Note:
To read author John Hanson Mitchell's sympathetic 1989 essay on Sanferd Benson and his tattered house, click image:

Jan. 24, 2001

To the Editor of the Concord Journal,

I was happy to hear that the land around the old Benson place may be preserved, but horrified to learn that there is a possibility that the architecturally unique 17th-century house [prob. 1720-40] on the property might be torn down. I think, before any extreme action of this sort is taken, the town should be aware of the fact that this property may have played a minor, as yet unrecognized role, in African-American history.

For almost 10 years now I have been researching the life of an African-American man named Robert A. Gilbert, who was the manservant to the renowned 19th-century ornithologist William Brewster, who purchased land in Concord in the late 1800s and called it " October Farm." My research indicates that Gilbert was far more than a mere manservant. Gilbert learned, perhaps through Brewster, the art of developing and printing glass photographic plates, no mean feat back in the 19th century. He also did photography himself. And as far as I know, he is the only African-American who ever shot landscapes. One of Gilbert’s photos (unaccredited, unfortunately) appears in Brewster’s book October Farm. Although overshadowed by the famous 19th century characters with whom he associated, Daniel Chester French, to name but one, his story deserves a special place in African-American history.

Gilbert was one of the earliest, perhaps the only, 19th-century African-American ornithologist; he is cited in a newspaper clipping from 1931 as having assisted Brewster in intensive studies of birds of various regions, such as the Rangely Lakes in Maine. He was a highly respected citizen in both white Brahmin circles and, especially, in the black community in Cambridge where he lived. He appears to have traveled to Europe in the early part of the 20th century where he invented a shoe polish formula that may have made a fortune for him. This period in his life seems to have led to a walk-on role in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book Tender is the Night. Gilbert came home to the United States and was hired after Brewster’s death, as assistant to the director of Harvard’s Museum of Comparatively Zoology, where he ended his days, a much beloved figure at the museum.

My original source on Robert A. Gilbert, the information that got me started on this whole quest, was Sanferd Benson. Benson told me that Gilbert was his " best friend " and it is, among other things, a great credit to Benson that only after many long conversations about Gilbert did he mention the fact that Gilbert happened to be a black man. Race was not an issue. Benson and Gilbert spent a lot of time on " October Farm " around the Concord River and Ball’s Hill and around the old Benson place. As he gained more field experience, Gilbert spent a lot of time in the area with Brewster, recording birds and planting wildflowers at the Brewster cabin site on Ball’s Hill. Gilbert may have lived in Cambridge, but the land around Benson’s house was his ornithological hunting ground.

I am now in the process of completing the research on this interesting character. My intention is to establish the fact that Gilbert was indeed a skilled African-American photographer and ornithologist. For this reason alone, the house and land around the Benson place, historic value of the structure notwithstanding, should be preserved. It would be a shame to someday have to post a plaque on the property indicating that this was once the site of Robert A. Gilbert’s early fieldwork. Better to save the land and house all in one piece.

John Hanson Mitchell
Littleton