Cedarmere

ROSLYN, N.Y. -- By virtue of his achievements in the worlds of letters, horticulture and public service, William Cullen Bryant should be considered one of America's leading renaissance men. Yet in the press of modern life, he himself is virtually unknown, though his works are among our most enduring.

Millions who read the New York Post newspaper have no idea that Bryant was the editor of its predecessor, the Evening Post, for more than three decades. Students of American literature read his epic, elegant blank verse poem "Thanatopsis" without penetrating the psyche of its author. And visitors to his handsome estate sometimes fail to appreciate the window it affords into an era when our nation was new and many of the institutions we take for granted had not yet come to be. Of not a few of these, William Cullen Bryant was a founding father.

Consider, for example, New York City's monumental paean to nature, its amazing Central Park. Considered by his peers to be a "passionate botanist," Bryant wrote articles for the Post beginning in the mid-1840s promoting the concept of "an extensive pleasure ground for shade and recreation ... which we might reach without going out of town."

Working with Andrew Jackson Downing, the landscape architect who had designed the gardens at the nation's capitol, the White House and the Smithsonian, Bryant lobbied energetically; suggested the Park's ultimate creator, Frederick Law Olmstead; and was rewarded in 1853 by legislative approval for the purchase of land between 5th and 8th Avenues, and 59th to 106th Streets for the park.

A pioneer in so many things, Bryant might today be considered one of the first Long Island-to-Manhattan commuters. During his editorship of the Post, he purchased a house and property on the North Shore. Once known as Springbank, the estate ultimately grew to 200 acres and to be called Cedarmere. The name means "cedar lake," stemming from the cedar trees around the pond.

The poet/editor owned Cedarmere from 1843 until his death in 1878. He occupied the property usually from Friday through Monday, living in the city during each week, commuting by rail or steamship.

The purpose of owning Cedarmere was several-fold: first, Bryant wanted to be able to escape the heat, noise and disturbance of the city, except during the dead of winter; second, he wanted to be able to indulge his dedication to botanical matters.

There is little doubt that Cedarmere filled a total commitment Bryant felt for growing things, a part of his life-long system of ethical obligation to the world around him: "The earliest occupation of man, we are told -- his task in the state of innocence, was to tend and dress the garden in which his maker placed him ... few pursuits are so agreeably interesting without ever disturbing the mind. ... The love of plants is a natural and wholesome instinct. Through that, perhaps, quite as much as through any other tendency of our natures, the sense of beauty, the grateful perception of harmony, of color, and of grace, and fair proportion of shape, enter the mind and wean it from grosser and more sensual tastes."

The original Bryant property included a farmhouse, a mill building, and two ponds. It was situated on Roslyn Harbor. Across Old Northern Boulevard lay farmlands and orchards. By Bryant's death in 1878, his "upland farm" included boxwood parterres with rose gardens at their centers, some 60 types of pears and an apple orchard. Plants were grown in coldframes and a greenhouse and included an impressive variety. A Bryant journal entry for October 13, 1870, listed (in addition to the notation "no frost yet") some 38 different varieties of flowers in bloom. Subsequently, he noted, "Oct. 19th. No frost yet at Roslyn -- To this list add new the Chrysanthemum."

In 1865, Bryant added his former boyhood home in Massachusetts to his holdings; he also purchased his grandfather's farm. On a total of 465 acres, he had planted literally hundreds of ornamental trees and conifers in addition to 14 varieties of pears, ten of plums and six of cherry.

Then at the age of 84, William Cullen Bryant participated in the dedication of a memorial statue in Central Park. May 29, 1878, was a hot sunny day, and the orator poet seemed disoriented with the heat. Later in the day, perhaps as a result, he fell and struck his head. Two weeks later, never having fully recovered consciousness, Bryant died, leaving as his legacy (to be read at his funeral) this on "June:"

"I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round;
And thought, that when I came to lie
Within the silent ground,"
`Twere pleasant that, in flowery June,
When brooks sent up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain turf should break."

Following his death, Cedarmere remained in the family, becoming the property of Bryant's grandson, Harold Godwin. In 1903, after a serious fire, Godwin had the current dwelling rebuilt in a style similar to the original.

Today's site includes seven acres that include the house, a pond and bridge, the mill, an ice house that once functioned as Mrs Bryant's boathouse, and a tool shed. Open to the public, Cedarmere is open from April through October on Saturdays and holidays from 10 am to 4:45 pm, and Sundays from 1 to 4:45 pm. Admission is free. For information, 516/571-8130.