Thoreau in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

[News of the Thoreau Family in 1849 and 1857]

[33] UT [News of the Thoreau Family in 1849 and 1857] Maria Thoreau One of several family members who lived in the extended Thoreau household during Henry’s life, Maria Thoreau (1794–1881) was the last survivor of John Thoreau’s family. She has been characterized as “a sharp and brilliant soul, a great talker, with very decided opinions upon religion, politics and the world in general. . . . [B]risk and energetic, and most firmly entrenched in her own opinions and principles.” According to Eben Loomis and others, Maria Thoreau was the veiled woman who showed up at jailer Samuel Staples’s home one night in late July 1846 to pay Henry’s delinquent poll tax, therefore sparing her nephew more than one night in the Middlesex County jail (Todd, 11; Oehlschlaeger and Hendrick, 197–202). In his journal on 27 March 1853, Henry records Maria’s comments at his not having read a book she’d recommended : “Think of it, he stood haf an hour today to hear the frogs croak, and he would’nt read the life of Chalmers—” (PEJ, 6:41).1 During the theological schism of 1826, Maria and her sisters, Jane and Elizabeth, were the only Thoreau family members to leave Rev. Ezra Ripley’s First Unitarian Church to join the newly formed Trinitarian Church in Concord. Although an abolitionist and founding member of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society, Maria disdained many of William Lloyd Garrison’s more radical ideas, particularly his anti-Sabbath stance. Her correspondence with close friends Mary Wilder and Prudence Ward details family life, including Henry and his siblings’ activities . She expresses decided opinions on Henry’s writings, philosophy, and lectures; thanks to her wide-ranging missives, we also learn the family’s reaction to Sophia Foord’s ill-fated proposal of marriage to Henry. As A Week was in press, Maria’s “fear [that] it will not sell well,” proved all too accurate (Thoreau, Letter to Ward, 15 March 1849). To Prudence Ward, 28 February 1849 Today Henry has gone to Salem to read another lecture they seem to be wonderfully taken with him there, and next month he is to go to Portland to deliver the same, and George wants him to keep on to Bangor they want to have him there, and if their funds will hold out they intend to send for thoreau in his own time [34] him they give 25 dollars, and at Salem and Portland 20—he is preparing his Book for the press and the title is to be, Waldien (I dont know how to spell it) or life in the woods I think the title will take if the Book dont.—I was quite amused with what Sophia told me her mother said about it the other day, she poor girl was lying in bed with a sick head ache when she overheard Cynthia (who has grown rather nervous of late) telling over her troubles to Mrs Dunbar , after speaking of her own and Helen’s sickness, she says . . . and Henry is putting things into his Book that never ought to be put there, . . . you know I have said, there were parts of it that sounded to me very much like blasphemy , and I did not believe they would publish it, on reading it to Helen the other day Sophia told me, she made the same remark, and coming from her, Henry was much surprised, and said she did not understand it, but still I fear they will not persuade him to leave it out, by the way, have you heard what a strange story there was about Miss Ford, and Henry, Mrs Brooks said at the convention, a lady came to her and inquired, if it was true, that Miss F—had committed, or was going to commit suicide on account of H— Thoreau, what a ridiculous story this is. When it was told to H— he made no remark at all, and we cannot find out from him any thing about it, for a while, they corresponded, and Sophia said that she recollected one day on the reception of a letter she heard H— say, he should’nt answer it, or he must put a stop to this, some such thing she could’nt exactly tell what. . . . To Prudence Ward, 1 May 1849 Mr Emerson gave us his last lecture on Wednesday evening, and much good may it do those who understand it. Henry has been to Worcester twice and...