Nutter's house on Court Street and a hitch in the Civil War, Aldrich published his groundbreaking novel in 1869. After his death in 1907, the house was restored to its mid-1800s appearance and opened as a museum. Back then most visitors were very familiar with the book, and the unassuming house became a literary shrine for those who treasured the Tom Bailey tales. Readers remembered Tom’ss first love, backyard fisticuffs, the day the rascals burned a carriage in Market Square, when they fired an old cannon by the river, or took on the rival neighborhood gang in a giant snowball fight.

Today the house is still as it was, open to the public as part of a Strawberry Banke Museum tour. We've included some quotes from the book. Most of the colorized black and white photos here were sold as a souvenir package to visitors and came in an envelope with a printed tour. You can find this series often on eBay. Don’t pay too much. There are lots of copies around. – JDR

TB ALDRICH HOUSE

"The house abutted directly on the street; the granite doorstep was almost flush with the sidewalk, and the huge old- fashioned brass knocker extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody. It seemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk; and when there was a man-of-war in port, the rat-tat-tat of that knocker would frequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight." -- from Story of a Bad Boy (1869) by TB Aldrich

Continue with NUTTER HOUSE TOUR / Downstairs