Facing Mark Twain's old mansion in Hartford is this graceful house that once was the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe. A small lawn separates the two places, both of which sit well back from busy Farmington Avenue.
It was here in July 1896 that Harriet Beecher Stowe died in her 85th year. In old age her mental abilities faded, and she was often seen wandering in the neighborhood. Sometimes, as Twain recalled in his autobiography, she appeared suddenly in other people's houses and surprised the residents with childlike games.
"The doors always stood open in pleasant weather," Twain wrote of his neighborhood. "Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free will, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of animal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do it. She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and musings and fetch a war-whoop that would jump that person out of his clothes. And she had other moods. Sometimes we would hear gentle music in the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing ancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect."
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