German immigrant and Harvard professor Charles Follen is credited with introducing the German tradition of the Christmas tree to Massachusetts in 1832. Born Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen in 1796 in the town of Romrod (part of what would later become the nation of Germany), Follen attended theology school before enlisting in the army during the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. A severe case of typhoid fever led to his discharge after only a few weeks of service and, after recovering, Follen returned to university to study law.
It was during this time of political upheaval that Follen became an active member of the Giessen Burschenschaft, an organization committed to promoting republican ideals. Follen’s outspoken activism and rumors linking him to the 1819 assassination of a conservative politician (which proved to be unfounded), led to his ouster from the University of Giessen and his subsequent move to Paris, where he encountered leading republican thinkers such as the Marquis de Lafayette. Follen’s political writings soon got him into trouble again – he left France for Switzerland in 1820 and ultimately moved to the United States in 1824, anglicizing his first name from Karl to Charles.
Follen spent brief periods in New York and Philadelphia before accepting a teaching position at Harvard in the fall of 1825. Follen began his career at Harvard as a German-language instructor, and soon added theological instruction to his résumé while teaching at Harvard Divinity School. Follen himself was also taking classes to train for the ministry, completing his doctorate in divinity and beginning a position as professor of German literature in 1830. In 1828 he had married Eliza Lee Cabot, of the prominent Cabot family of Boston shipping magnates, and in 1830 their first child was born. The arrival of his son, also named Charles, made Follen reminisce about his own childhood and decide to introduce the German Christmas tree tradition to his American family and community.
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The English journalist Harriet Martineau was visiting Boston in December 1832 and was a guest at the Follen’s Christmas party at their Cambridge home. She described the sight of the small fir tree that Charles Follen had cut down in the nearby woods:
“It really looked beautiful; the room seemed in a blaze, and the ornaments were so well hung on that no accident happened, except that one doll’s petticoat caught fire. There was a sponge tied to the end of a stick to put out any supernumerary blaze, and no harm ensued. I mounted the steps behind the tree to see the effect of opening the doors. It was delightful. The children poured in, but in a moment every voice was hushed. Their faces were upturned to the blaze, all eyes wide open, all lips parted, all steps arrested.”
Although Cantabrigians over the past two centuries have claimed that Follen’s was the first Christmas tree in America, evidence suggests that decorated trees had been incorporated into German-Americans’ Christmas traditions for at least a decade prior. There are also accounts of German immigrants cutting down evergreen trees to bring inside their homes (although not decorated) as far back as the 18th century. It is likely that the large German communities in the Pennsylvania colony were the first to display these trees, with stories of the Hessian soldiers hired to fight on the side of the British during the American Revolution placing small fir trees inside their army tents during the holiday season.
The Follens are thought to have had the first decorated tree in Massachusetts, however, and word of its beauty spread quickly, inspiring many Americans to embrace the Christmas tree tradition in the 1830s and ’40s. The Christmas tree’s place in American culture was solidified in the mid-19th century when large waves of immigrants began arriving amid the German political upheavals that began in 1848. Harriet Martineau, the Follens’ guest at that Christmas party in 1832, had predicted the spread of this tradition. A 1957 Cambridge Chronicle article quotes Martineau as saying:
“I was present at the introduction into the new country of the spectacle of the German Christmas tree. The tree was the top of a young fir planted in a tub which was ornamented with moss. Smart dolls and other whimsies glittered in the evergreen, and there was not a twig which had not something sparkling upon it. I have little doubt the Christmas tree will become one of the most flourishing exotics of New England.”
Follen would not live to see his beloved Christmas tradition take hold in America, and his time at Harvard was cut short when, in 1835, he was let go from his teaching position because of his staunch outspoken abolitionist views. His political and literary passions had brought him into the orbit of Boston-area activists, writers and theologians such as William Lloyd Garrison, William Ellery Channing and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and his time in the United States had only sharpened his antislavery views. Eliza Cabot Follen was also very active in abolitionist causes, and had been long before she met Follen; although the Cabot dynasty was built on shipping, including products of the slave trade, the Cabot family had shifted its views after the Revolution. By the time of Eliza’s childhood, that was well-known in antislavery circles.
After Charles Follen’s firing from Harvard, the family moved to New York, where Follen had been offered a Unitarian congregation, but that too proved to be short-lived when his outspoken abolitionism came to light. Follen was given a position at a new church in Lexington, Massachusetts; in January 1840, Follen died in a steamship fire while traveling from New York to Boston for the dedication of the church that would be named in his memory. Eliza Cabot Follen lived for another 24 years after her husband’s death. A successful writer and poet in her own right, she continued to produce works throughout her life and served as editor of a collection of her husband’s writings. Follen Street, just north of Cambridge Common, is named for Charles Follen, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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