Henry Beston (June 1, 1888 – April 15, 1968) was an American writer and naturalist, best known as the author of The Outermost House, written in 1928.
He also met his future wife Elizabeth Coatsworth, a fellow author of children's literature with whom he had two daughters, Margaret and Catherine.
Spiritually shaken by his experiences in World War I, Beston retreated to the outer beach at Eastham in search of peace and solitude.
Beston, who dedicated himself as a "writer/naturalist", is considered one of the fathers of the modern environmental movement, and The Outermost House has been called one of the motivating factors behind the establishment of the Cape Cod National Seashore.
The 20x16 house, dubbed "the Fo'castle" by Beston, was built by Eastham carpenter Harvey Moore in the late spring of 1925.
Beston married writer Elizabeth Coatsworth in 1929, and the couple eventually bought a farmhouse called "Chimney Farm" in Nobleboro, Maine.
Beston wrote several more books while living in Maine (Northern Farm and Herbs and the Earth among them), but never again approached the overall acclaim that he achieved in The Outermost House.
One of its tenants was a woman from Sharon, Massachusetts named Nan Turner Waldron, who would spend several weeks each year there from 1961 to 1977.
With his health deteriorating, Beston returned to the beach in Eastham one last time on October 11, 1964, when his famous house was dedicated as a National Literary Landmark.