Here’s another installment in the Spill series of New Yorker-centric maps (links to the previous maps appear at the bottom of this post). This time ’round the subject is James Thurber in Connecticut — his places of residence in The Nutmeg State, from 1929, living in Silvermine, to the end of his days, living in West Cornwall.
Burton Bernstein’s Thurber biography is the source for much of the material used for locating Thurber’s Connecticut homes. Corrections/additions invited.
- West Cornwall (1945-1961). where Thurber and his second wife, Helen settled in for good. He called it the “Great Good Place.” Read more here.
- Cornwall (1942). Thurber and Helen lived in “a small white house in the center of Cornwall.” [Bernstein, p.350]
- Sharon (1940). They lived in a “1775 red-brick house on the village green.” [Bernstein, p. 331]. Possibly this house?
- Litchfield (1936) “in a house across the road is the house in which Henry Ward and Harriet Beecher Stowe were born.” [Bernstein quoting Thurber, p.272]
- Woodbury (1938) A 225 year old house named “Joywalls” where Thurber wrote “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” [Bernstein, p. 302]
- Sandy Hook. 71 Riverside Rd. (1931-1935) Where he wrote “My Life and Hard Times”. Thurber drawings discovered in the home’s attic were donated to Ohio State university. More here.
- Silvermine (1929-1931). Leaving Manhattan, Thurber and his first wife Althea, rented a home “where Althea would feel more at home and be able to raise scotties. Thurber, meanwhile, would spend most of his time in New York, working and living in various hotels…” [Bernstein, p.178].
_____________________________
Links to previous Spill maps:
The Outer Boroughs’ New Yorker Cartoonists
Thank you for this! I first taught school in Winsted, CT, where James married Helen (Bernstein, 251), at her father’s summer cottage. Back then I knew only of Thurber’s West Cornwall and Sandy Hook (where my principal lived) history. Always good to learn more.