Herman Melville’s Arrowhead

The house at Arrowhead had been built in 1783. A rambling old farm house, it became the home for Herman, Lizzie, Malcolm, and three more children, all born at Arrowhead: Stanwix, Bessie, and Fanny. Herman's mother and sisters Augusta, Helen, and Fanny all moved to Arrowhead as well. Sister Kate and numerous other friends and relations would make their home there as well at various times. It was a busy, chaotic household.

Herman created a refuge from this chaos in his second-floor library. Keeping to a regular writing schedule, he completed four novels, a collection of short stories, and 10 magazine pieces, as well as beginning work on a volume of poetry. The works Melville wrote at Arrowhead included Moby-Dick, Pierre, The Confidence-Man, Israel Potter, a collection entitled "The Piazza Tales," and such short stories as "I and My Chimney," "Benito Cereno," "Bartleby the Scrivener," and "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids."

Arrowhead influenced him greatly in his writing. The view of Mount Greylock from his study window, the one that brought him to Arrowhead, was said to be his inspiration for the white whale in Moby-Dick. He dedicated his next novel, Pierre, to Mount Greylock. His short story, "The Piazza," begins at Arrowhead and takes a magical journey to the mountain.

Melville incorporated features and aspects of Arrowhead into several stories. The piazza, after which the story and the book "The Piazza Tales" were named, is a porch Melville added to the north side of Arrowhead shortly after he purchased the property. Visitors can still stand on that porch and look at the same view Melville had when he spent hours there in his rocking chair.

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