Walt Whitman in Camden, part two

Hello from my couch, in my pajamas, back home in Riverside. With the best of intentions, I had hoped to write this while I was still in Philadelphia but alas, no go. Visiting Walt Whitman’s house and grave site were first on my list of visits even before seeing my sister, who I had traveled to see, in part because she’s a late sleeper and I was on California time.

I loved seeing this place. It was like time travel. The house is very squared away and yet with just the right amount of clutter to give the impression of a lived-in home. The upstairs was no exception. This is part two to my first entry about visiting Whitman in Camden. Read part one here.

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After a trip to the backyard with my tour guide, Susan, we went back in through the summer kitchen, through the everyday eat-in kitchen (which, I’m told, Walt never ate in but rather the housekeeper and the nurse ate there) and back around to the steep narrow staircase. Stairs are not my friend. I climbed gingerly, holding the rail, and at the top stopped at the landing. There were doors ahead and to the side and behind us. Walt’s bedroom was at the front of the house with windows facing the street so that he could write in his chair with good light.

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This is a picture on ebay of Walt Whitman’s bedroom in its current state, though from this direction you can’t see the chair he wrote in nor the (replicated facsimile) piles of loose papers strewn all over the floor. Here’s a better look at what Walt’s bedroom really looked like:

I know you know how to Google, so my posting other people’s photos doesn’t really provide any insight. But things to note: I was told that was the bed he died in, but note the newel post of the bed in this 1890 photo versus the bed that is in the room now. So maybe they mean the mattress and not the bed itself? Or maybe something has been lost in translation through the passing along of information. Or, given that the photo above was taken two years before his passing, he replaced the bed. No matter.

The effect of walking into that room was controlled chaos. The piles of papers on the floor were choreographed, staged. As you can see in the 1890 photo, Walt was no neatnik. There was a small birdcage on the floor of the room. There was a first edition of the last edition of Leaves of Grass on the dresser. Toward the end of his life, between the strokes and tuberculosis and other ailments, he was in a bad way. He needed to be turned frequently in order to be able to breathe.

To be in the room where Walt Whitman breathed his last breath was eerie. Any actual traces of Walt Whitman in the room are long since gone but no matter, he is there. His chair by the window where he wrote on his lap.

The other rooms upstairs were a little less inspiring but still interesting. His bedroom has a door that connects to an adjoining room where his nurse slept so she could be close at hand. That room is currently not staged and is being used for storage but she did swing open the door so I could take a peek. It’s small with a fairly low ceiling and low light from one small window.

Adjacent to that room, on the other side of the hall toward the back of the house, is the single bathroom in the home. And it is just that: a room in which to take a bath. There is no indoor toilet, and the tub that is there is a period replica. It is a metal tub (steel?) encased in wooden box with two spigots at the end. I asked about those because that would seem to indicate indoor plumbing. (Here’s a little primer on what bathing was like through centuries.) The wooden box was rough-hewn, and looked very similar to this one found on eBay:

The brain does funny things when you’re standing in the room where Walt Whitman got naked. The aged body. How on earth did he get in and out of that tub? At home, I live in a house built in 1908 and we have a clawfoot tub with high sides and I know the perils of getting in and out of it with a middle-aged body.

The last room upstairs was for the housekeeper, Mary Oakes Davis. The room was even smaller than the one for his housekeeper. Susan, my guide, mentioned the nurse’s name but now I can’t recall and can’t find it online. It was a step up and also rather dark. Each of these two bedrooms had only one window compared to Walt’s three. Nevertheless, the entire house and each room in it was quite cozy and inviting. Wood floors, period wallpaper, carpet runners and carpets, rich wooden sturdy-yet-beautiful furnishings, the occasional bust and indoor statuary, many framed photographs, books, and barely-contained loose papers on nearly every surface. During his lifetime, I’m sure it was a delightful wreck, just like a writer. It’s too bad his health was so poor but he loved company and entertaining in that house.

And thus concludes our tour of the house, but I learned toward the end that Walt’s tomb was only a couple miles away. Too far to walk but a quick Uber and I was there.

Harleigh Cemetery is a historic cemetery in Camden. I was dropped off just inside the gates at the roundabout, right outside the main office. There was a sign referencing a cemetery map, so I decided to go inside instead of wandering around until I found Walt’s tomb, but alas another sign on the door said call to make an appointment.

Crud.

I tried the door, because I am nothing if not persistent, and it was unlocked. Hooray. I went in and announced myself.

“Hello?”

A man emerged from the back of the offices and greeted me. I mentioned seeing the notice about an available map. He left and returned quickly with a highlighted map and detailed directions, then proceeded to walk me out and point me in the right direction.

The path to his tomb has its own street sign! Even someone as directionally-challenged as me couldn’t possibly get lost.

I followed the path. Come along with me? It’s an easy walk on a gravel path. The cemetery is lush and green. Susan showed me a picture of the tomb so I knew what I was looking for.

For the uninformed, I have a Walt Whitman quote tattoo. My only, my first, my last. In my book, small mammals, I use a Whitman epigraph and each section title is a snippet of verse from Song of Myself. This one, “love-root, silk-thread”, for me evokes the connection we all have but especially with our children and others we love. Love is rooted deeply, and binds us to those we love by a thread that may seem tenuous but is in fact stronger than steel. So, a tattoo selfie with Walt was in order. I’m not a Whitman scholar, just a lay poet who finds much to admire in his words.

At Walt Whitman's tomb

I sat down on one of the stones beside his grave marker/plaque and wrote a poem by hand with my red fountain pen that I carry on the back of the map. It was peaceful. There is a little nearby pond and other historic gravesites. I don’t know who they are, because at that point I needed to get going. So I’ll leave you here, sitting with the scenery around Walt’s tomb. It was a totally Walt Whitman day. I’m glad I made it.