Walt Whitman in Camden

A song of myself visiting his last home, Part 1

I am sitting in a hotel room in Philadelphia, listening to an audiobook of Leaves of Grass and contemplating what I will do about breakfast now that I know there is no room service (and I am not ready to join the awake world, dressed, to go downstairs for a buffet). I’m here to visit my baby sister Amy, but a late development was she came down with a virus and we decided that I wouldn’t in fact be staying with her so I found a hotel by the airport and we’re playing it by ear, day by day. She has already improved since she became ill on Wednesday. Add to that my own air travel challenges and you’ll understand why sleep has been at the top of the agenda for both of us for the past couple of days.

Yesterday, after I got checked in to the hotel around 8 am, I slept for a bit then Ubered across the Pennsylvania-New Jersey state line to Camden to keep my reservation with the Walt Whitman House. When I learned I would be so close, it rose to the top of my wishlist of things to do. I had imagined Amy would come with me but having been there now, I think it’s probably better that she wasn’t—although she probably would’ve liked the furniture and interior appointments. We both like antiques and old houses. After my pilgrimage, I Ubered to her house and we had a nice evening of catch up and pizza and CATS!

At the Walt Whitman house, they don’t let you take pictures of the interior, so I’ll do my best to recreate it for you in words.

The Tour

You have to call ahead and make a reservation. I thought this was perhaps due to demand, but it’s actually to make sure someone will be there to let you in and walk you through. Some days they don’t have any tours at all. I was the only one on my Friday 2 pm tour.

I arrived via Uber who dropped me off at the curb. I was a little early, so I just looked around for a minute. Walt Whitman’s house is in a fourplex of row houses. It wasn’t clear to me which was his until after the tour. Facing the building, the furthest to the right has a plaque on the door (barely legible) that reads Walt Whitman Assoc.

The weather is little iffy—they were actually on a tornado watch!—windy and warm. The building next door is the one where you enter before the tour. There are signs in the window about calling first, making reservations. I learned only then that it isn’t staffed 100% of the time, something that should have been apparent from the get-go. They’re a nonprofit, and like nonprofits everywhere, they are hand-to-mouth. Walt had famous neighbors, though now I can’t remember much about them except the person on the other side of the house was an architect. This one, however, who knows! This is the second from left of the fourplex. The left side is a sliver of Walt’s actual house, but at the time I thought this was his house.

I tried the door. It was locked, so I sat on the steps and waited. As I was waiting, a man ambled up and introduced himself. He was the one I’d spoken to about reserving the tour and he let me in.

This was the view of the room, the entry door behind him and a desk/work area to my right. There were a number of pamphlets and printed matter that I picked up. There was Walt-related art on the walls and I would have sworn I’d taken pictures of at least one of them, but alas they are not on my camera and not in the deleted pictures folder. A trick of Walt’s ghost? Probably just distraction! This was as much as I saw of this building. Very soon upon entering a woman around my age appeared and she led me next door to begin the tour.

My tour guide’s name was Susan. Third house in the row, the only one made of wood, is the actual Walt Whitman house. Susan did a great job. She was retired from the parks service (retired? She must have retired young!) and had previously worked for the Edgar Allen Poe house, another on my visit list, but I learned from her that it’s closed right now while they upgrade the HVAC system.

Walt Whitman moved to Camden when he was in his sixties. At this point, he had tuberculosis. He came to see his mother off in her final days and live with his brother George. I’m told Walt hadn’t owned any home until he bought this one, on an adjacent street to his brother’s residence. He didn’t have any furniture so the housekeeper he hired, a widow, was invited to bring her furnishings and her pets.

He lived here until his death.

The Foyer

The floors are of course wood, with long narrow carpets down each of the halls. The front door opens onto a long hallway with an open room to the left: the parlor. Straight ahead is a narrow stairway leading up to the bedrooms. To the left of the stairs the hall continues into the kitchen.

The Parlor and Living Room

Clockwise from left, starting to the left of the door, a table with ephemera relating to Walt’s obsession with Lincoln including the handbill for a talk he gave on Lincoln that was attended by Mark Twain, a portrait of the Lincoln family on the wall; a wall of windows with sheers covering them and a console table with more facsimile documents, a large, original, rattan-seated wooden rocker near the window that Walt used to sit in and look out at the passersby, to the left of the fireplace; facing the entry to the room, the fireplace and hearth with reproduction photographs on the mantle and a small squat Victorian-era chair (not original to the house), a statue of someone (who?), a clock on the mantle, and paintings of his father (left) and mother (right) framing the hearth, a large painting over the mantle (who? I forgot to ask); along the right side, blocking double doors that normally open and join the parlor with the dining/sitting room that is essentially a mirror image of the parlor, is a Victorian sofa covered in dark fabric.

When the doors are open, Susan tells me, Walt would lay out a long table that extended from one room into the next for entertaining and meals. Many famous writers came to visit Walt here in this house. Two that she mentioned by name were Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde. Walt’s housekeeper, a widow, had a menagerie of pets so the house was always bustling with people and pets.

After Walt’s death, his autopsy (he requested an autopsy!) was conducted in this second room, on a table. He was also laid out for viewing in this room.

The Dining Room

I don’t remember much about this space. I googled blueprints for Walt’s house so I could refresh my memory on the layout but I don’t remember seeing anything resembling a dining room. We did pass through some room on the way to the kitchen.

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The Kitchen and the Summer Kitchen

Hmm. I think, based on this blueprint, that what they have labeled as “dining room” is in fact what was used as the kitchen. Yes, that’s definitely the case the more I consider it. There was a small kitchen table against one wall, a large iron stove, and was otherwise unremarkable except for a birdcage in one corner. A back door leads to the “summer kitchen” which is what is shown in that blueprint as the kitchen. It’s like an enclosed back porch with an additional stove so that during the hottest months the cooking could be done furthest from the main occupied portions of the house. There is also a backdoor to the gardens outside.

Walt Whitman’s backyard

This is the view from the back door, outside the “summer kitchen”. The square foundation to the left is the base of a replica outhouse that is being rebuilt. Yards were long and narrow but with Camden owning the neighboring homes it’s larger and they hold poetry readings here for young people who submit to an annual contest. I can imagine this space bustling with young people. I’m sure Walt would’ve loved that.

I will write about the upstairs in another post. Off to explore Philly this afternoon.

To be continued in Part 2.