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Last House on the Road: Excursions Into a Rural Past
The author describes his experiences living in rural New Hampshire and restoring an old farmhouse, whose builder was a Revolutionary War soldier
- GenresBiography MemoirHistory
270 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1994
About the author
Ronald Jager
14 books1 followerWriter and former Yale philosophy professor Ronald Jager grew up on his family’s farm in McBain, Michigan, which he chronicled in his popular memoir Eighty Acres: Elegy for a Family Farm. After graduating from Northern Michigan Christian High School and moving on to Calvin College, Jager earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University.
He left a teaching career to become a writer, penning essays for publications such as Harper’s Magazine, in addition to books on farm life, including The Fate of Family Farming: Variations on an American Idea and Last House on the Road: Excursions Into a Rural Past. A New Hampshire resident for many decades, Jager has written books and essays on that state’s history.
He left a teaching career to become a writer, penning essays for publications such as Harper’s Magazine, in addition to books on farm life, including The Fate of Family Farming: Variations on an American Idea and Last House on the Road: Excursions Into a Rural Past. A New Hampshire resident for many decades, Jager has written books and essays on that state’s history.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 17, 2026
3.75⭐️
This book is so peaceful! Almost boring but in a good way? Every time I pick it up and read, I am reminded to slow down, enjoy my surroundings, and find beauty in what I observe. It feels like I am listening to the musings of an old man while sitting on his porch and I loved it. Some of my favorite quotes:
“…and I realize that often I cannot answer the most simple question posed by the landscapes of Lovellwood. Our lives are constantly annoyed, and wonderfully graced, with unsolved rural mysteries.
But nowhere is it written that we must solve them. It is merely our pleasant privilege—as stewards, coming on the heels of pioneers like the Woods and of survivors like the Powerses—to try to retrieve some scraps of their times, and link them with our own. Our excursions into this particular rural past are forever brief and incomplete, done for our sake and not theirs, and bring back only fragments of a narrative— which is all we really seek: history in the present tense.“
“Now and then I will salvage for firewood a great old gnarled maple that has been dying for fifty years and has finally expired, and… I'll find the stained heartwood where last century's tap hole drew sweet sap from the young tree. It puts me in touch with Anson and Auren and the world they knew.”
“Their long innocent summertime of adolescence was over, we hoped, and we had been privileged to witness the rites of passage. I'm an optimist: somewhere today I know they are teaching Environmental Studies.”
"’So what do you cultivate here?’" they may ask me.
"’Whatever of the past is in the present,’" say I, possibly adding to their mystification. "’I do a lot of listening. Sermons in sticks and stones, you know!’"
“Under this armor is a large middle-aged man, and I wonder if perhaps inside the man is a small boy.”
“I am aware that the stillness of the woods can wrap itself around you like a mantle, become itself a presence palpable enough to elicit from within you a solemn reverence. Deep calleth unto deep. You watch for deer, yes, at attention but at ease, and tranquility itself seeps in past your gaze and settles down upon your will.”
This book is so peaceful! Almost boring but in a good way? Every time I pick it up and read, I am reminded to slow down, enjoy my surroundings, and find beauty in what I observe. It feels like I am listening to the musings of an old man while sitting on his porch and I loved it. Some of my favorite quotes:
“…and I realize that often I cannot answer the most simple question posed by the landscapes of Lovellwood. Our lives are constantly annoyed, and wonderfully graced, with unsolved rural mysteries.
But nowhere is it written that we must solve them. It is merely our pleasant privilege—as stewards, coming on the heels of pioneers like the Woods and of survivors like the Powerses—to try to retrieve some scraps of their times, and link them with our own. Our excursions into this particular rural past are forever brief and incomplete, done for our sake and not theirs, and bring back only fragments of a narrative— which is all we really seek: history in the present tense.“
“Now and then I will salvage for firewood a great old gnarled maple that has been dying for fifty years and has finally expired, and… I'll find the stained heartwood where last century's tap hole drew sweet sap from the young tree. It puts me in touch with Anson and Auren and the world they knew.”
“Their long innocent summertime of adolescence was over, we hoped, and we had been privileged to witness the rites of passage. I'm an optimist: somewhere today I know they are teaching Environmental Studies.”
"’So what do you cultivate here?’" they may ask me.
"’Whatever of the past is in the present,’" say I, possibly adding to their mystification. "’I do a lot of listening. Sermons in sticks and stones, you know!’"
“Under this armor is a large middle-aged man, and I wonder if perhaps inside the man is a small boy.”
“I am aware that the stillness of the woods can wrap itself around you like a mantle, become itself a presence palpable enough to elicit from within you a solemn reverence. Deep calleth unto deep. You watch for deer, yes, at attention but at ease, and tranquility itself seeps in past your gaze and settles down upon your will.”
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July 17, 2012what an amazing tale! so interesting, reminds me of home
May 7, 2021
I generally enjoyed Jager's writing style and found the book interesting and informative, if at times a bit tedious. As an owner of an antique house in a small town in New Hampshire, there was a lot I could relate to!
September 21, 2013
A winding account of the author's coming to the small NH town of Washington with excursions into two centuries of history, the land, the house and portraits of the townspeople and rural life. Very well written. Something about it puts me in mind of Bill Bryson. For me, the chapter describing the forest's reclamation of an old field was a high point.
September 2, 2010
This is my hometown, and relatives and friends are mentioned. I called the Jagers, and had a lovely talk, after I read this. I'd love to buy and fix up an old house in Washington, NH, but I'm too lazy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews