What makes the William Cullen Bryant Homestead a special place?
We think it’s the serene vista of the Westfield River Valley that inspired one of America’s greatest poets. William Cullen Bryant’s verse celebrates this quintessential American landscape, and helped inspire the 19th-century land conservation movement that involved Frederic Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot, founder of The Trustees of Reservations. Bryant served as editor and publisher of The New York Evening Post for 50 years. A passionate conservationist and horticulturalist, he used his editorials to rally support for Frederick Law Olmsted’s Central Park. He also was a strong abolitionist who helped Abraham Lincoln win presidential election. From 1865 until his death in 1878, Bryant summered here at his boyhood home, today a National Historic Landmark. He converted the two-story farmhouse into a rambling three-story Victorian cottage and expanded the sprawling red barn to store apples and pears from his orchards. Inside the house you’ll discover colonial and Victorian pieces from the po
