Of Books And Houses: A Literary Walking Tour of Farrington's Grove Historic Neighborhood

Hear Tim Kelley share information about people and houses in Farrington’s Grove. The neighborhood has been the home of numerous historic and literary figures including novelists, politicians, poets and individuals associated with the arts. This amazing literary heritage is at risk of being forgotten and it is our goal to assist in the preservation of this history by revisiting these significant figures and their homes.

Several of these former residents published various literary works including history, poetry, politics and fiction while living in Farrington’s Grove. In other instances, historians, biographers and novelists have included the lives and deeds of our former neighbors in books with some accounts describing neighborhood homes.

Our presentation will include U.S.Navy Secretary Richard W.Thompson, Suffragist Ida Harper, U.S. Senator Daniel Voorhees, and novelist John Jakes, all with links to the neighborhood. In addition, we will visit "the Red House" where Clarence Darrow, Mother Jones and Eugene Debs discussed the issues of the day with the Stephen Marion Reynolds' family and their dinner guests. We will hear from Claude Bowers, journalist, historian and Jeffersonian scholar, who went on to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Spain during the Spanish Civil War and who also frequented the homes of Farrington's Grove. These vignettes will hopefully emphasize the neighborhood's historical and literary significance and the importance of preserving this treasure of Terre Haute.