Learning About Boston's Schoolmaster Hill

From Dave Brigham:

As ruins go, the remnants of the superintendent's office in Boston's Franklin Park are about as clean, beautiful and well-built as you'll find.

Located in the heart of the park, overlooking the public golf course, the ruins are the main attraction of Schoolmaster Hill, so named because 200 years ago, this area was home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, his brother and his mother. In his early 20s at the time, the man who would go on to become an inflential preacher, writer, lecturer, poet and philosopher was working as a teacher in Roxbury.

While he didn't live here long, the time he spent in what was then the very rural area known as Canterbury influenced his life. "Emerson spent his spare time walking, reading and writing in his journal," according to Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Schoolmaster of Franklin Park, a book published in 1980 by the Franklin Park Coalition. "The journal entries give a good picture of how Emerson felt about living in Canterbury. And it is from these books that we learn whether the solitude of the woods and meadows was beneficial to the confused, bored young man."

The book quotes Emerson's journal: "I never saw a country which more delighted me. A man might travel many hundred miles and not find so fine woodlands as abound in this neighborhood."

Designed by Frederick Law Olmstead in the late 19th century, the 527-acre Franklin Park, which also features a zoo, a stadium (about which I will write in the near future) and old bear dens (see December 18, 2019, "Having a Bear of a Time at the Zoo"), "is the largest and last component of the Emerald Necklace created by...Olmsted," according to Wikipedia. "Although often neglected in the past, it is considered the 'crown jewel' of Olmsted's work in Greater Boston.

I had the ruins to myself on the late fall day that I visited. I found the stone walls -- amazingly untouched by graffiti -- to be pleasant photography subjects. I wandered at my leisure, comforted by the far-off sound of golfers hitting their drives, chatting with each other and gently revving their carts.

The property was "[o]riginally 'covered by vines on trellises and furnished with tables and seats,' [and] also provided complimentary hot water for visitors to make tea," according to this National Park Service web site. "A multi-use building, it at one time housed the superintendent's office and served as the golf course club house."

There is a plaque on a boulder memorializing Emerson's time here, and sharing some of his poetry.

Make sure to check back for my write-up of Franklin Park's White Stadium, which stands to change drastically in the near future, and another post about features of the park.