Charles eliot norton house ashfield massachusetts

Lecturer, Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Editor, Travel Writer.

The Curtis House is named for George William Curtis, who along with his wife Anna Shaw, called this home in the summers.

Curtis was born in Rhode Island and educated in Massachusetts along with his older brother James, an influential figure in his life.

Charles eliot norton house ashfield massachusetts map

When Curtis was a teenager, the family moved to New York City where he began a clerkship. Due to his growing interest in the Transcendentalist Movement, Curtis, along with his brother, resided for two years in the utopian community at Brook Farm.

It was at Brook Farm that Curtis met, learned from, and was influenced by the notable residents and visitors of the place, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Anderson Dana, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, Theodore Parker, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was to become a strong influence on his thinking.

Curtis eventually left Brook Farm and began a period of travel that took him through Euro