A New Eden

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I talked about the way the American Renaissance of the 19th century, as some scholars call it, centered in the tiny town of Concord, Massachusetts.  It was the epicenter of so much, including the start of a political revolution with a "shot heard 'round the world" as Emerson coined it.  But this area of central Massachusetts was also the gathering place for many groups looking to create a new Eden on earth.

It began in the late 18th century with the Shakers who founded a community in Harvard, a town close to Concord, and it continued with the disastrous experiment of Bronson Alcott at Fruitlands.  I visited the farmhouse yesterday in blistering heat that literally drained the life out of me as I climbed the hill.  There is also a building from the Shaker community that was much more successful, lasting from 1781 to 1917.  Alcott's experiment only lasted 7 months.

This area is also the current home of a monastery and two convents.  I stayed at St. Benedict the Benedictine abbey in Still River which is a village in the town of Harvard.  I can see why so many chose this area to build their Edens for the beautiful long view to Mt. Wachusett and the peaceful river valley are indeed heavenly.  Henry Thoreau passed by the old WIllard Farm, which now houses the abbey, and remarked that the view of the mountain from there was one of the best he'd seen. But on the other side of the river is Ft. Devens and daily we could clearly hear the retorts from their firing range.  As one of the monks said, "the sounds of war in a place of peace."  How appropriate.

I move on to Mystic, Connecticut this morning and I am hoping for a bit of relief from this heat but I leave this area reluctantly nonetheless.  It is for me, and for many before me, a place of heavenly peace.

"Humanity must ever reach out towards a new Eden." - Clara Endicott Sears, Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands