Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Home Photo Tour

I was fortunate enough to be in Brunswick, Maine this week to visit the home of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. The fact that I was able to meet up with Noma Petroff, whom many of you know from her Facebook Community on Union soldiers, made this trip a true pleasure. My wife Michele, and our Maine friends Jon, and Marcia rounded out our group of five visiting the historic home and seeing the sights of Brunswick and Bowdoin College at the center of life in this small city.

I am going to do two posts on this trip. This one will focus on the home of Chamberlain and his family and the second looks at the Chamberlain Statue across the street and the treasures of Chamberlain in the Bowdoin archives. Chamberlain was a professor at Bowdoin and later president of the college. This will be a slow walk through the sites so I hope you enjoy it.

The home, is an imposing building located across the street from the entrance to Bowdoin College and near the religious center of 19th Century Brunswick, Maine, the city’s Congregational Church. The house was built by Jesse Pierce around 1824, but he lost it to creditors. Mary Ann Fales bought it in 1830 and rented out rooms. One of her lodgers was the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who lived in a room there while teaching at Bowdoin. The house would pass on to other owners and in the late 1850s Professor Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain rented an apartment there with his wife and two children. In 1859 he bought the house.

While the house today is in  a prominent location on the city’s most prominent street, it was not so prestigious when Chamberlain bought it. It was only a one-story house in 1859 on a side street off the main drag. When Chamberlain rose in prominence later, he would have it moved a hundred yards to Maine Street and add a new floor to the house! In the photo below, the lower portion of the house beneath the white Chamberlain sign was all added after the war.

Noma told me that when Grant visited Chamberlain in Brunswick he greeted well-wishers from the doorway visible in the above photo, but not the first-floor entrance. The second floor doorway out to a small porch today was on the first floor during Grant’s visit and was, in fact, the main entrance back then!

The exterior of the house is impressive. It is one of the largest residences in the area. However, when Grant first saw it, it was a gabled one-story home.

While the house was remodeled to impress, it did have significant fun features like this open air porch.

There is abundant shade at the home, leaving it cool even though not air conditioned.

The metal fence in front of the property is designed to look like wood sticks.

Chamberlain put in a number of design elements to show his service in the 5th Corps of the Army of the Potomac. These include a cross on his chimney facing the street.

If you want to see the interior of the Chamberlain home, you must do so through a guided tour. These tours are offered several times a day. The size of each tour is limited to twelve visitors. This means that you should book your tour before the day you are visiting. I booked a day in advance without a problem, but I was visiting on a weekday. The museum’s website says that reservations are not required, but on the tour I went on all the slots were booked in advance and people showing up without a reservation would have been turned away. The schedule from now until October 29, 2022 is tours are available Tuesday to Saturday, with regular tours at 10:00am, 11:30am, 1:00pm, and 2:30pm. Tickets are $15 per person, $12 for students, senior citizens, AAA members and the disabled. Children 5-13 years of age are $10, and children under 5 are free. This link gives you info on the tours. At the bottom of the page is a tab to click to book a tour.

Our tour leader (pictured below) was Tom. He has been conducting tours for 21 years. He was extremely knowledgeable about all of the members of the Chamberlain family and he had an encyclopedic knowledge of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s Civil War experience. A good story teller, he was also an attentive listener who answered our questions, and told us when he did not know the answer. Honesty is always important.

 

 

Tom introduced us to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, his family, his wife Fanny, and his daughter and son, all pictured below. He told the story of Joshua’s youthful academic career, his courtship of Fanny, and the difficulties the two had in raising a family on a academic’s pay. There was also a discussion of the emotional trauma of the young couple having five children, only two of whom would survive to adulthood. Tom also spoke of Joshua’s brother Tom, a familiar figure to anyone who saw the movie Gettysburg, as well as another brother who served in the Christian Commission during the Civil War. Tom’s psychological problems after the war came up several times during the tour.

Our guide Tom also introduced us to the furniture in the house. After Joshua and Fanny passed away, their descendants did not continue living in the home for long. It is a great location if you are a professor at Bowdoin College, right across from the school, but otherwise the small town of Brunswick, Maine where the college is located, is pretty remote. When the house was sold, much of what was in it went to the new owner who promptly sold the items off. So, much of the furniture in the home today is from the correct period, but was never owned by the Chamberlains. Some pieces bought at that earlier auction have been acquired by the museum.

This chaise was found in the cellar of the house and is  believed to have belonged to the Chamberlains.

The original architecture was also changed somewhat after the 20th Century sale. Students from the college began renting rooms there and some damage occurred in their wake. However, much of the interior has been restored to how it looked when the Chamberlains lived there.

One of the first rooms we saw on the tour was the Longfellow apartment. When the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the Chamberlains, they showed him his apartment from his days teaching on the Bowdoin faculty. They had restored the room to how they believed it had been wallpapered and decorated during his days living there. Here is the Longfellow apartment at the Chamberlain house as it appears today with the third iteration of Longfellow’s wallpaper.

Longfellow’s works and pictures of the poet and his wife are displayed in the apartment, along with a 20th Century electric fan.

 

There was also a display on a bracelet Joshua had made for his wife. It had a Maltese Cross on it signifying his service in the 5th Corps as well as representations of the battles he fought in. Some of the visitors questioned  his romantic acuity.

The Chamberlains used much of the upstairs as a library after the additional floor was added. The library contains many objects that belonged to the couple, but not their books! The books were all sold off when the new owner took over the property.

Chamberlain’s library has an American flag hanging from the ceiling. 19th Century photos show that Chamberlain flew a flag from his library ceiling.

Displayed in the library are Joshua Chamberlain’s boots. There is a repair patch over where he was wounded in the foot.

Tom spent time explaining the significance of each artifact.

There are also many photos of Chamberlain. This one shows him in the library with a Confederate Battle Flag his regiment had captured.

Also on display was the Minie Ball that nearly killed him at Petersburg in 1864.

Another view of the library.

Over the mantle of the library’s fireplace is a modern painting of Chamberlain leading his regiment’s charge at Gettysburg. This is the original of this well-known piece of battle art by Don Troiani. Some of you may have a reproduction of this in your own homes.

Chamberlain’s saddle is displayed in the library.

Chamberlain did not enlist at the start of the Civil War. He joined in 1862 and was offered the command of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He did not feel comfortable taking command because of his lack of military experience. Instead, he became Lt. Colonel of the regiment under Adelbert Ames, a West Point graduate. Ames helped Chamberlain learn the ropes of military life. The 20th Maine was a regiment in the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, V Corps, Army of the Potomac.

The library also displays Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s original Medal of Honor awarded for his courage at Gettysburg. There is a second Chamberlain Medal of Honor in Brunswick in the possession of the Bowdoin College Archive that I was able to photograph. Chamberlain was awarded the Medal for “extraordinary heroism on 2 July 1863, while serving with 20th Maine Infantry, in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for daring heroism and great tenacity in holding his position on the Little Round Top against repeated assaults, and carrying the advance position on the Great Round Top.”

The second room used by the Chamberlains as their library has been decorated as it would have been during his four one-year terms as governor of Maine. While the furniture in this room was not his, it suggests his use of his own home as the seat of government for the state. His inkwell is on display.

Also displayed is a campaign banner.

When he was elected, Chamberlain set a record for the largest margin of victory for anyone running for governor. As governor he supported the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution recognizing African Americans as citizens.

The Chamberlain museum frequently points out Chamberlain’s connections to Ulysses S. Grant, whose images appear in several room. Apart from being a guest at the house, Grant’s wartime connection to Chamberlain is a focus of the tour. When Chamberlain was wounded at Petersburg and not expected to survive, Grant gave a battlefield promotion to Brigadier General to the Maine colonel. When the Confederates surrendered at Appomattox, Grant tasked Chamberlain with the “passing of the army.” In the background of the photo below you can see a bust of Grant and the flag of the 5th Corps.

There are also displays about Grant’s time in Brunswick after the war and his speech at the Congregational Church across the street from Chamberlain’s home.

The home did recover some of Chamberlain’s living room furniture, which has been reupholstered and placed on display.

The living room ceiling has been repainted to restore the ceiling that the Chamberlains saw in the late 1800s.

On display in the living room is the china cabinet with dishes owned by the Chamberlains.

The final room we visited was the dining room. The tablecloth, china, and glassware here all belonged to the Chamberlains.

There is a nice display of the glasses on a buffet next to the dinner table.

On the china you can see the letter “C” for Chamberlain.

The dining room is friendly and happy by all appearances.

Now that the tour is done, here are a few themes. The house has many images of Joshua, Fanny, their parents, and their children. There is a lot of emphasis on family. There is also talk of Fanny’s objections to Joshua’s career choices. She liked being a professor’s wife, and was unhappy when he was at war and when he served as governor.

Fanny enjoyed the company of her husband and her children. She also liked to engage in creative crafts. These two examples of her work are on display at the home.

Noma Petroff, shown viewing an image of Fanny’s father in the photo below, was a great help to us in understanding the Chamberlain family. We had never met her before, except online.

The tour took a little more than an hour. All five of us agreed that it was worth doing. Thanks to Jon and Marcia  for making this trip possible, Noma for her wise guiding, and Michele for hatching the idea of a Maine vacation.

The second, and concluding, installment of this series will take you to the statue of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and other Chamberlain sites on the Bowdoin campus.

 

 

 

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