Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs

by John Thomas Codman

The Directors used discretionary power, and if there was any probability that the applicant would be useful, his case was presented for action at a general meeting of the Association.

I was not long on the farm before I became acquainted with many of the Associates besides those before mentioned—those who belonged entirely to the Associative period; and among the unique figures there was no one that struck my young fancy more than that of Peter, or, in familiar talk, "the General."

Peter M. Baldwin was about his work when I was introduced to him, and as he put forth his hand I saw that his arms extended no little way through the sleeves of a common green baize jacket; and that his large feet, which were encased in an old pair of slippers, had descended some six inches below a pair of blue overalls before they touched the ground. If he had been inclined to corpulency, his frame was ample to build upon for a man of Websterian proportions, but he was not so inclined; on the contrary, he simulated other great men in his personality—Jackson, or our modern Abraham Lincoln. He was spare, bony, nervous. His heavy eyebrows, his dark hair well sprinkled with gray, which arose straight upward from his high, indented forehead, and his large, half Roman nose, prominent cheek-bones and thin cheeks reminded one so forcibly of the pictures of General Jackson that he was by unanimous consent nicknamed "the General."

He shook me by the hand warmly and asked me a few questions, and it was not until after this first interview that I discovered he had an impediment in his speech. A rapid talker, he would rattle on in conversation and then stop as suddenly as though you had put your hand over his mouth. You would look up in astonishment, and then find by the contortions of his face that he was trying to speak some troublesome word but could not. The word once recovered, his speech flowed on as before and perhaps for a long while, until he stumbled upon another fence-like one; when he would dismount, take down the bars, or jump it, and proceed as before.

This impediment, strange to say, never troubled the General when he had prepared a piece for recitation, for he would then speak with dignity and precision, and made the very beau ideal of "the lean and hungry Cassius."

He was a universal favorite, on account of the kindness and benevolence of his disposition. This generosity was superabundant, for if any of the younger portion of the family wished for the sweets of the storeroom, over which he presided, they had only "to coax the General" to succeed in obtaining their wishes.

"The General" was the baker and made the bread, cake and some of the pastry. He also assisted the "kitchen group" in domestic cookery. Beyond this he was particularly fond of three things—disputation, the newspapers and a cigar. He was thoroughly devoted to the doctrines of "United industry" and to Brook Farm. He was among the first up in the morning and last at night, attending to his ovens and his bread.

Peter's room was at first in Attica with others, where I saw him often, and his favorite pastime was a game of euchre, which had not then worked itself into general favor. I did not care to play it then, or any cards; I was too much charmed with the life of the place, with the society of the young, with social games under the inspiration of the hostess, with love of dance and music and the ever-changing face of nature, to care for such dull solace as the pasteboard games.

But the General did; he conversed, he smoked, he read the newspapers, he argued, stuttered and talked the "water cure," and one day I was surprised on going into the room to find him fully embarked for the cure of a desperate headache. What had he done? Why, taken the wash-bowl and filled it with water, placed it on the floor, stretched himself out at full length on the floor also, and, with a pillow at his shoulders, laid the back of his head into the wash-bowl. But being of an active temperament he could not be quiet and idle long, so, calling for a newspaper and lighting a cigar, he gently puffed the weed and read the news, lying still in position while the "cure" was progressing. It was a funny sight!

My attention was soon drawn to a large, portly gentleman who carried his head erect and had an easy, familiar way about him; for he was acting as host, being charged with the reception of guests and strangers who came to visit or to look about the place. He walked with the grandeur of a Falstaff and the dignity of a sachem. His capacious gray coat and broad-brimmed hat might suggest to a stranger that he had been at some time a member of a Shaker community, but his closely cut gray hair and his heavy, o'erhanging eyebrows and brave visage gave the lie to any such suggestion. Aye, aye, every hair that stood bristling up on that front of his seemed to stand in rebellion against such a charge, seemed saying, and growing more bristly every moment, "I, a Shaker? Not I!" A large mouth was an appropriate companion to a ponderous throat and chin, which were daily shaven with scrupulous adherence to the first principles of warm water, soap and a sharp razor, and a practice of thirty years gave a polish to his face unknown to those less adept in the art.