Arrowhead (Herman Melville)
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Arrowhead (1780) was the home of American author Herman Melville during his most productive years from 1850-1863. In this house Melville wrote his best work: the novels Moby-Dick, Pierre (dedicated to nearby Mount Greylock), The Confidence-Man, and Israel Potter; a collection of short stories entitled The Piazza Tales and including "I and My Chimney," "Benito Cereno," "Bartleby the Scrivener," and "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids"; all his magazine stories; and some of his poetry. It is now a non-profit museum operated by the Berkshire County Historical Society, and located at 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Melville made his first visit to Pittsfield in 1832 to visit his Uncle Thomas. There he fell in love with his uncle's farm, particularly the view from the farm house window of Mount Greylock, highest point in Massachusetts. His annual visits continued until 1850, when Melville decided to move his family to Pittsfield permanently.
In 1850, Melville was invited to picnic on Monument Mountain south of Pittsfield with two other literary notables and Berkshire residents, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville and Hawthorne struck up an instant friendship, and Melville decided to follow Hawthorne's lead. Within a week had purchased the farm adjacent to his uncle's, and named it Arrowhead after relics he discovered while plowing.
Melville incorporated homely features of Arrowhead into several stories. The piazza, after which The Piazza Tales were named, was added to the (most mystifying) north side of Arrowhead shortly after Melville purchased the property:
- Now, for a house, so situated in such a country, to have no piazza for the convenience of those who might desire to feast upon the view, and take their time and ease about it, seemed as much of an omission as if a picture-gallery should have no bench; for what but picture-galleries are the marble halls of these same limestone hills?--galleries hung, month after month anew, with pictures ever fading into pictures ever fresh.
And "I and My Chimney," published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine (1856), contains a home-owner's description of the grand old farm house:
- It need hardly be said, that the walls of my house are entirely free from fire-places. These all congregate in the middle--in the one grand central chimney, upon all four sides of which are hearths--two tiers of hearths--so that when, in the various chambers, my family and guests are warming themselves of a cold winter’s night, just before retiring, then, though at the time they may not be thinking so, all their faces mutually look towards each other, yea, all their feet point to one centre; and when they go to sleep in their beds, they all sleep round one warm chimney.
Melville lived, farmed, and wrote at Arrowhead for 13 years, but during that time, although he was writing his best work, he was not making a living from his writing. With the need for gainful pay, Melville finally returned to New York City where he found work as a customs inspector at the New York Customs House, a job he held for over 20 years, working six days a week with only two weeks of vacation a year.
Melville sold Arrowhead to his brother Allan who used it first as a summer home and then moved there permanently. Melville continued to visit Arrowhead through the 1880s. The Melville family owned the house until 1927. In 1975, the Berkshire County Historical Society purchased the house and began its restoration.
