Tea Room Postcard #43 -- The William Cullen Bryant Tea Room (Great Barrington, Mass.)

Now here's a name that is no doubt a familiar one to many of you. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was a poet, journalist, and at one time the editor of the New York Evening Post. He moved in some fine circles, as he was an early supporter of Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York Medical College, and he also had ties to the Hudson River School of art.

The back of the postcard didn't tell me very much except for noting the address of the Maynard Workshop in Waban, Mass., which also happens to be the photographer for the postcard. The name "John B. Maynard" appears along with the notation "10 o'clock 11/18/37." So naturally I went online to do a search for "William Cullen Bryant Tea Room," and that led me to Google Books where I found an excerpt from the 1937 book "Massachusetts: a Guide to the Bay State." It says this: "The William Cullen Bryant House, now a summer tearoom, is in the garden behind the Berkshire Inn. The house (1739) is a two-and-a-half-story dwelling with a two-leaf door of the early Connecticut Valley type and with two interior chimneys. The interior is handsomely paneled, particularly the 'marriage room.' Here Bryant was married at the time he was practicing law and serving as town clerk (1815-25) of Great Barrington." It was fun to learn about one of the country's early literary lights, and I'm happy to know a little about the tea room that bore his name.