Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 July 4th I think Salem, Massachusetts died in 1864. He came from a long line of harsh Puritan judges and may have changed the spelling of his last name to create that distance he so helpfully described. His family moved around a bit after his dad passed away at sea as I was a sea captain and family moved to Maine and then moved in with some other relatives back in the Massachusetts area. Went to Bowdoin where he became friends with some other poets and people who'd become con men. Wouldn't you know it on his way to school I think he ran into future president Franklin Pierce became a good friends with Franklin