at Fruitlands Museum

1914–2014

100 Objects100 Stories 100 Years

100 Years

100 Objects100 Stories

at Fruitlands Museum

Fruitlands MuseumHarvard, Massachusetts

Shaker BoxesShaker Village, Harvard, Massachusetts | c. 1856 | wood, paint, copper nails

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The Fruitlands StoryFruitlands Museum from opening day in 1914 to the present and how our buildings, collections, and mission activities have grown and changed. The second half of the book focuses on the Museum’s collections through 100 objects and stories.

100 Objects, 100 Stories, 100 Years at Fruitlands Museum would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support of hundreds of our community members. I extend my personal thanks to the Fruitlands Museum Board of Trustees who believed in our vision for the Centennial Celebration and supported the plans we developed so quickly after I arrived at Fruitlands in 2012. Thanks also to the members of the Centennial Committee and the staff and project teams who have worked tirelessly on the Centennial exhibition and this publication, our first collections catalogue.

We are indebted to the members of our community who helped us pick their 100 favorite objects from our collection (from more than 6000 total objects across all five areas) and who shared their stories about their connections to these objects. We are grateful for the generosity of the donors who supported our Kickstarter campaign that provided partial funding for this book, as well as those individual and corporate donors who have helped underwrite the Centennial exhibition and the special programming that will take place between June 2014 and June 2015.

As we look forward now to the next 100 years at Fruitlands Museum, we do so with appreciation for the amazing foundation that we have in our strong collections that are the core of what we do and in even deeper appreciation for our community members who are the core of why we do our work. It is truly the community, the people, that bring museum spaces to life, and we are eager to see what wonderful stories we will build together in the years to come.

Thank you for being a part of our Centennial celebration.

— Wyona Lynch-McWhiteExecutive Director

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While travelling in Europe in 1895 with her mother, Sears sat for a portrait with Carolus Duran, the society painter who taught John Singer Sargent. Commenting on the results in her diary for that year, Sears notes, “He painted it in eight sittings + it is absolutely well fin-ished . . . As a likeness of me as seen in society, I think it excellent. Of course he is delighted with it + we are more than delighted, for besides being a likeness it is most beautifully painted” ( June 3, 1895). The whereabouts of the painting are unknown, though a photograph from the same year may be an image of the painting. Sears’ comments in her 1895 European travel journal reveal an intelligent, cosmopolitan observer, one who is aware that she maintains a necessary public persona that is not her complete self. She can also distance herself from the image to judge it for its artistic merits. She is becoming a collector.

It is only in images captured later in the 1940s, as she invites the public to her tea rooms or portrait gallery, that she offers a smile. Her snug collar and strands of pearls are correct but not ostentatious. Hardly the glamor-ous and extravagant pearls of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Sears displays ladylike accessories worn by a woman willing to have the attention aimed at her museum rather than herself. In keeping with the fashion of the day, she sports a generous flower corsage and a jaunty brimmed hat worn at an angle. These are not candid snapshots, even in the years when Kodaks were at hand, but, like the Duran painting, carefully posed portraits of Clara Endicott Sears, the chatelaine of a treasure house of New England history and art. She hosted luncheons to invite visitors to her museums, but otherwise largely preserved her privacy, remained unmarried, limited her intimate friendships, and invested her time in the work she made her mission at Fruitlands.

Her portraits, then, reinforce the impression of Sears as a woman brought up to enjoy unquestioningly the conventional behavior of wealthy Boston society even as she cultivated her curiosity and built her collections. Sears in 1917

and accessories. Ankle-length white dresses are topped with wide-brimmed hats; trim shoes or boots are just visible below the hemline of her skirt. She is upright, no-nonsense, pensive. The most appealing and person-able photograph captures her sitting on the steps out-side The Pergolas on a summer day, with a large dog at her side. Here the viewer catches a fleeting glimpse of an individual rather than a local celebrity.

Another snapshot comes from social historian Cleveland Amory, who interviewed Sears in the 1940s about “Proper Boston” before World War I. Describing such fashionable balls as the invitation-only Myopia Hunt Club gala, where “standard dress was scarlet coats and white knee breeches,” he notes that “Ladies who wore red dresses which would clash with the male scarlet were frowned upon, and accord-ing to Clara Endicott Sears, Boston authoress and her-self belle of many a Boston ball, they generally chose soft-colored tulle and looked ‘like clouds floating through the ballroom’ — certainly the Boston woman at her most ethereal.”4 This backward glance is among the few that reveal a confident, youthful woman at ease among her peers.

Another is her recollection of attending a lecture by Oscar Wilde, who visited Boston in June, 1882. Recalling the details in Snapshots from Old Registers (privately printed in 1955), Sears notes that his reputation as “the poet and apostle of aestheticism” raised Beacon Hill eyebrows for “rumors had come over here that he was not as straitlaced as he should be.” Curious and eager to see this literary lion, Sears attends the lecture and remembers his flamboyant attire, which included velvet knee breeches, rhinestone shoe buckles, a yellow bro-cade waistcoat and “a monstrous great sunflower as big as his head.” Of all that he said, what she records some 70 years later is his remark on the beautiful blue color of the Charles River. The adventurous eighteen-year-old had evolved into a comfortable Transcendentalist.

Photograph similar to the lost Carolus Duran painting

1949

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The Farmhouse1843 Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane

move to Harvard to begin Fruitlands

experiment.

1844 Fruitlands experiment ends.

1847 Joseph Palmer uses the Fruitlands

Farmhouse for his Freelands experiment.

1850 Freelands experiment ends.

1910 Clara Endicott Sears buys land in

Harvard, Massachusetts.

1912 The Pergolas, Sears’ home, is built.

1912 Renovations of Fruitlands Farmhouse

begin.

1914 Fruitlands Museum opens to the public.

1918 Harvard Shaker Village closes.

1920 Sears purchases the 1794 Shaker Office

from Fiske Warren.

1922 Shaker Museum at Fruitlands opens to

the public.

1927 Plans for the American Indian Museum

begin.

1928 American Indian Museum

opens to the public.

Milestones

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Many years later a curator found them this way and

decided to save them.

Thankfully, T. M. Bardin of London and his

family made globes of especially robust materi-

als, and they were completely salvageable. Early

globes are amazing three-dimensional objects

representing both art and science. The spheres

are a paper-over-plaster construction that, while

fragile, is also very stable. Gypsum plaster is inert

and doesn’t impart acidity or decay to those things

it touches. The paper the engravers chose for these

fine instruments was the best, and hand coloring

was done with natural water-based pigments. The

mahogany furniture and the spheres were finished

in a natural resin varnish. All the brass hardware

was engraved and polished.

So, after many painstaking hours, a lot of

research, and some fabrication, the pair were

brought back to their full functionality and beauty

as instruments. Finding a matched pair of globes

from 1836 in any condition is a marvelous thing.

Finding a restorable pair from a famous family

stashed in a crawl space is a miracle. It

was a privilege to conserve them.

Sometimes, the best thing that can happen to an

artifact is to be forgotten. If enough time passes,

an object can transcend the barrier of time and

become useful again, serving as a lens into another

place and time. Artifacts can clarify moments in our

lives, in the history of a town, a nation, or even the

world.

Lost in a storage area at Fruitlands was a pair

of T. M. Bardin’s 12-inch Terrestrial and Celestial

Globes constructed in 1836, with full mahogany

Queen Anne stands and built-in compasses. They

had made their way from England to America and

ultimately wound up in the possession of Amos

Bronson Alcott and his famous literary family in

Concord, Massachusetts. It is easy to imagine him

proudly using these finely made instruments to

show his students the breadth of the world and the

paths of the heavens.

Eventually the globes were sold to Fruitlands

Museum. Set on display for some time, they were

later stored away and forgotten. Over time the

joints on the stands fractured, a compass went

missing, the varnish darkened, and

cracks appeared in the plaster.

— Matthew W. Jones Bookbinder, conservator, globe specialist, Green Dragon Bindery, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts

Bronson Alcott’s GlobesS. Edkins, London | 1836 | Wood, metal, paper

Upstairs in the Farmhouse is a room dedicated

to the educational ideas that Bronson Alcott

brought to his Temple School in Boston. In par-

ticular there is a posted copy of the curriculum and

schedule of each class day. Having been a teacher,

there is one standout feature in this curriculum I

highly value: Conversation is a core instructional

method.

Alcott championed the Socratic method to help

children develop their thinking and arrive at more

personal ownership of their learning. He influenced

the public of his time with ideas valuing physical

education, the importance of recess, individual

student desks, nurturing imagination and giving

equal access across gender, race, and social class.

Today many schools more closely resemble the

ideals Bronson valued. Model classrooms use

essential questions when starting any new learn-

ing adventure. Conversations precede and follow

hands-on experiences and when delving into

depths of meaning in literature. Mottos such as

“hands on and mouths open!” and “accountable

talk” are guiding principles for engaging learners.

While his Temple School met a disastrous

closing, his ideas have stood the test of time, and

many contemporary educational leaders stand on

his shoulders to continue improvements in public

education.

— D. F.Harvard, Massachusetts

Unearthing images of schoolroom interiors that

date from the 1830s and 1840s is no easy task.

As a fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in

the summer of 2010, I spent my days poring over

gift annuals, school committee reports, broadsides,

and the occasional lucky find: an illustrated edition

of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow complete with an

engraving of Ichabod Crane in his schoolhouse, or

sheet music covers for long-forgotten songs such

as The Schoolmaster: A Very Popular Glee.

I was researching school architecture for my

dissertation, The Transcendental Schoolroom:

Childhood Education and Literary Culture in

Antebellum America, taking Bronson Alcott’s

Temple School as a case study. Journaling, conver-

sation, and the philosophy of pedagogical space

that evolved out of Alcott’s school not only continue

to inform our ideal version of American education,

Temple School JournalsMartha and George Kuhn | 1835 | Charcoal and chalk

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Alcott Girl’s Doll c. 1840 | Cloth

Among the various items in the Fruitlands

collection attributed to the Alcotts, none are

more intriguing than this little cloth doll. A mere six

inches tall, it is a very simple early nineteenth-

century cloth doll seemingly made from some left-

over rags, exactly the kind of toy you would expect

one of the Alcott girls to have had, given the relative

poverty in which they were raised. We found it in a

box stuffed into a dusty corner of the archive some

years ago along with some other items: an envelope

addressed to Louisa May Alcott, a card showing a

cat playing a fiddle, a broken gold locket, and a few

miscellaneous scraps of paper. This little doll has

always reminded me of the Velveteen Rabbit: well

worn by the love it inspired in the children who

played with it, stashed away and forgotten by its

original owner, but never discarded, and eventually

recognized as something special and preserved.

— M. V.

Louisa May Alcott’s youngest sister May is the

basis for the character of Amy in Little Women.

May Alcott was an accomplished artist at a time

when few American women had careers outside

the home. She studied at the Museum of Fine Arts

in Boston in 1859, and taught art to a young Daniel

Chester French who would become an acclaimed

and prolific sculptor. She studied art in Paris,

London, and Rome. In 1878 she married Ernest

Nieriker, a Swiss tobacco merchant sixteen years

her junior, and died in childbirth just one year later.

— M. V.

May Alcott Watercolors (above) Copy of a Turner Seascape | c. 1875 (right) Italian Street | c. 1875

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When the Fruitlands Farmhouse was set up as

a museum in 1914, Clara Endicott Sears gath-

ered together a large variety of significant mate-

rials, including original manuscripts associated

with the Alcotts and other Transcendentalists from

before, during, and after the Fruitlands experiment.

The collection contains primary source documents

created by the family members as well as materi-

als from Henry Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Emerson,

Hawthorne, G.W. Cooke, and John Dwight, among

others. Fruitlands became something of a liter-

ary shrine to the Transcendentalist movement,

and in the early years many of these documents

were on view in the farmhouse exhibits. Over the

years a host of scholars have used the collection

to advance academic research on the American

Transcendentalist movement.

— M. V.

Alcott Family Manuscript Collection1800–1900 | Two linear feet of various papers and ephemera

Susan Robinson’s Temple School ReceiptA.B. Alcott | 1839

Susan Robinson was the young daughter of a

fugitive slave who had safely made it to Boston

by 1839. The Alcott’s Temple School was famous

by this time, first for its revolutionary pedagogy,

and then for the controversy created by the radi-

cal ideals of its founder, Bronson Alcott. Inspired

by his friendship with William Lloyd Garrison, and

against other advice, Alcott enrolled Miss Robinson

in the Temple School to be educated alongside

white children. He even discounted her tuition by

75 percent. This outraged Bostonians, and most

parents removed their children from the school.

Although the school was then forced to close, Alcott

continued to tutor Miss Robinson for another year.

— M. V.

The Gardner family lived on Still River Road

from 1806 to 1866. It was a busy household, and

they hosted parties frequently. Though the guests

at most of the parties were adult ladies and gentle-

men, there was one notable exception in the spring

of 1844.

Three children were present on that day:

13-year-old Alfred Haskell, Walter Gardner, age 11,

and young Louisa May Alcott, also 11, whose family

had been living in a run-down farmhouse in the

intervale. Louisa was the second of four girls, with

a lively imagination and a bit of a willful way about

her. On this particular occasion she was wearing a

white apron on her head trailing down her back, in

a pretend wedding ceremony with Walter. But sud-

denly Louisa changed her mind and announced, “I

am never getting married,” and away she stomped.

Ironically, the tea set used that day in the mock

wedding ceremony ended up in the cupboard of

the very farmhouse where the Alcotts lived, donated

to Fruitlands by one of the Gardner descendants.

— C. P.

Gardner Tea Setc. 1820 | Pink Lustre English transferware

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According to museum records, this is the

original plow used during the Fruitlands

experiment to plow the ten acres of land the group

was able to cultivate. According to records, it was

operated by Fruitlands members since no animal

labor was allowed. The plow is of the so called

“lock-colter” type, known commonly during the

period as a “bull plow.” Progressive farmers during

the 1820s and 30s would not have used this type

of plow; it is very much an eighteenth-century

implement and would have been uncommon by

the 1840s.

— M. V.

Alcott’s Plow1780–1830 | Wood, metal

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The Shaker Office

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The Shaker Office Building, filled with wooden

boxes, brooms, shoe molds, and chairs, is a

gem among the Fruitlands buildings. Serene and

quaint on the outside, it stands out against the

green backdrop of trees and distant fields. As an

intern for Fruitlands, I had the pleasure of working

with the unique Shaker materials housed in this

building. I spent many hours inventorying, packing,

and cleaning the wonderful objects that lay within

its walls, ranging from hand-crafted boxes, Shaker

cloaks hanging on the walls, herbal remedies and

spices, to the large textile looms displayed in the

Sisters’ Room. There was always a new discovery

within the collection and something to be learned

about collections management, procedures, and

processing.

— Rebecca Ellis Syracuse, NY

Very few Shaker signs are still in existence. It is

hard for us to believe today, but like so many

choice Shaker journals and objects, this sign was

found in a rubbish heap by Clara Endicott Sears

after the Harvard Shaker Village had closed. She

recognized its significance immediately. “Public

Meetings Closed” was made during a period in

the mid-nineteenth-century known as Mother’s

Work or the Era of Manifestations, an intensely

spiritual time for the Shakers that corresponds to

what is called the Second Great Awakening. Shaker

religious services at the time involved dancing

and singing, and some members would speak in

tongues, channeling messages from the dead or

divine spirits. Attendance by the public distracted

the Shakers from these spiritual matters and led

them to close their worship services to visitors for

a number of years.

— M. V.

Public Meeting Closed SignShaker Village, Harvard, Massachusetts | c. 1845 | Tin, wood, paint

Shaker Village Food Labels Shaker Office BuildingBuilt 1794, moved to Fruitlands in 1920, opened in 1922

My first memory of Fruitlands was more than

50 years ago when, as part of a group birthday

party of ten-year-old boys from Littleton, we visited

what we called the “Indian Museum.” My enduring

memory is of the dioramas, which captured my

imagination of the early Nashoba settlement and

Mary Shepherd’s abduction during King Philip’s

War. I was fascinated to see the Indian relics,

especially King Philip’s war club.

As a teenager, I visited again with different

interests. My early mentors, William and Shirley

Lawton Houde, introduced me to a different view

of Fruitlands —a view that was to develop into

a lifelong passion. Shirley and her father Frank

Lawton were long-time antique dealers and sold

Miss Sears a number of Shaker pieces, including

the Elder Myrick chest, Shaker seed boxes, the large

workbench (now at Hancock Shaker Village) and

other wonderful things. Like many, I was fascinated

by the beauty and simplicity of the Shaker design

and the craft skills used to make these objects.

Thus began my love for the Shakers, woodworking,

and local history that led me to a career in historic

trades and preservation.

In recent years, I have come to own a Shaker

building that I moved to my home and restored.

My building is similar in size to the Harvard Shaker

Office and was also used as an office. The Museum

became a source of much valuable information,

and having access to these resources and collec-

tions has been invaluable.

I have returned to Fruitlands many times as a

visitor, concert goer, and craftsman. Today I drive

over Prospect Hill many times per week and marvel

at the view and landscape of the valley below. I

often stop for a moment and look to the north and

west and think of those dioramas and how this

landscape and its history captured the imagination

of a young boy.

— Robert AdamShirley, Massachusetts

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I first visited Fruitlands Museum back in 1971 to

collect research for my Master’s thesis on Shaker

music notation. Ten years later I returned, and with

the encouragement of former Museum Director

Richard Reed, I completed an edition of all the

music from the book written by Clara Endicott

Sears titled Gleanings from Old Shaker Journals.

My collection was titled The Happy Journey. It

was published in 1982 and was “Publication #1”

by Fruitlands Museum.

There were 35 Shaker spirituals in that col-

lection, but only one of them was a hymn, titled

The Happy Journey. It was taught to the Harvard

Shakers by Joshua Goodrich from Hancock in 1808

and was written down in their distinctive alphabet

music notation that they called the “letteral system.”

I transcribed the hymn into modern music nota-

tion, and it has been performed numerous times in

concerts and was recorded on the CD Love is Little:

A Sampling of Shaker Spirituals.

I still remember my visits to Fruitlands to do

research and admire the appealing arrangement

of buildings, especially the 1796 Shaker Office that

Clara Endicott Sears had moved to the grounds in

1920 after the Harvard Shaker Village had closed.

That building with many fine Shaker artifacts,

including a very handsome Sarah Bates spirit

drawing, which I included as an illustration in

The Happy Journey music collection, is always a

welcome stop when I visit there. Over the 30 years

since its publication, that collection has helped me

continue on my “happy journey” of sharing Shaker

music with others.

— Roger L. HallMusic preservationist and singer, Stoughton, Massachusetts

This delicate, ivory-handled pen has a five-point

nib designed for drawing the musical staff. In

their earliest recorded songs, the Shakers used a

musical notation scheme based on a system that

dated back to medieval times, which was eventu-

ally abandoned in favor of the system in use today.

Thomas Hammond used this unusual pen, made

for him by Isaac Newton Youngs at Mount Lebanon,

to make blank five-line musical staves on which

he recorded many Shaker songs. Like many other

Shakers he traded songs with people and was an

avid music collector, sharing what he learned dur-

ing the village worship services with other Shaker

communities. This pen must have been one of his

most cherished possessions.

— M. V.

Shaker Spirit DrawingSarah Bates, Mount Lebanon, New York | 1845–1846 | Paper, ink, paint

This Shaker spirit drawing, entitled Wings of Holy

Mother Wisdom, Wings of the Heavenly Father

is one of nine related works attributed to Sarah Bates

from the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village. It is part of

the Era of Manifestations or Mother’s Work period, a

time during which many Shakers received spiritually-

inspired visions, spoke in tongues, and had other

experiences. Sister Sarah received these inspired

drawings from a spiritual influence, which were

channeled through her onto paper for expression to

the Shaker community. This drawing was a gift to

Clara Endicott Sears from Sister Catherine Allen of

Mount. Lebanon in 1918.

— M. V.

Musical Notation PenI. N. Youngs, Mount Lebanon, New York | 1826 | Fruitwood, metal, ivory

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This hanging case of drawers was probably

used for storing sewing and knitting materials.

Even a diminutive utilitarian case of drawers like

this one provides a rich example of Shaker design

and craftsmanship. With two larger drawers on the

left and three on the right, the case exemplifies the

ways Shaker craftsmen use proportion and symme-

try in their furniture designs. Hidden within, there

is quite intricate dovetailing of all drawers at the

front and back.

— M. V.

Hanging DrawersShaker Village, Harvard, Massachusetts | c. 1850 | Pine, red wash, brass

Harvard Shaker Ministry DeskAlfred Collier, Shaker Village, Harvard, Massachusetts | 1861 | Pine, maple, chestnut, original green painted finish

This standing desk was made by Brother

Alfred Collier for Elder Grove Blanchard over

the course of about six months in 1861. By the

time the desk was made these two brethren had

known each other for 30 years; Brother Alfred

had become a Shaker at age eight in 1831 when

Elder Grove was already in the Harvard ministry.

A decade later, Elder Grove selected Brother Alfred

to be a Chosen Instrument during the Era of

Manifestations, one of only five and the youngest

brother to be selected. Besides managing the

farm for the village for 20 years, Brother Alfred

learned the fine art of woodworking and by 1860

had mastered the craft. The desk has a remarkable

bright green wash, with details and hardware

that show some worldly influences. (Ironically,

three years later, other more lascivious worldly

influences forced Elder Grove to expel Brother

Alfred from the Shakers.)

— M. V.

Shirley Shaker Ministry Desk Shaker Village, Shirley, Massachusetts | c. 1860 | Wood, metal

The Harvard and Shirley Shaker Villages formed

a bishopric and were managed by the same

Ministry Elders. This desk was used by the Elder

and Eldress while in the Shirley Shaker Village; they

probably shared the desk, which may explain why

there are two drawers on the top tier.

— M. V.

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Native American Collection

HerbariumElisha Myrick | 1857 | Paper, plant materials

The Herbarium was an essential tool to document and teach plant

identification in the Harvard Shaker Village, considering that the

main industry of the village was selling herbs. This very rare herbarium

of plants grown and gathered by the Harvard Shakers, compiled by

Elisha Myrick in the early 1850s, has 157 pages, each containing a plant

pressing and a handwritten taxonomic name.

Brother Elisha gained some attention for his expertise—besides

interacting with notable botanists in Boston and Worcester, he was

recognized by Kew Gardens in England for his knowledge of botany.

— M. V.

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First Nations families on the Northwest Coast celebrated occasions with

dances and feasts held in large lodges built to accommodate large groups

of celebrants. Each lodge contained an assortment of decorative totems that

included symbolism relating to the various nations, clans, and families in

attendance, particularly the host. Some of the most impressive objects were the

large feast bowls, like this example, known as lukwalil, or “feasting dish on the

floor of the house.” Like most Northwest Coast art forms, these feast bowls were

carved in the shape of animals and supernatural beings. The foods they served

were typically fish oil and various kinds of meats and berries, both fresh and

preserved. Winter dance ceremonies and potlatches reinforced and strength-

ened tribal relationships through the redistribution or sometimes destruction

of wealth. The status of a family was raised not by who had the most resources,

but by who gave the most away.

— M. V.

Northwest Coast Potlatch Feast Bowl Kwakiutl, Northwest Coast | c. 1880 | Wood, polychrome, metal

Woven by women of the Salish and Tlingit tribes of the Northwest Coast,

Chilkat dancing blankets were made from a variety of materials including

cedar bark, mountain goat wool, dog hair, and plant fibers. Men designed the

blankets by painting the geometric patterns on a special board. Ritual dancers in

various ceremonies, including the Potlatch, traditionally wore Chilkat blankets.

This blanket was made for a child to use during ceremonial dancing rituals,

which involved dancing, drumming, and spirit raising by a shaman.

— M. V.

Chilkat Blanket Northwest Coast | 19th century | Textile, cedar, wood

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This fine example of early Southwestern pottery

(left) was probably made between 1900 and

1920. The design is a bird with flowers, a common

motif in Southwestern pottery, but what sets this

example apart is the size of the vessel, the vibrancy

of the colors on both the outside and interior, and

the quality in the execution of the design. Pottery

was made in the Southwest for thousands of years,

and these traditional skills enabled native commu-

nities to transform a time-honored craft into the

emerging market economy. Since this vessel does

not have any wear on its rim that would suggest

everyday use, we assume it was probably made for

sale.

— M. V.

Effigy CanteenZia Pueblo, Acoma | c. 1900 | Ceramic, paintIn the arid environment of the desert Southwest,

there can be great distances between sources of

water, so ceramic canteens are important to the

Native American people in those areas. Canteens

like this (right) were made all over the Southwest

by Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo people, and eventually

became important items for sale, enabling tradi-

tional forms and designs to survive. The design of

this particular canteen is very traditional, with two

lugs for a fabric or rope strap and a narrow neck that

probably once had a corn cob stopper. The deer form

is a bit unusual, though; typically deer motifs have

an arrow-shaped line from the mouth into the body

of the animal, and may also have a geometric shape

within the center of the body.

— M. V.

Southwest Effigy Olla Acoma, Southwest | c. 1920 | Clay, polychrome paint

Pima Maze Tray Pima, Southwest | c. 1900 | Willow shoots, devilclaw

When I was working on a design for an

outdoor labyrinth for Fruitlands in 2003,

Mike Volmar, the curator, called me excitedly

and said, “I think there’s a basket with a

labyrinth design in the Native American

collection.”

The design is what the Pima

people of Arizona call Man in the

Maze. Tight, even rows of alternat-

ing dark and light fibers spiral into

the center. They cross the perpen-

dicular lines that emanate out from

the midpoint as if traversing the

sun’s rays radiating from the source.

Perfectly round and flat, this beau-

tiful Pima basket in the Fruitlands

collection might have once been once

used in a sacred ceremony. There is a

quality of stillness and balance that the

fine workmanship conveys.

This indeed is a true labyrinth, a teaching.

Mazes have dead ends, and travelers must often

retrace their steps and start over. A labyrinth is a

continuous journey to the center and back out. The

seeker might feel that the journey is taking forever,

its circuitous path leading quickly to the center,

to that very thing they are seeking; but then lead-

ing almost back to the beginning. Again, around

and around they must go, never giving up, until

imperceptibly, they have arrived at their goal. If they

pause along the way, there is the past behind and

the future in front —but nowhere else to go, only

the present moment.

Though no one knows for sure where this

particular design originated, it is clearly impor-

tant because the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian

Community uses it for its Great Seal. Recognizing

its significance, I chose to use this design to create

the large outdoor labyrinth at Fruitlands. Visitors

can experience its teachings as they walk the stone

and grass labyrinth on the hill.

— Linda HoffmanHarvard, Massachusetts

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The youngster stood transfixed at Fruitlands before a model of nine

young tribal men sun-dancing around a pole at high noon. Who

were they? Why had each pierced his own flesh? How could they?

The boy matured, learned to speak Spanish, and visited Mexico. He

eventually confessed to his family, “Now I know what I want to be.” As a

Northeastern College of Nursing co-op student, he earned a full summer

job in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Hospital’s emergency room. Pine

Ridge is the national, political, economic, and cultural headquarters of

the Indian Nation. It is located near South Dakota’s Black Mountains,

tempting to a White Mountains climber. He accepted the job.

Later, when he would return to the Massachusetts hill town where he

first studied the model sun-dance, he would revisit Fruitlands’ western

views of layered monadnocks and lush green valleys.

— Jean McCroskyHarvard, Massachusetts

American Art

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Art

Growing up in Harvard, I visited Fruitlands

Museum on occasion with school groups

and family, but it wasn’t until my college years that

I really got to know the place. While studying art

at Southeastern Massachusetts University in the

1970s, I worked summers at the Museum. My duties

were primarily of the grounds-keeping and janito-

rial variety, but there was plenty at Fruitlands to fuel

my growing interests in nature and art. Outdoors,

I could pause from the mowing to savor the calls

of meadowlarks and bobolinks drifting across the

fields. From the Museum collections I gained an

appreciation of American Indian art and Shaker

design.

But it was in the Art Gallery that I found

the greatest inspiration. My favorite duty was

carpet sweeping the big rear gallery, lined with

large Hudson River landscapes. My favorite was

Bierstadt’s oil of San Rafael, California, but canvases

by Fisher, Church, and Kensett also vied for my

attention.

Little could I have guessed, back in those college

days, that in the future my own paintings would

hang on the museum walls! “Birds” was the theme

for 2010, and I was asked to mount a one-person

show in the Wayside, along with an educational

display in the Ell gallery. Best of all, I was invited

to be the 2010 Artist-in-Residence! Through the

spring, summer, and fall I visited Fruitlands regu-

larly, producing thirty finished watercolor paintings

of birds, butterflies, plants, and landscapes. Two of

those paintings are now in the permanent collec-

tion. My connection to Fruitlands, begun so long

ago, had come full circle.

— Barry Van Dusen, ArtistPrinceton, Massachusetts

San Rafael, California Albert Bierstadt | c. 1875 | Oil on canvas

Americans’ belief in the country’s “manifest

destiny” was reinforced by the grandeur of

Albert Bierstadt’s huge panoramic paintings of the

lofty Western mountains. Bierstadt, the flamboy-

ant showman, painted immense landscapes, some

as large as 10 x 15 feet. This scene of the California

Coastal Range at San Rafael (right) is painted in

the style called Luminism, a style that is unique to

the second generation Hudson River painters. A

golden color from the hot summer sun suffuses

the landscape in a divine light that seems to radiate

out from within the canvas itself. Bierstadt probably

painted this landscape shortly after his third trip to

the West between 1871 and 1883.

— Michael Volmar Chief Curator, Fruitlands Museum

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Mt. Ascutney from Claremont, New HampshireAlbert Bierstadt | 1862 | Oil on canvas

Painted during the Civil War, this painting may

be interpreted as a transition between the

idealism and promise of the young nation in the

first half of the nineteenth century and the rise

of the ravages of the Industrial Revolution in the

second half. Characteristic of Albert Bierstadt in size

and scope, the painting shows how humans in 1862

are beginning to alter the pristine wilderness of the

tranquil upper valley of the Connecticut River. Men

are cutting hay and building stone walls to fence in

their grazing animals, and in the center foreground

is the stump of a large tree that may be seen as

symbolic of civilization’s destruction of the earth.

Nature was no longer worshiped with the awe-

inspiring reverence of the early settlers, and it was

to be harnessed and channeled later in the century

to run America’s emerging industries.

— M. V.

This collection of two portraits, a chest and

a series of letters document the courtship

between Jonathan Dodge Wheeler and Elisabeth

Davenport. Not long after their wedding, Elisabeth

died of consumption, as her pallid complexion

and the dark circles under her eyes foretell. When

Jonathan later remarried, this portrait pair was

retired to an attic, replaced by pendant portraits

of the new Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler. A descendant

discovered the portraits more than a century later,

accompanied by the chest full of love letters, a little

purse and this note: “This Pocket Book was my

dearest beloved’s and it is as she left it in her draw

when she died & left me heart broken. I will come

soon. J. D. W. Nov. 25.”

— M. V.

Davenport Wheeler CollectionAlvan Clark | 1829 | Two portraits and a trunk filled with letters

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View of the Hudson River from West PointRobert Weir | 1869 | Oil on canvas

My family has deep roots in Harvard, and I

grew up down the road from the Museum.

I became more interested in my own family history

when I worked at Fruitlands as one of four young

women hired by William Henry Harrison, who was

the curator at the time. We were assigned to any

building to give tours. We spent afternoons sitting

on the grass listening to him tell stories about the

history of Fruitlands. It was wonderful!

Several items in the Museum are favorites of

mine. One is Mother Ann Lee’s chair, upstairs in

the Shaker Museum. I worked at the Museum for

four summers during college and spent a lot of

time sitting next to that chair. Another favorite is

the Hudson River painting of the Palisades, which

always fascinated me; I think of that painting often

when I experience the beautiful and brilliant land-

scapes of this country and places around the world.

— Joan BlueStoneham, Massachusetts

Upper Hudson Thomas Birch | c. 1828 | Oil on wood panel

This small, intimate glimpse of nature is an

unusual painting by Thomas Birch, an artist

from Philadelphia who specialized in seascapes.

He painted historic marine engagements between

American and British ships during of the War of

1812 and many other romantic scenes of action and

life at sea. Exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy

of Fine Arts along with Thomas Doughty and Alvan

Fisher, Birch was among the major early landscape

painters who inspired young Thomas Cole to create

America’s first native artistic style, the Hudson River

Landscape School.

— M. V.

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The Landscape

Need landscape photo (could be a long panorama that goes across spread...

White pine bends

under the wind’s slow hand,

exhales in fecund clouds.

—Susan Edwards RichmondPoet in residence, 2007

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Rooster Weather Vanec. 1850 | Gilded molded copper and lead

This rooster weathervane graced the barn at

100 Prospect Hill Road for many decades. Made

from molded copper, zinc, and lead and then gilded

with gold leaf, it is possibly a Hamburg Rooster

Weathervane made by L. W. Cushing & Sons of

Waltham, Massachusetts, an important company

that manufactured weathervanes in the United

States between 1865 and 1933. Besides roosters,

manufacturers also made weathervanes featuring

other farm animals, famous race horses, and archi-

tectural and patriotic designs. Some of the earliest

weathervane forms in America —such as the grass-

hopper atop Faneuil Hall in Boston —were inspired

by forms that date back to ancient Greece.

— Michael Volmar Chief Curator, Fruitlands Museum

Objects “speak” of history, of beauty, of cre-

ation, of love. Museums are the repositories

of what we consider objects of permanent value.

It is no coincidence that marauding armies attack,

destroy, or steal objects collected within an enemy’s

museums: these objects are our heritage. Raid my

museum and you steal those items I value most.

Yet museums are more than objects. The value

of the Fruitlands collections is greater than the sum

of the individual objects because the collections

also represent ideas.

We are bound by those ideas as well. Our histo-

rians and the Shakers, the Transcendentalists, the

landscape painters all examined and celebrated the

heritage of a farming tradition and a connection to

the land. Most of the landscape painters depicted

a lush and peaceful countryside from promontory

views that emphasized the insignificance of man

in contrast to God’s abundant earth. Those allegori-

cal Hudson River School paintings are really about

a landscape made by man. The wilderness is over

there—someplace else—hinted at in the distant

views of the paintings, if depicted at all.

The difference between the wild and civilized

man was once thought to be the latter’s belief

in God. Comprehending God in nature was the

essence of Transcendentalism, yet even they felt

an affinity for the untamed. Thoreau mourned

the loss of untrammeled nature. The popularity of

landscape paintings encouraged people to visit the

places that had been so inspirational. People flocked

to the upper Hudson Valley or the White Mountains

seeking temporary renewal. They dreamed of living

in the midst of pastoral grandeur.

Our vistas have shrunk, diminished by suc-

ceeding generations carving up the landscape for

their own use. We long for the oases of respite. I am

bound to the land. Like many before me it restores

me. Climbing mountains is no longer a pastime

for me; those breathtaking promontories require

energy and legs I no longer have. But I have come

to cherish the intimate landscapes that can provide

opportunity for reflection rather than awe. The

epiphany that comes with a sigh of recognition

does not need an overlook.

When we started what is now the Freedom’s

Way National Heritage Area, we set out to examine

if others felt as we did. What we discovered was

that all of us felt a similar bond that was expressed

by integrating the land, our ideas, and our history.

Fruitlands is the center of Freedom’s Way. It is also

a museum that recognizes how the landscape can

become a collection in its own right and there-

fore another dimension of the collection of things

we value most. Most importantly, it provides us

with the chance to take a moment and see what is

around us all over again.

— Marge DarbyHarvard, Massachusetts

The Old Meadow

He, who knows his way, stops seeing.

—Korean Saying