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Cedarcroft, also known as Bayard Taylor House, is a National Historic Landmark home in Chester County, Pennsylvania, formerly the home of American writer Bayard Taylor (1825–1878). ==History== Taylor built the mansion he named Cedarcroft near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania in 1859–1860. He personally supervised its construction, including its two-foot walls and tall tower, and later wrote a series of articles about it. He also owned the surrounding 200 acres of land which he had spent several years acquiring.〔Wermuth, Paul C. ''Bayard Taylor''. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973: 24. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2.〕 He described the building's design as "large and stately, simple in its forms, without much ornament... expressive of strength and ornament."〔 He lived here with his wife Marie Hansen, the daughter of the Danish/German astronomer Peter Andreas Hansen, whom he married in 1857.〔Lordi, Joseph A. ''Kennett Square''. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006: 102. ISBN 0-7385-4529-5.〕 Several of Taylor's writings were either written at Cedarcroft or reference it, including his 1863 book ''The Poet's Journal'', which he dedicated to his wife as "the Mistress of Cedarcroft".〔Corley, Liam. ''Bayard Taylor: Determined Dreamer of America's Rise, 1825–1878''. Bucknell University Press, 2014: 162. ISBN 9781611485721〕 Taylor pushed to complete the new home shortly after the birth of his daughter Lilian in 1858 and increased his writings for periodicals and offered several lectures to acquire the necessary revenue.〔Corley, Liam. ''Bayard Taylor: Determined Dreamer of America's Rise, 1825–1878''. Bucknell University Press, 2014: 37. ISBN 9781611485721〕 Taylor laid the cornerstone for the house's tower on June 9, 1859, with a hidden time capsule. That zinc box, he wrote, contains coins, a newspaper, a copy of his book ''Views Afoot'', as well as "an original poem by me, to be read five hundred years hence by somebody who has never heard of me."〔Corley, Liam. ''Bayard Taylor: Determined Dreamer of America's Rise, 1825–1878''. Bucknell University Press, 2014: 197. ISBN 9781611485721〕 Upon moving into the home in 1860, Taylor's family performed a farcical play co-written with Richard Henry Stoddard.〔 In addition to Stoddard, Cedarcroft hosted several other literary figures, including George Henry Boker, Edmund Clarence Stedman, James Russell Lowell, James Thomas Fields, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.〔Wermuth, Paul C. ''Bayard Taylor''. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973: 25. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2.〕 Outside the house, Taylor planted a number of fruits and vegetables, including Latakia tobacco and melons.〔 Plants included a giant sequoia from California, ivy, Dutchman's pipe, Virginia creeper, wisteria, and trumpet flower. After visiting the house, Sidney Lanier wrote a poem called "Under the Cedarcroft Chestnut" about a tree there that was alleged to be 800 years old.〔Maynard, W. Barksdale. ''The Brandywine: An Intimate Portrait''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015: 116. ISBN 978-0-8122-4677-3.〕 The first work which Taylor himself wrote while living in Cedarcroft was his semi-autobiographical poetic series ''The Poet's Journal'', written within a month after moving in, though not published until 1862.〔Wermuth, Paul C. ''Bayard Taylor''. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973: 123. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2.〕 The construction of the home cost $15,000 by February 1860, which was $5,000 more than anticipated and left Taylor in debt.〔 His life in Kennett Square was further complicated by the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. As he wrote to Stoddard in April, "Everything here is upside down. We live almost in a state of siege, with the rumors of war flying about us. At present we don't know what is going on. We have reckless secessionists within twelve miles of us."〔Corley, Liam. ''Bayard Taylor: Determined Dreamer of America's Rise, 1825–1878''. Bucknell University Press, 2014: 93. ISBN 9781611485721〕 Out of precaution, Taylor acquired weapons and buried his manuscripts〔 before leaving the country and visiting Europe.〔 Because of financial and political issues, Taylor only spent four out of the first eight summers at Cedarcroft. Instead, he traveled, gave lectures, and continued his literary work in New York.〔 In the spring of 1862, he was chief war correspondent for the ''New York Tribune'' and visited the army at the lines in Virginia and reported on Congress in Washington, D.C.〔 Later that year, he took a diplomatic job as ''chargé d'affaires'' at Saint Petersburg in Russia.〔 The job was short-lived, however, and his financial problems continued. Further, Taylor had some difficulty with his neighbors, mostly conservative Quakers, who disapproved of his use of alcohol and cigars as well as his late-night gatherings.〔Corley, Liam. ''Bayard Taylor: Determined Dreamer of America's Rise, 1825–1878''. Bucknell University Press, 2014: 26. ISBN 9781611485721〕 By 1870, Taylor complained to his mother, "If I had known, in 1859, how prices were to change, and labor to be dear and unreliable, and the neighborhood to go backwards instead of forwards, I never should have built () at all."〔Wermuth, Paul C. ''Bayard Taylor''. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973: 27. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2.〕 Further, he admitted he wanted to live in New York and considered his experiment at a country life combined with literature was "a dead failure, and I have been carrying it on now for several years... out of stubborn unwillingness to admit that I was mistaken."〔 By 1875, he left the home to the care of his parents, sister and brother-in-law.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cedarcroft」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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