The property was confiscated by the Commonwealth and used by the
American army during the war. In 1818 it was purchased by the Rev.
Charles Lowell, pastor of the West Congregational Church in Boston,
and after ninety years it is still the family home. Here was born,
February 22, 1819, James Russell Lowell, with surroundings most
propitious for the nurturing of a poet-soul. Within the stately home
there was a refined family life; the father had profited by the
unusual privilege of three years' study abroad, and his library of
some four thousand volumes was not limited to theology; the mother,
whose maiden name was Spence and who traced her Scotch ancestry back
to the hero of the ballad of _Sir Patrick Spens_, taught her children
the good old ballads and the romantic stories in the _Fairie Queen_,
and it was one of the poet's earliest delights to recount the
adventures of Spenser's heroes and heroines to his playmates.

An equally important influence upon his early youth was the
out-of-door life at Elmwood. To the love of nature his soul was early
dedicated, and no American poet has more truthfully and beautifully
interpreted the inspired teachings of nature, whispered through the
solemn tree-tops or caroled by the happy birds. The open fields
surrounding Elmwood and the farms for miles around were his familiar
playground, and furnished daily adventures for his curious and eager
mind. The mere delight of this experience with nature, he says, "made
my childhood the richest part of my life. It seems to me as if I had
never seen nature again since those old days when the balancing of a
yellow butterfly over a thistle bloom was spiritual food and lodging
for a whole forenoon." In the _Cathedral_ is an autobiographic passage
describing in a series of charming pictures some of those choice hours
of childhood: