Field Trips to the Romantic Era

Students in Romanticism and the Imagination, an upper-level history elective, recently traveled back in time via field trips to the homestead of poet William Cullen Bryant in Cummington, Massachusetts and the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
 
At the Bryant homestead, the class, led by teacher John Tyler, first observed the house and its style. Bryant had changed its original structure, adding an addition and a new floor—in fact, the house was raised off its foundation and the new floor inserted underneath the original two. In the reception area, glass cases included items such as Bryant’s walking stick, berry picking basket, and some of his father’s medical supplies. There were also a few poster boards with information about the lives of the servants.

Following a tour guide, the class saw the kitchen, pantry, dining room, living room, and Bryant’s office, each with original furnishings, including portraits and most of the original wallpaper and light fixtures. On the mantle behind the desk in Bryant’s office was a collection of stones that he picked up on his many walks on the property. Heading upstairs, students passed a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the guide said that Bryant and Lincoln corresponded, and that Bryant introduced Lincoln at his first speech when he was running for office. The guide also explained that Bryant had opinions on almost every topic and shared them openly, even with the president.

Students learned that Bryant was a health fanatic and used to vault over his bed in the morning as part of his daily exercise routine. He also walked the nearby rivulet trail almost every day. Dr. Tyler’s class decided to do the same, following the gently twisting rivulet, reading sign posts inscribed with Bryant’s poems, and imagining the poet taking the same route daily.

Built about a half-century later, Mount Auburn Cemetery provided lessons on history and landscape architecture. A special tour guide, Gary Hilderbrand of Reed Hilderbrand, the landscape architecture firm used by Groton School, spent an hour in his office teaching the class about the history of Mount Auburn Cemetery, explaining what it takes to maintain a cemetery that’s been around since 1830 and how one changes the grounds of a historic site while staying true to its initial purpose and design.

He then led the class to the cemetery itself and gave a guided tour, stopping to point out many of the beautiful tombs and explaining the significance of certain designs and carvings on the tombstones. Mr. Hildebrand also revealed the reasoning behind the placement of specific bushes and trees throughout the cemetery, making the class realize the amount of work and attention to detail that goes into maintaining the tombs, grounds, and foliage, and that every detail has significance.

The cemetery’s original purpose was to be a place to both appreciate the beauty and serenity of nature and to lay loved ones to rest. The integrity of the cemetery remains to this day; it is an escape from the bustle of our busy lives. Its winding and sloping paths are not set up in a grid; instead the paths take gentle twists and turns—encouraging visitors to take their time to wander through nature and appreciate the calm.
As most visitors do, the class longed to explore Mount Auburn Cemetery more, but the time came to walk back to our bus, and we left with reluctance, feeling lucky to have the intimate visit that we did.—Becca Gracey ’14
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