transformed. In 1845 the run-down dwelling was situated on a treeless gravel lot. Bronson’s daily journal entries describe how he beautified the property with shrubbery, lush gardens, terraces, and a summer arbor. Taking the children with him, he went to Walden Pond and surrounding areas and dug up flowers, shrubs, and trees to transplant. Bronson transformed the barren yard into a haven while providing needed privacy. Regrettably, time eroded these enhancements. The final blow was the hurricane of 1938, which destroyed most of the transplanted trees. One surviving memento is a stone stairway leading to the steep hill and the terraces that once existed. The girls often used this hill to playact scenes from The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Louisa May Alcott drew much of her material for part one of Little Women from the family’s years at Hillside. I hope this article will help you experience The Wayside as Hillside during your tour. Let the rooms, stairs, walls, floors, and windows speak to you about the sisters and their daily lives in this historic home.

The Wayside as it appears today

Photo courtesy of the author

NOTES

1Matteson, John, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, p. 176. W. W. Norton & Company: Illustrated Edition, November 17, 2008., p. 173. 2Lothrop, Margaret M., The Wayside: Home of Authors, p. 46-47. American Book Company: 1968. 3Ibid, 48, 52.4Ibid, p. 48. 5Alcott, Elizabeth Sewell. MS Am 1130.9. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. A.MS. “Diary 19 April-4 October 1846,” (24), Saturday, August 29, Tuesday, September 8, Tuesday, September 29. 6Linn, Edith Willis Linn, Willis, Frederick Llewellyn Hovey, et al. Alcott Memoirs, Posthumously Comp. From Papers, Journals and Memoranda of the Late Dr. Frederick L. H. Willis. The Gorman Press: Boston, 1915, p. 25. 7Lothrop, The Wayside, p. 52. 8Ibid, p. 52-53; Alcott, Elizabeth Sewall, journal. 9Willis, Alcott Memoirs, p. 25. 10Alcott, Amos Bronson, Diary for 1846. Vol. XX. Concord, Mass., April (no date). MS Am 1130.12.IV. (15).

Susan Bailey is the author of two books (Louisa May Alcott: Illuminated by the Message and River of Grace) and webmaster for the Louisa May Alcott is My Passion blog.