Megan Marshall - The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism

First Mariner Books edition 2006
Copyright 2005 by Megan Marshall
All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Marshall, Megan.
The Peabody sisters : three women who ignited American romanticism /
Megan Marshall.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-395-38992-5
1. Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 18041894. 2. Mann, Maryiyler Peabody, 18061887. 3.Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody, 18091871. 4. Massachusetts Intellectual life19th century. 5. Women intellectualsMassachusetts SalemBiography. 6. SistersMassachusettsSalemBiography. 7. Salem (Mass.)Biography. 8. RomanticismMassachusettsHistory 19th century. 9. United StatesIntellectual life19th century. 10. RomanticismUnited StatesHistory19th century. I.Title.
F 74. SIM 225 2005 974.4030922 DC 22
[ B ] 2004060927

ISBN -13: 978-0-618-71169-7 (pbk.)
ISBN -10: 0-618-71169-4 (pbk.)

e ISBN 978-0-547-34875-9
v4.0315

For the Sedgwick sisters,
Josie and Sara,
and my own sister, Amy

Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne, silhouette, Auguste Edouart, 1843 (Antiochiana, Antioch College)

Mrs. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, pencil sketch by Sophia Peabody, circa 18321833 (Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

General Joseph Palmer, engraving from portrait by John Singleton Copley (Courtesy Quincy Historical Society)

Royall Tyler, lithograph (Massachusetts Historical Society)

Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody (Mrs. Stephen Peabody), portrait by Gilbert Stuart, 1809 (Collection of the Arizona State University Art Museum, gift of Oliver B. James)

Crowninshields Wharf, Salem, oil on canvas, George Ropes, 1806 (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

The Reverend William Ellery Channing, portrait by Washington Allston, 1811 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of William Francis Channing, photograph 2004 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Benjamin Pickman, bas-relief profile (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

View of Salem from Gallows Hill, oil on canvas, Alvan Fisher, 1818 (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

Boston Harbor from Pemberton Hill, print hand-colored by E. Dexter, 1832 (Boston Athenaeum)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from miniature by Sarah Goodridge, 1829 (Courtesy Concord Free Public Library)

Benjamin Vaughan, portrait by Thomas Badger (Used with permission of the Vaughan Homestead Foundation)

The Vaughan Homestead, Hallowell, Maine, photograph (Used with permission of the Vaughan Homestead Foundation)

Robert Hallowell Gardiner, portrait by Chester Harding (Private collection)

First House at Oaklands, Gardiner, Maine, drawing by Emma Jane Gardiner (Private collection)

The Tolman House, Brookline, Massachusetts, site of Elizabeth and Marys school, photograph

The Reverend William Ellery Channing, portrait by Spiridone Gambardella, 1838 (Courtesy of the Harvard University Portrait Collection, gift of Frederick A. Eustis, Class of 1835, in accordance with the will of Mary Channing Eustis)

Promenade on Boston Common, watercolor on paper, George Harvey, 1830 (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)

Oakland, Channings summer house in Newport, Rhode Island

Chester Harding, self-portrait, circa 18291830 (Private collection, photograph courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

Colonnade Row in Tremont Street, Boston, lithograph (Boston Athenaeum)

Dr. Walter Channing, portrait by William Franklin Draper (Courtesy of the Harvard University Portrait Collection, gift of Mr. Walter Channing to the Harvard Medical School, October 1947)

Athenaeum Gallery, Pearl Street, Boston, drawing, circa 1830 (Boston Athenaeum)

Thomas Doughty, lithograph (Print and Picture Collection, The Free Library of Philadelphia)

Sophia Peabody, portrait by Chester Harding, 1830 (Private collection, photograph courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

Washington Allston, portrait by Chester Harding, 1828 (Providence Athenaeum, Providence, Rhode Island)

Horace Mann, daguerreotype by Jesse Harrison Whitehurst, circa 1840 (Massachusetts Historical Society)

Samuel Gridley Howe, lithograph (Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, Massachusetts)

Scene near Bristol, England, oil on linen, by Sophia Peabody, circa 1833 (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

The Ceyba Tree of Cuba, pencil drawing by Sophia Peabody, circa 1834 (Courtesy of Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries)

Cafetal la Ermita en las Lomas del Cusco, a coffee plantation circa 1834, from La Isla de Cuba Pintoresca, lithograph (New-York Historical Society)

Night-blooming Cereus, page from Sophia Peabodys Cuba Journal, May 27, 1834 (Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

I know what the feeling of love is.... : cross-written letter from Elizabeth Peabody to Mary Peabody, Saturday night [September 20]-Monday [October 6, 1834] (Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

A. Bronson Alcott, pencil drawing

Masonic Temple, Boston, engraving (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

The Peabody family, silhouettes, November 8, 1835 (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

The Peabody house, Charter Street, Salem (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

Jessica and Lorenzo, oil on artists board, Washington Allston, 1832 (Private collection, courtesy Childs Gallery, Boston)

The Temple School, interior, drawing by Francis Graeter, circa 1835 (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

Ralph Waldo Emerson House, Concord, lithograph (Courtesy Concord Free Public Library)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, daguerreotype (Courtesy Concord Free Public Library)

Lidian Emerson, daguerreotype (Courtesy Concord Free Public Library)

Jones Very, daguerreotype (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

Little Waldo Emerson, daguerreotype, 1841 (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, portrait by Charles Osgood, 1840 (Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, sketch by Maria Rohl, 1835 (Courtesy National Park Service, Longfellow National Historic Site)

George Francis Peabody, pencil sketch by Sophia Peabody, circa 1839 (Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries)

Sophia Peabodys illustration for The Gentle Boy, 1839 (Betsy Beinecke Shirley Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, pencil sketch by Sophia Peabody, 1838 (Private collection)

Margaret Fuller, daguerreotype (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Edward Southworth Hawes in memory of his father Josiah Johnson Hawes, photograph 2004 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

West Street, Boston, seen from the Common, photograph (Courtesy of The Bostonian Society / Old State House)

Brook Farm, oil on wood panel by Josiah Wolcott, 1844 (Massachusetts Historical Society)

Theodore Parker, lithograph by Leopold Grozelier, after a daguerreotype by Loyal M. Ives (Boston Athenaeum)

Sophia Peabodys illustration of Grandfathers Chair, Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1842 (By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)