Historic Landscape

"I have been bullyragged all day...by the wildcat who is sodding the ground and finishing the driveway (after the sun went down)..."
--Mark Twain to Mother-in-law, Mrs. Olivia Langdon, September 1874

Landscapes, especially in cities, towns, and suburbs, always change, usually to the detriment of the things that are "part & parcel of Nature's handiwork," to borrow a phrase Twain used to describe his new home on Nook Farm. At The Mark Twain House & Museum, we've been doing some changing of our own, restoring the historic landscape around Twain's house and Carriage Barn to the way it appeared between 1874 and 1881.

Based on contemporary photographs and accounts from Twain's time, we have restored the gravel driveway, bluestone sidewalk that travels along the driveway to the Carriage House, as well as such plantings as vines and trees.

An important feature of the landscape-then and now-is the gravel driveway. Commentators of suburban landscapes from Twain's period viewed driveways as primarily functional, rather than aesthetic. Still, a driveway being necessary to convey family and visitors to the front door of the house, nineteenth century tastemakers recommended that driveways have graceful, curved lines which emphasize the picturesque landscape.

Unexpected, perhaps, to today's visitor is the reddish, sand-like appearance of the gravel material laid on top of the driveway at the Mark Twain House. Much of the gravel found on modern driveways today is made from machine-crushed stone and is hauled in by dump truck. In Twain's time, a horse-pulled cart hauling the gravel meant finding it from the nearest source, be it a quarry or river bank. The type of gravel used on driveways-and roads-varied from region to region. While our research has not revealed Twain's source for gravel, it is possible that it came from the nearby Park River (put underground long ago) or the Connecticut River. Regardless of the type of gravel, all historic gravel driveways required (and still do!) painstaking maintenance: raking the material to remove large stones and promote effective water drainage, applying an occasional top dressing of gravel, and ensuring the lawn shares a distinct and tidy border with the driveway.

With the contractor, or "wildcat," as Twain may have termed him, having completed the work of the historic landscape restoration, the Mark Twain House and Carriage Barn are once again ensconced in a natural environment more in keeping with what Twain and the architect, Edward Tuckerman Potter, had created in 1874.