Mr. Alcott practically rebuilt Orchard House for his own family. Mrs. Child, a friend of Mrs. Alcott, thus describes this home, which is now preserved as a memorial to Louisa M. Alcott and is visited by thousands every year:
When they bought the place the house was so very old that it was thrown into the bargain, with the supposition that it was fit for nothing but firewood. But Mr. Alcott had an architectural taste, more intelligible than his Orphic Sayings. He let every old rafter and beam stay in its place, changed old ovens and ash holes into Saxon arched alcoves, and added a washerwoman's old shanty to the rear. The result is a house full of queer nooks and corners, with all manner of juttings in and out. It seems as if the spirit of some old architect had dropped it down in Concord.
Thoreau, master builder himself, has paid to Bronson Alcott this tribute:
One of the last of the philosophers, Connecticut gave him to the world. He peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, bearing for fruit, only his brain, like the nut its kernel. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are aquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed when the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and rulers will come to him for advice.
Emerson, who saw the boy mind beneath the philosopher's dignity, said tenderly of Bronson Alcott: "He is certainly the youngest man of his age we have seen. When I looked at his gray hairs, his conversation sounded pathetic; but I looked again and they reminded me of the gray dawn."
Even his friends, to say nothing of Louisa, occasionally poked fun at him for chronicling so minutely all his thoughts. Ellery Channing called his library, "Encyclopediea de Moi-meme, en cents volumes." Yet these journals and records are now worth more than the fine library he collected and in which he delighted.
Emerson has thus described the origin of the Fruitlands community:
On the invitation of James P. Greaves of London, the friend and fellow-laborer of Pestalozzi in Switzerland, Mr. Alcott went to England in 1842. Mr. Greaves died before his arrival, but Mr. Alcott was received cordially by his friends, who had given his name to their school, Alcott House, Ham, near London. He spent several months in making acquaintance with various classes of reformers. On his return to America, he brought with him two of his English friends, Chas. Lane and H. C. Wright; and Mr. Lane having bought a farm which he called Fruitlands, at Harvard, Mass., they all went there to found a new community.
The Fruitlands experiment and its failure have been immortalized by Louisa Alcott in her "Transcendental Wild Oats." The detail of it is thus described by a friend of the Alcott family, who had the story from Bronson Alcott himself:
The crop failures necessitated the community living on a barley diet, as anything animal was not allowed, not even milk and eggs. Now and then they gave a thought as to what they should do for shoes when those they had were gone; for depriving the cow of her skin was a crime not to be tolerated. The barley crop was injured in harvesting, and before long want was staring them in the face. The Alcotts remained at Fruitlands till mid-winter in dire poverty, all the guests having taken their departure as provisions vanished. Friends came to the rescue, and, Mr. Alcott concluded with pathos in his voice, "We put our little women on an ox-sled and made our way to Concord! So faded one of the dreams of my youth. I have given you the facts as they were; Louisa has given the comic side in 'Transcendental Wild Oats'; but Mrs. Alcott could give you the tragic side."