Four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost built a legacy in South Shaftsbury, Vermont.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Over his lifetime, Robert Frost established homesteads in many places throughout New England, but his time in South Shaftsbury, Vermont, settled in what he and his family called the “Stone Cottage,” was one of his most productive periods.
I visited the grounds on a perfect early November day, the sun warming the air to a pleasant 62 degrees as a mild, cool breeze rustled the few remaining leaves still clinging to trees in the surrounding forest. Greeted by the director of the museum, Erin McKenny, I was generously invited to tour the grounds and the building. McKenny was busy preparing for two popular upcoming mid-November events: the Holiday Maker’s Market and the Winter Wreath Making Workshop.
Table of Contents:
• Frost’s Garden of Eden
• Frost’s snowy evenings
• Frost’s early experiences
• The poetry of farming
• Poet Laureate of Vermont
Frost’s Garden of Eden
Frost moved into the cottage in mid-November 1920. In a letter to friend and colleague George R. Elliot, as recounted by Jay Parini in the biography, Robert Frost: A Life, he writes, “I have moved a good part of the way to a stone cottage on a hill in South Shaftsbury in southern Vermont on the New York side near the historic town of Bennington where if I have any money left after repairing the roof in the spring, I mean to plant a new Garden of Eden with a thousand apple trees of some unforbidden variety.”
From 1920–1929, Frost resided with his wife, Elinor, and children in the cottage, which was in primitive condition initially, without running water or any kind of functioning furnace. On the positive side, it had broad vistas of the Green Mountains to the east and the Taconics to the west, a small, but well-established apple orchard in the side yard, a maple grove complete with a sugar shack, and two barns on the premises.
Frost’s snowy evenings
With seven acres of land attached to the property, it fit the small-scale farming ambitions of Frost and suited his desire to live amidst a natural environment. The house itself, built in 1769 in the Dutch Colonial architectural style, is composed of local stone and timber. In most ways, it is much the way it was when Frost’s family lived there. Now owned by Bennington College and operated as a museum, the cottage is open from May to October and for special events.
A rear view of Robert Frost’s Stone Cottage.
During his period in South Shaftsbury, Frost wrote prodigiously, often staying up while the rest of the family slept, writing at the kitchen table. In the span of a night and early morning, he wrote both “New Hampshire” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Recounting that time, Frost said, “I went outdoors, got out sideways and didn’t disturb anybody in the house, and about nine or ten o’clock went back in and wrote the piece about the snowy evening and the little horse as if I’d had an hallucination.”
Frost’s early experiences
Born in 1874 in San Francisco and brought up in the Bay Area, Robert Frost unexpectedly found himself journeying eastward at age 11 after his father’s untimely death at age 34. His mother, Belle Frost, found herself penniless with two children to care for, Robbie and Jeanie. She sought refuge, lodging in Lawrence, Massachusetts with her in-laws.
Eventually gaining a job teaching at an elementary school, Belle kept the family together, moving to a two-room apartment in Salem, Massachusetts. Initially put off by the cold attitude of New Englanders, Robert Frost ultimately grew fond of the area and prospered in high school. His earliest poems were published at Lawrence High School in the Bulletin.
Frost attended Dartmouth for a term in 1892 and Harvard University from 1897 to 1899 — dropping out of both. “College is a refuge from hasty judgement,” Frost commented later. His marriage to Elinor, who had been the love of his life since high school, was the start of a family, but trials beset the Frosts almost immediately and continued to add sadness to a large segment of their lives.
The Robert Frost Poetry Trail covers a quarter mile around the Stone Cottage property and has fanciful artwork done by the Shaftsbury Elementary School 5th Grade art students.
Nonetheless, as his expertise at composing poetry grew and he solidified his reputation as a poet, Frost moved his family several times, spending periods in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, always seeking ways to make a living from poetry.
The poetry of farming
Frost enjoyed assessing possible property purchases in New England and fancied himself a farmer at heart. In truth, although he spent a fair amount of time tending to vegetable gardens and fruit trees, it was more of an avocation than a serious pursuit and one that tended to fall to the wayside in lieu of speaking engagements and teaching as his fame grew.
Still, Frost immersed himself in the practices of farming and wove his insights into much of his poetry. The experiences he gained farming enriched his poems and brought equilibrium to his life. Some of the apple trees that had been tended by Frost still exist on the grounds that compose the Stone Cottage site.
There are engraved plaques featuring Frost’s poetry at intervals along the Poetry Trail.
Poet Laureate of Vermont
In July of 1961, Frost received the title of Poet Laureate of Vermont and is noteworthy for having received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry as well as many other awards and honors during his long lifetime, including the Congressional Gold Medal. He is buried with his wife Elinor and several other members of his family in the graveyard of the Old First Church in Old Bennington (founded in 1762), a few miles from the Stone Cottage.
To those interested in learning more about Frost’s life, I recommend Robert Frost, A Life, by Jay Parini, who spent over 20 years poring through the archives at Dartmouth and Amherst, as well as interviewing many of Frost’s friends and acquaintances.
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Robert Frost also had a rustic cabin in rural Ripton, VT, near Middlebury. I had visited the area in the 1970s. There was a restaurant in Middlebury whose name, Fire and Ice, may have been borrowed from a Frost poem.
I had no inkling at that time that I would become a freelance journalist and author of two books. Perhaps I was inspired by Robert Frost.
Thank you for showing “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” It is one of my favorites. As I grow older, I find that poem more and more relevant…