A.B. Paine's farm house

A few thoughts...still working it out.
Before Stormfield there was Albert Bieglow Paine's farmhouse in the country. On August 1, 1905 Paine buys his country home in Redding for nine-hundred dollars (in today's money about $17,000, still a bargain). The property consisted of two tracks of land, the main house, barn, shop and other buildings, 31 acres in all. The property was purchased from Edith and Harry Lounsbury and Grace W Boughton. It was Harry Lounsbury who showed the property to Paine. Lounsbury later plays an instrumental roll in the maintenance of Stormfield and is one of the witnesses to Mark Twain's will. I think Paine's book on Thomas Nast, the editorial cartoonist (Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures, published in 1904), provided the money for his move to Redding. The Nast book was also the wedge that allowed Paine the opening he needed to become Twain's biographer. So without the Nast book, there would be no Redding Mark Twain.

The Canyon

This is the remains of a stone bridge over Nob Crook Brook. The road to Georgetown was to the right. Behind the camera position is today's route 107. The bridge was on Twain's property. He loved to sit here and gaze into the gorge. The cascading water eventually joins the Suagatuck river below, in what's called the Redding Glen.

Nob Crook Brook chasm...If a friend came, he was willing to walk much further; and we often descended the hill in one direction or another, though usually going toward the "Gorge," a romantic spot where a clear brook found its way through a deep and rather dangerous-looking chasm...He liked better to sit on the grass-grown, rocky arch above and look down into it, and let his talk follow his mood. ABP

The Paine Farm....Dwellers in Arcady

Albert Bigelow Paine and his family moved to Redding sometime during the late summer, early fall of 1905. In 1919 he published a little book called "Dwellers in Arcady": the story of an abandoned farm. This is a somewhat fictionalized account of the 12 years the Paine family lived in Redding. Not surprisingly there is no mention of Twain. It's about his family and although fiction reads very much like an autobiography.  This short book is set in the fictional Connecticut town Brook Ridge. But there is no doubt that this is the place the Paine family called home. As you may know Paine and his wife Dora are buried in Umpawaug Cemetery, less than a mile east of the farm they loved.

Paine's stone wall

Albert Bigelow Paine and his family lived in a house behind this stone wall on Diamond Hill road. Paine's Home: "We passed through some woods and came out near my own ancient little house. He noticed it and said: The man who built that had some memory of Greece in his mind when he put on that little porch with those columns." ABP

He talked astronomy a great deal...

Twain loved astronomy. "He was always thrown into a sort of ecstasy by the unthinkable distance of space, the supreme drama of the universe. The fact that Alpha Centauri was twenty-five trillions of miles away -- two hundred and fifty thousand times the distance of our own remote sun and that our solar system was traveling, as a whole, toward the bright star Vega...." ABP From his hilltop home Twain had an unobstructed view of the sky. I can imagine him sitting by the loggia with one of his small cigars staring into the Milky Way stretched out before him.

James

Dangerous Intimacy

I've just finished reading the last two chapters of Karen Lystra's book, Dangerous Intimacy: The untold story of Mark Twain's final year. It's a fascinating reappraisal of Twains last years. Is it closer to the truth? Only the cat knows for sure. James

The walking Twain

It's early on a Saturday morning and I'm sitting at the kitchen table. I'm waiting for one of my daughters to make me an egg sandwich. She's learning how to cook and I get asked if I want an egg a few times a day. As I was waiting for the egg to arrive I was thinking about how I missed walking the hills around Stormfield. This year's snow has made this all but impossible. Maybe snow shoes next year. It was the physical Mark Twain that attracted me. I might have called the project the "Walking Mark Twain". When he wasn't playing pool with Pain, I believe he enjoyed Stromfield the most when he was walking his property, taking hikes or riding through the Redding Glenn in his carriage, especially during the summer of 1908. Redding, for the most part, has preserved the Redding of Twain's day by protecting the land and acquiring open space. Not out of respect for Twain exactly, but to safe guard the town's rural quality. We should all be thankful. "Would you like another egg", asked my daughter.

James

Mark Twain - a few thoughts

Looking back 100 years requires a bit of imagination. There was less noise and Americans were not far removed from there countries or counties of origin and of course, long distance travel was earth bound and expensive. We thank that unknown group of bureaucrats who saved the Danbury train line. After the war, the automobile was king. There was little money for trains and branch lines became an endangered specie.

At the moment I'm involved in a multi-episode entertainment program for a major cable Channel. Corporate television is about hard deadlines and efficiency's up and down the production process, usually at the expense of content.

What brought me to Twain and what kept me thinking about Twain, was the railroad. The first footage I shot was the train to Redding, not a through train from Grand Central Terminal, but the connecting branch line train from South Norwalk. Forgive me if I've gone over this territory before, but it's the train that pushes and pulls the story of Twain to its conclusion. The death of Twain and the carriage of his body back to New York on the same tracks and just possibly by the same engine that brought him to Redding roughly 22 months before. And so it goes. No train, no Twain in Redding. He would have died in New York.

I have been looking for the flesh and blood Twain. Outside of that one strip of film taken by the Edison Company. The one where he walks around Stormfield and has tea with his daughters. There are no other moving images and no sound recordings, although we know he made a few recordings using a wax recorder. None have been found. Where to look. Well, a good place to start is with the work of Hal Holbrook. Holbrook built a second career on impersonating Twain. This is not to be taken lightly. He studied everything Twain. His research and his respect for Twain's words are well known.

Stormfield Notes: Stormfield construction contract signed January 20, 1907 Ground breaking: Isabel Lyons, H.A. Lounsbury, a Mr. Turner and two construction contractors (W.W. Sunderland of Danbury) met with John Howells (architect), Pain and William R. Coe, to turn over the soil with shovels and pour in a little whiskey in the hole. August 1907 house construction halted by Twain. If the house was abandoned then it would cost him $15,000, half the cost of the completed house. (multiply by 22 to get the cost in todays dollars = $330,000)

Miss Lyon wrote: The building of the Redding house is stopped again-or we are trying to stop it. Since his return from England Mr. Clemens has been troubled about lilving so far away-or worse still having to live alone out there for Santa cannot be with him now, and he musn't be with Jean. MT: God's Fool page 182

TwainProperty3

Yes, Stormfield burned to the ground in the early 20's, but a similar style home was built on a portion of the same foundation. There is even a loggia on the north side of the house as in the original. The field, to the right of the entrance, is a meadow to this day. The property is managed by the Redding Land Trust which keeps certain sections in open space condition. Some of the views of the countryside surrounding Stormfield were probably still intact in 1934, when this photo was taken. Today the view from the back of Stormfield is completely obscured by trees. With the loss of the family farm, the town's tree population has returned to pre-revolutionary condition.

Mark Twain, on the road to Stormfield

It's about a third of a mile from the north gate to the house. It was the route he took to the train station and on to the city. And the road he traveled down to see his Redding home for the first time. You can easily imagine Jean ridding her horse down the unpaved road on her way to the post office and the hearse taking her body to Elmira, New York for burial. It was the road Albert Paine walked to visit Twain for an evening of pool and stories. And the road to Isabel Lyon's home, just outside the gate.

James

a brook cascaded down the hillside...

"A little farther on a brook cascaded down the hillside, and he compared it with some of the tiny streams of Switzerland, I believe the Giessbach" , (Mark Twain: A Biography by Albert Bigelow Paine, Chapter 268). The brook cascades down the northern side of Diamond Hill road, emptying into the pond created by the mill-dam on the Saugatuck River. The photo was taken from behind one of the homes on Diamond Hill. The stream drops about 100 feet from the small plateau near where today's Mark Twain Lane begins. The cascading stream (with few trees to obscure it) would have been highly visible to Twain on his right, as his carriage climbed the hill on the way to his new home.

James

Mark Twain, Stormfield Winter

With the children in tow, I drove up Mark Twain Lane to the northern entrance to Stormfield. I took a few photographs while the children played on the snowy road and woods that bordered the property. They managed to climbed out on a fallen tree that had crossed one of the many trails that wind through and around Stormfield. We've had over 40 inches of snow this month. I'm told it's a record for January. This is the entrance, complete with gate, that Twain used that first day at Stormfield. James

The old train station

Im off to Arizona for a week to work on a non-Twain video project. The above photo of the old train station will remind me of home whenever I long for wind swept snow; cold nights and a leaky kitchen roof caused by ice filled gutters. On second thought I'll think of the children. I'm taking this book with me: "Mark Twain Social Philosopher" by the late Louis J. Budd. I started reading a few days ago and am looking forward to finishing it I  before I return. It's a fascinating study of Twain's development.

James

Falling Water

Mill dam as weather barometer: ice indicates a period of below average temperatures and water flow tells us of an adequate supply of moisture. James

First Storm of the Winter

On the morning of December 24, 1909, Samuel Clemens' 29 year old daughter Jean died. The cause of death was most likely heart failure during a seizure. She suffered from epilepsy. Her body was taken to Elmira, New York for burial. She would rest next to her mother Olivia, her sister Suzy and her infant brother Langdon. When her body left stormfield, late on the afternoon of December 25th, it began to snow. Clemens watched as the hearse moved slowly down his country road: "From my window I saw the hearse and carriages wind along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come back any more".  Tonight I can hear a storm raging outside my window. I can feel the wind buffeting the house, up to 50 miles an hour, according to the experts. This is a still from some of the footage I shot early in the afternoon. It had been snowing about an hour. It was very peaceful, but cold. It's a little after eleven pm now and there's at least a foot of snow out there. I expect another 6 to 8 inches by morning. It's a true New England nor'easter working its way up the coast. Looking forward to playing in the snow with the family (a nor'easter is when the wind backs out of the north east bringing with it a lot of precipitation.

James

Coopers Hawk

I believe this is a Coopers Hawk. It was hanging around our bird feeders. I assume it was waiting for small prey and wasn't at all interested in the black sunflower seeds. There's nothing subtle about this bird looking for dinner.

James

The Autobiography of Mark Twain volume 1

I'm reading Twain's newly published autobiography. I often read non fiction books (for research) by beginning with the last chapter. Among other things, it gives me more clues to the authors approach. Then I jump around. Twain's autobiography makes this way of working unnecessary. He does the jumping for you. From the Autobiography of Mark Twain. "Finally, in Florence in 1904, I hit upon the right way to do and Autobiography: start it at no particular time of your life; wander at your free will all over your life; talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale, and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting thing that has intruded itself into your mind meantime."

One more thing. I didn't happen at first, but the more I read, the more I began to understand. Not the details of his life, they were plane enough, but his thinking. We can't get inside Twain's head. But this piece of work gets as close to the stream as you're likely to get without wetting your socks. James

(continually updated program outline)

Program Outline 1A - Updated Dec 10, 2010

I've begun to order my thoughts. It's linear. Very unlike Twain's recently published autobiography. The outline is my script. I've already begun to shoot "B roll" based on my original concept. But the outline is where I begin to construct the fabric of each chapter. As you can see I've a lot of chapters to research. That said, the outline will undergo many changes as I construct the story of Twain's final two years. I also plan to interview people who own pieces of Twain's property today. They are part of Redding as was Twain. They have much to add to my story of the Redding Mark Twain. (I will be updating this list from time to time and it will appear in future blogs). *First Introduction Twain's family 21 Fifth to Grand central Grand central to Redding Redding to Stormfield Welcome to Redding Dan Beard and friends Who is Albert Paine/autobiography Isabel Lyon (quick history to June 1908) Stormfield: the house and grounds (Howells-Architect-NewYork/Sunderland-Builder-Danbury) That first summer (the angelfish) This train stops in Redding on its way to the Berkshire's The Guests 1908 The Burglary September 18, 1908 "Innocence" becomes "Stormfield" The Pubic Library *Second Introduction Jean Clemens Clara Clemens Close Friends Managing the house The Lobster pot The walks (various) William Dean Howells (Stormfield) Angelfish Elephant Christmas 1908 The Guests 1909 Hellen Keller January Jean arrives (April 1909) Isabel and Ashcroft HH Rogers Isabel dismissed April 15 1909 Jean returns April 26 1909 Death of Henry Rogers May 19 1909 Edison Film Paine moves into Stormfield Markland (today) Lobster pot (today) October wedding Bermuda Jean’s death Final entry in the autobiography 1910 Bermuda The End of a writer's life Last journey to New York The estate and probate Twain's biographer's Isabel Lyon Clara and her daughter The Mark Twain Library Redding 100 or so years later/Mark Twain Lane dinner

Who was Mark Twain

Notes for video segment

We begin in New York. We're outside what was once his home at 21 fifth Avenue (now a large apartment building). It's June 18th, the day Twain travels to Redding to see his new home for the very first time. At Grand Central, Twain and his biographer Albert Paine board one of the new electric commuter trains newly mandated by the State legislature. They would leave on the 4pm Berkshire Express, which would make a special stop in Redding (you could actually take a train from Grand Central to western Massachusetts at the time). The Grand Central of 1908 was undergoing a transformation. It was being rebuilt as part of plan to rid the Park Avenue corridor of the steam locomotive and the residue of combustion that fouled the air. Two levels of track were being sunk under a new Park Avenue to accommodate an ever-expanding service. This was not the Grand Central we know today. The new terminal building was still a few years from completion. When Twain and Paine reached Stamford, Connecticut they changed engine. There was no electric service on the branch line to Redding. They would finish the journey pulled by a steam locomotive. Electrification of the system was still a work in progress. They arrived in Redding a little before 6pm, June 18, 1908.

(notes) I'm also looking at the early 20th century world that the aging Twain now inhabited. He was born in 1835, less than 50 years after the ratification of the American Constitution. Alexis de Tocqueville published "Democracy in American" the year Twain was born. Twain lived most of his life, not at the beginning of our democracy, but in the first full decade of its development which included a civil war. It was a remarkable period of adolescence.

Albert Bigelow Paine, Twain's biographer - Umpawaug Cemetery, Redding CT

The inscription across the bottom of the stone is from a poem written by Paine and published in Harper's Magazine, October 1909. It's called "The Hills of Rest". The published second line originally read: "I'll follow day into the west;".

• Some evening when the sky is gold I'll wander down into the west; Nor pause, nor heed, till I behold The happy, happy Hills of Rest. Dora, his wife, died the following year. She's buried next to him. Her inscription is from the same poem.Beyond the last horizon's rim, Beyond Adventure's farthest quest, Somewhere they rise, serene and dim, The happy, happy Hills of Rest. The poem, "The Hills of Rest, is short, only five verse's. Dora's inscription is from the first stanza, and Albert's the last. Umpawaug cemetery is on a hillside facing the Saugatuck River Valley. The Paine's are buried at the top of the cemetery. The family plot also includes two of Paine's daughter's. The cemetery (their happy, happy hill of rest) is about two-third's of a mile north of Paine's original Redding home and the site of Twain's
  Stromfield. 

The Walks of Mark Twain

I knew two things when I began the project: Mark Twain lived the last 22 months of his life in Redding and died in Redding at his home, Stormfield. I've now photographed many of the places he was said to have explored, including the grounds around Stormfield. I'm using Albert Bigelow Paine's biography of Twain as one of my sources. Paine became Twain's "official" biographer in the winter of 1906. Paine also lived in Redding with his family, suggested that Twain buy property in Redding and occasionally accompanied him on his walks: "By and by we turned down a deserted road, grassy and beauftiful, that ran along his land. At one side was a slope facing the west, and dotted with the slender, cypress-like cedars of New England...At the foot of the hill we came to a brook and followed it into a meadow. I told him that I often caught fine trout there, and that soon I would bring in some for breakfast...We passed through some woods and came out near my own ancient little house". With the help of a 1934 aerial map and my hiking boots I more or less found the route they took that day.