Seven Gables

 

As kids, we played a rummy-like card game called "Authors."  Do you remember it?  The game required a special deck, with four cards devoted to each of several (usually eleven to thirteen) famous authors. 

The authors were those that young Americans were apt to know, predominantly American, but some British as well.  The four cards devoted to each author each contained the name of one of the author's books.  The book names were for didactic purposes only -- they played no part in the game.

I remember well that one of the authors was Nathaniel Hawthorne.  And one of his books was The House of the Seven Gables.  I've read some of Hawthorne's work -- The Scarlet Letter as both a student and an adult.  The Marble Faun, which I remember only vaguely as being set in Italy.  A number of his many short stories.  But Seven Gables?  I started it once, and I got bogged down.  I was more interested in the house than in the story.    

Which leads me to my four-day visit to Boston, from which I returned late last night.  Boston once more greeted me with rain on arrival, but quickly changed to sunny days in the upper 70s and low 80s.  And so Tuesday seemed like a good day to hop the Red Line from my inn near Harvard, change to the Green Line at Park Street, and end up at North Station.  Whence a half hour commuter train ride ended up in Salem -- home of seventeenth century Puritans, the famous witch trials, and the real, actual, house of the seven gables.

Salem was the greatest port in North America for a number of years, and the house is located on the waterfront.  It's a short walk from the train station (unless you combine over-reliance on your phone's GPS with daydreaming and lack of common sense, in which case you add another three or four miles). 

The house is as atmospheric as a romantic like me could ever hope for, although now enclosed in a compound, together with a few other famous Salem houses that were moved here to avoid destruction, including Hawthorne's childhood home.  To enter the enclosure, and see the house's interior, I paid $16, which includes a guided tour (well worth the fee) of the house.

I can't tell you much about the novel, since I haven't read it, but I can quote from Wikipedia:

The novel follows a New England family and their ancestral home. In the book, Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement, and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft.

But I can tell you that the house itself -- while not too similar to a Hollywood haunted house, or to something occupied by the Addams Family -- is strange enough in appearance that I can see how it inspired Hawthorne.

The house was built in 1667 by Capt. John Turner, and was occupied by him, his son, and his grandson, the latter of whom lost the house and the family fortune to bankruptcy.  Capt. Turner's original house was quite small, but the house grew as his fortune grew.  The guide showed us building block models of  how various sections of the house were added, and at times subtracted.  His son made the house more elegant, adding early Georgian features to the interior.  At its largest, it had 17 rooms occupying over 8,000 square feet. 

After the Turner bankruptcy, the house was obtained by the Ingersoll family, who were cousins of Hawthorne.  The Ingersolls "modernized" the house, removing four of the gables.  Hawthorne lived as a roomer for over a year in the house, before being evicted (according to the guide) for non-payment of rent.  The house had only three gables while he lived in it, but his cousin Susannah Ingersoll talked to him frequently about the house's history and its former appearance.

Thus inspired, Hawthorne wrote The House of the Seven Gables in 1851, recreating in the novel his understanding of the appearance of the house in its heyday.  The house's real hero was Caroline Emmerton (simply "Caroline" to the house's fans), who bought the house in 1908, intending it to become a museum, and largely restored it to its eighteenth century grandeur.  She rebuilt the portions of the house that the Ingersolls had removed, including all seven gables. 

Also, inspired by a feature in the Hawthorne novel (again, I haven't read the novel, so I'm relying on my guide's word), she built a secret stairway that never had actually existed in the real house.  The guide opened a small "closet" door on the first floor, which revealed an incredibly narrow and steep spiral, brick staircase, built into and/or around the central brick chimney, that totally by-passed the second floor and ended up in the attic.  We were warned not to attempt it if we suffered from claustrophobia, but all 17 members of our not-all-that-young-or-fit guide group gasped and giggled their way to the top.   Eventually.  Another guy and I admitted to each other that we would love to build something similar in our own house.

Not only has the house itself been restored to the high point of its occupancy by the Turners, but insofar as possible it has been furnished with antiques acquired from or donated by other museums and owners of ancient homes in New England.  I'm not an antiques fancier, but the furniture and household goods items were fascinating to look at.

Will I try once again to read The House of the Seven Gables?  I'm not sure.  The book itself might be anticlimactic after wandering through the eponymous house.  My time might be better spent building a hidden staircase in my own home.