Travel: Author Louisa M Alcott’s home town of Concord
This year marks the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, making it the perfect time for a literary tour of her home state, Massachusetts
After driving through beech and sugarmaple forests, punctuated by dry-stone walls and clapboard houses, it’s a thrill to arrive in Concord, Massachusetts, a town steeped in American literary and revolutionary history.
The first view is of the old cemetery on a steep hill next to an equally ancient church and steeple. It’s only a step away from the Old North Bridge, where ‘the shot heard round the world’ was fired, at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War in 1775.
Concord was a centre of the war effort, and also the location of a 19th-century literary revolution led by writers
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Locating Louisa
Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, also lived in Concord. She and her family moved frequently, but they
settled in Orchard House , staying from 1858 to 1877.
This is also where the fictional March family, modelled on Louisa’s own parents and siblings, reside in Little Women. Louisa based the stubborn character of Jo on herself, and Meg, Amy and Beth on her sisters.
Orchard House stands on 12 acres of land and is now a museum so, for Louisa fans, it’s thrilling to visit the home where she grew up and wrote her books. A very independent woman for her time, Louisa May had all the freedom and encouragement she needed to develop her writing talent.
The family’s modest three-bedroom home still has original features, furniture and personal memorabilia intact. Her sister Elizabeth’s harmonium survives, as does Louisa’s half-moon-shaped desk, built by her father between the two front windows of her bedroom. Salem and The House of the Seven Gables Salem is a historic maritime town known mainly for the appalling witch trials of 1692. In Liberty Street, you can still see the moving memorial to the 20 who lost their lives during the witch hunts.
But Salem is also where Nathaniel Hawthorne was born. His book The House of the Seven Gables was inspired by his cousin Susannah, who lived there and suggested he write a book about the house’s history. It proved so popular that fictional parts of the house mentioned in the book – such as a secret entrance and hallway leading up to the attic – were physically added later!
Captivating Cape Cod
Cape Cod’s historic villages include Provincetown at the top, on a spit jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. This is where the Mayflower, the ship carrying the English Pilgrims, first made landfall in December 1620, after its long voyage from Plymouth.
Another fascinating village is Sandwich, where you’ll find The Belfry Inne and Bistro. Housed in a former Catholic Church, several of the inn’s rooms have original stainedglass windows. Nearby is the uniquely shaped Hoxie House – arguably the oldest property on the Cape. Further along is the still-working flour mill.
The 10-acre Mass Audubon Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary, Barnstable, is not to be missed. Its marshy coastline is home to horseshoe crabs, and you could also spot sea snails slithering across the sand and even an oyster farm at low-tide. Barnstable Oyster farm supplies the Fishermen’s View Seafood Market & Restaurant in Sandwich.
At the south end of Cape
Cod, take the ferry from Woods Hole to the picturesque island of Martha’s Vineyard. Here you’ll also find the exceptional Nobnocket Boutique Inn, offering the best breakfast around. The southwest end of the island features the stunning clay cliffs of Aquinnah. The cluster of shops is run by the Wampanoag tribe, which has traded here for centuries.
Getting there
From £1,499pp, based on a room-only rate and two people sharing, you can spend two nights in The Belfry Inne, Cape Cod, one in Nobnocket Boutique Inn, Martha’s Vineyard, two in Aloft Lexington near Concord, and two at Salem Waterfront Hotel & Suites. Includes car hire and return flights from London. To book, call American Sky on 01342 886762 or visit americansky.co.uk.
For more information about New England, visit discovernewengland.org.