What to do with the kids on a hot summer day? That was something the Longfellow family had to figure out during a vacation in July, 1848. Their solution is pictured in the above sketch, captioned by Frances (Fanny) Appleton Longfellow with “Typee Valley July 29/48 Ronny, Charley, Erny, Eva at the water-wheel.”
In the summer of 1848 Henry Longfellow took his family to Pittsfield, Massachusetts for several weeks in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. His wife Fanny had family connections to the area through her mother’s side, and the rural character of the region offered a break from the Cambridge and Boston scene that was the backdrop for their usual day-to-day lives.
On this particular trip the Longfellows rented a house owned by Robert Melville, first cousin to writer Herman Melville of Moby-Dick fame. By this time the Melville family had resided in Pittsfield for three generations. Though Herman Melville had yet to author his epic tale of obsession revolving around a fabled white whale, published in 1851, he had already achieved a measure of fame for his 1846 novel Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. The book was based on Melville’s own experiences in the Taipivai or Taipi Valley (Typee) on the island of Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, hence Fanny Longfellow’s “Typee Valley” annotation on the sketch. Henry and Fanny read the book shortly after its publication.
The sketch shown here depicts the two eldest Longfellow children, four-year-old Charley (with a pipe in his mouth?!), his younger brother Erny, and their cousins Ronny and Eva Mackintosh playing alongside a stream with a small water wheel. Henry Longfellow recorded the event in his journal, writing “A hale morning; part of which I passed with the children at the water wheel, roasting in the sun.” Fanny did not note the occasion in her own journal, but the sketch indicates her presence there. A talented artist herself, this drawing seems to have been made in some haste as it lacks the detail and refinement of some of her other work, but perhaps such is to be expected of a sketch attempting to catch young children at play. As the Longfellow family expanded with more children, Fanny’s time for sketching fell off; this is one of the later drawings of hers in the collection.