EB White
Jill Krementz
When E.B. White and his wife Katharine Angell bought a summer home overlooking Allen’s Cove in Brooklin in 1933, he couldn't have known how much the saltwater farm would contribute to making him an author beloved by generations of children.
It was his experience of caring for a sick pig on his farm, that pig’s death, and his grief that helped inspire Charlotte’s Web, a book he published in 1952 that is still considered a classic of children’s literature. Writing the story from a simple wooden bench in the boathouse just feet from the cove, White created a world for Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider drawn from his life on his farm and community: the barn and its rope swing, a spider weaving a web in that barn, the routines of farm animals and rural life, and the experience of the Blue Hill Fair.
White remained on the farm for the rest of his life; he died there at the age of 86 in 1985 and he and his wife are buried in Brooklin Cemetery. The home that was his year-round residence for more than 40 years is on the National Register of Historic Places and was painstakingly preserved by new owners who bought the property after his death. Still privately owned, the 44-acre property is not open to the public today, but from the road the farmhouse, barn, and boathouse look much the same as when White sat at a bare wooden table with a typewriter and typed “Some Pig.”
Author: Stephanie Bouchard
