Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. was a resident of Boscawen during the first half of the 20th century, summering at the General John A. Dix homestead on King Street. The house was purchased by his father Adolf A. Berle Sr. in 1899 and was in the Berle family until 1962.
In 1901 he wrote an article for the Boston Evening Transcript about the “Old Home” movement that was occurring in New England. It was titled “One Old Town’s Product” and was a tribute to the town of Boscawen.
He was born in Boston in 1895. A child prodigy who attended Harvard University at the age of 14 and received a master’s degree in History in 1914, a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1916, becoming the youngest graduate in the school’s history, and passed the bar exam by the age of 21.
During the First World War he served as an intelligence officer. In 1919, Berle attended the Paris Peace Conference as a delegate but resigned over the terms of the treaty. He returned to New York City and became a member of the law firm of Berle, Berle and Brunner. A member of the Democratic Party he provided advice to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
He was the author of “The Modern Corporation and Private Property“, a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, and an important member of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust“.
He died February 17, 1971 and is buried in Muddy Brook Cemetery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Lorrie Carey, a Boscawen native and town Selectman recalls, “My grandmother and great grandmother were “domestics” in Dr. Berle’s house for the summer. She said he and his family were very kind and that he spent much of his time reading and writing. She talked about the family’s formal sit-down dinners in the dining room, complete with linens and silver. She recalled the family was “very proper” in their manners.”
Elaine Clow, President of the Boscawen Historical Society recalls, “Dr. Berle was different from the others. He had “a man” who kind of ran things — a personal attendant, I think — and both seemed quite isolationist — now this was in the mid-late 1950s and early 60s. One Halloween I knocked on the door and got a stern turn down from the attendant. Another year Bobby Raymond and I knocked, and because it was Bobby, I think we got something for the effort — Mary, Bobby’s mother, was a war bride from the south (Alabama I think) and Dr. Berle seemed to think she was wonderful — he even had a xmas tree cut from his property for her…… The Berle house always seemed covered with greenery, kind of mysterious, and dark. I know I’ve been inside from the front entrance, but I have no memories of the inside until after Henrietta took over — definitely she made changes, including the side entry.”
Some additional reading:
The Institution Man” A biography of Adolf A. Berle Jr. by Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University
“Power Without Property – A New Development in American Political Economy” by Adolf A. Berle Jr.
