Herman Millville

Tuesday
It is our last day in the Berkshire’s. We drove to Pittsfield and did shopping and filled up the fuel tanks. Diesel fuel was .12 cheaper and we carry over 90 gal., plus we had .10 off the first 20 gal. I have wanted to go to the Herman Melville’s Arrowhead home. So we set our Tom-Tom and actually found his home. He only lived here for 13 years as he wrote his most famous novel "Moby Dick". In 1850 he moved his family from New York City to Pittsfield, MA looking for a quite place to write. He purchased the 18th century farmhouse that he named Arrowhead. Most of his productive years were spent at Arrowhead, developing many close literacy friendships with other Berkshire authors including Nathaniel Hawthorne. His writing table faced Mt. Grey Lock the tallest mountain in MA. Melville, Hawthorne and others love to hike in the area.
When Herman Melville was 21 he signed onto the whaling ship “Acushnet” for 3 years. His early books talked about his adventures. The travels on the South Seas, from whaling and whaling ships to the Polynesian culture, tools and weapons give a glimpse of what inspired him to write these first books. He never made a lot of money on the books because there were no copyright laws at the time.
I will go to half priced books when we get home to see if I can find some of his books.


We came home and the two Gene’s went to a town meeting in Becket. They are having problems with the town administrator similar to the situation in Highland Village some years age, so big Gene was lending some of his wisdom.