History
The Cottage – Historic Home
The Sidney Lanier Cottage was constructed circa 1840 and is the historic home of noted poet, musician, and soldier, Sidney Lanier (1842-1881). The Sidney Lanier Cottage House Museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1976, the “Cottage” was designated a Landmark of American Music, and in 2004, designated a Landmark of American Poetry by the Academy of American Poets. Among the objects on view at the historic home are one of Sidney Lanier’s flutes (a silver, alto flute made by the Badger Flute Company), Mary Day’s wedding dress of 1867, and several portraits and first editions.
Sidney Lanier
Perhaps best known for his poems “The Marshes of Glynn” and “Song of the Chattahoochee,” Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) was also a renowned musician, as he was first chair flute in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore for seven seasons and later received a federal commission to compose a Cantata for the Centenniel celebration of the United States in 1876 in Philadelphia.
Lanier was born in the Cottage on February 3, 1842, and moved to Griffin, Georgia shortly after his birth. Lanier soon returned to Macon with his family where he completed his elementary education. At the age of 14, Lanier entered Oglethorpe College near Milledgeville, Georgia, and graduated in 1860 with high honors. Lanier entered the Confederate Army in 1861 with the Macon Volunteers and was captured in 1864 while serving on a blockade runner. He spent five months in a federal prison, where he developed consumption (tuberculosis), an illness with which he struggled for the rest of his life. Lanier married Mary Day on December 19, 1867 in Christ Episcopal Church in Macon. They couple had four sons.
Lanier spent his latter years in Baltimore, Maryland, where, in addition to performing with the Peabody, he lectured in the English Literature Department at Johns Hopkins University. Lanier died near Lynn, North Carolina in 1881 at the age of 39. Mary Day Lanier, who outlived her husband by 50 years (d. 1931), spent her widowhood editing, publishing, and promoting her husband’s copious letters, poems, and manuscripts.
Facts About Sidney Lanier & The Cottage
+Lanier was honored on a U.S. Postage Stamp in 1972, on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of his birth...For the occasion, then-Governor Jimmy Carter wrote: “I, Jimmy Carter, Governor of the State of Georgia, hereby proclaim February 3, 1972, as “Sidney Lanier Day in Georgia” and urge all citizens to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the birth of Sidney Lanier, and ask all Georgians to read some of his masterpieces.” The original proclamation, on display in the back Hallway, was the inspiration for today’s event. All area teachers are encouraged to read Lanier’s poems to their classes on this day.
+In 1975, the Sidney Lanier Cottage was restored and opened to the public...
…by the Middle Georgia Historical Society, as well as placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1976, the Cottage was named a Landmark of American Music. In 2004, the Cottage was honored by the Academy of American Poets as one of only 31 National Poetry Landmarks in the U.S. The Cottage had frequently appeared in turn-of-the-century postcards as a Macon “attraction”, while still a private residence.
+In 1842, at the time of Sidney Lanier’s birth, the Cottage was rented by his grandparents...
…Sterling and Sarah Lanier, who owned Hotel Lanier in downtown Macon (no longer standing), as well as the Exchange Hotel in Montgomery, Alabama and the Montvale Springs Resort Hotel in eastern Tennessee’s Blount County. Lanier’s parents, Robert and Mary Jane Anderson Lanier, were living in Griffin, GA at the time. They had come back to Macon briefly to have the child, as there was limited access to medical care in Griffin. The two-story, clapboard home where Lanier spent 10 years of his boyhood is no longer standing; it was located at the corner of Second and Mulberry Streets, where the high-rise BB&T Bank is today.
+Sidney Lanier married Mary Day on December 19, 1867 at Christ Episcopal Church in Macon...
Mary Day’s wedding dress is located in the Front Parlor. On display only for this event, is the tiny, rare Book of Common Prayer that Mary Day gave to their eldest of four sons, Charles Day Lanier, on his first birthday. The book was inscribed again to Charles in 1870 by Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. Historic Macon Foundation wishes to thank the Middle Georgia Archives, Washington Memorial Library for the temporary loan of this object for today’s event. The great-grandchildren of Sidney and Mary Day Lanier currently live in New York and Connecticut.
+Lanier was self-taught on the flute, piano, organ, violin, banjo, and guitar...
He made his first flute from a reed on the banks of the Ocmulgee River and imitated the sounds of the birds. During the last seven years of his life, Lanier made his meager living from music, not poetry. He held the honorable position of First Flute for the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland for seven consecutive seasons.
+The silver alto Badger flute displayed in the Back Parlor of the Cottage...
…was one of only three alto flutes the Badger Company made. The flute was never actually owned by Sidney, but he played it with the Peabody, making this instrument perhaps one of the first product sponsorships or endorsements in America. After Lanier’s death in 1881, the silver alto Badger flute was purchased by his close Baltimore musician friend and Peabody band-mate, Henry Wysham (Lanier’s third-born son’s namesake), who gave it to Lanier’s cousin, college roommate, and local band-mate, Willie LeConte, who grew up in the family home just to the left of the Cottage.
+The bronze bust of Lanier from 1880...
…at Macon’s Washington Memorial Library is one of two that Baltimore sculptor Ephraim Keyser volunteered (not commissioned) to create after a chance meeting with Lanier.
+The massive marble bust of the youthful Lanier from 1929...
…in the collection of Macon’s Washington Memorial Library was sculpted by noted American sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who began the Confederate Memorial at Stone Mountain, GA and sculpted the famed Mount Rushmore American Memorial in South Dakota.
