The Homestead is a Federal-style brick house built in 1813 by her grandfather. She was born there, spent fifteen years elsewhere in town, and returned in 1855 to stay.
Her room faced southwest over Main Street. The writing surface was an 18-inch square table. She wrote at night, sewed the poems into small hand-bound packets, and stored them in a chest that her sister found after her death.
It is the strongest case ever made that the significance of a room has nothing to do with its dimensions.
Memories attached to this place
“She'd lower a basket of gingerbread from the window to the children below rather than come down.”
“The hedge between the two family houses was the whole of her commute.”
“White dress, second floor, lamp burning long after the street was dark.”
Timeline
- 1813Built by Samuel Fowler Dickinson.
- 1830Emily born in the house.
- 1855The family returns; she rarely leaves the property again.
- 1886Dies at home; the packets of poems are discovered.
Eighteen inches of tabletop outlasted everything else on the street.
