Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Cornish, New Hampshire

"Now let me turn to other pleasures, and chief among them to my coming in 1885 to Cornish, New Hampshire. For this coming made the beginning of a new side of my existence. I was thirty-seven at the time and it dawned upon me seriously how much there was outside of my little world. We hit upon Cornish because, while casting about for a summer residence, Mr. C.C. Beaman told me that if I would go up there with him, he had an old house which he would sell me for what he paid for it, five hundred dollars. I insisted that I was not wealthy enough to spend that amount, but as Mrs. Saint-Gaudens saw the future of sunny days that would follow, she detained me until Mr. Beaman agreed to rent the house to me at a low price for as long as I wished. 

However, the experiment had proved so successful and I was so enchanted with the life and scenery, I bought the house the following year for a certain amount and a bronze portrait of Mr. Beaman.

It was not long after our coming up here that Mr. George de Forest Brush, the painter, decided to pass the summer near us. He lived with Mrs. Brush in an Indian tepee he built on the edge of our woods, near a ravine, about five hundred yards from the house; for he had camped with the Indians for years and knew their habits. The spring following my arrival, my friend, Mr. T.W. Dewing, the painter, was casting about for a place to pass the summer, when I told him of a cottage that could be rented about twenty minutes' walk from my habitation. Mr. Dewing came. He saw. He remained. And from that event the colony developed, it being far more from Mr. Dewing's statements of the surrounding beauty than from mine that others joined us. 

The year after, Mr. Henry Oliver Walker bought land; and the year after that his friend, Mr. Charles A Platt, joined him. Mr. Platt brought Stephen Parrish [father of Maxfield Parrish], and so on, until now there are many families. The circle has extended beyond the range even of my acquaintance, to say nothing of friendship. The country still retains its beauty, though its secluded charm is being swept away before the rushing automobile..."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.)