Born in New Haven, Connecticut to architect Sidney Mason Stone, Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop (1844-1924) grew up in a cultured and religious home. She attended private school and enhanced her literary knowledge through her exposure to her father’s extensive library.

Lothrop’s first two stories, written under the pseudonym Margaret Sidney, were published in Wide Awake, a children’s periodical published by D. Lothrop Publishing in Boston. These led to the 1881 serialization of “Five Little Peppers and How They Grew” in the magazine. The same year, Lothrop married publisher Daniel Lothrop, a widower, thirty years her senior. Together they purchased Nathaniel Hawthorne’s home, The Wayside, in Concord, Massachusetts, where their daughter Margaret was born. In this literary home, eleven “Pepper” books were written, five adapted by Columbia Pictures for films.

Lothrop was an early member of the Massachusetts Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and founded the National Society of Children of the American Revolution in 1895. Two of her books—A Little Maid of Concord Town, a tribute to Concord’s role in the American Revolution and Old Concord, Her Highways and Byways, a story capturing the town’s late 19th century charm—reflect her love of Concord.

Dedicated to preserving Concord’s history, Lothrop’s preservation efforts focused on saving historical homes, including The Wayside, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House (which she purchased to prevent it from being torn down in 1902), the “Grapevine Cottage” (where the Concord grape was first produced), and the “old Tolman House.” These homes are preserved in Concord today thanks to her foresight and dedication.

Photo courtesy of the National Park Service