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Abba Alcott It Has Been Said: “She Never Said Great Things, but Did Ten Thousand Generous Ones.”

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Abba Alcott It Has Been Said: “She Never Said Great Things, but Did Ten Thousand Generous Ones.” ABIGAIL (ABBA OR ABBY) MAY ALCOTT Of Abba Alcott it has been said: “She never said great things, but did ten thousand generous ones.” BORN 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 DIED DISAMBIGUATION: This file is not about the Bostonian Abigail May (1754-1824) who married a distant cousin, the wealthy local merchant Colonel John May, when she was 19 and together with him had 11 children (although quite likely she was a relative and quite likely our Abigail May who married Bronson Alcott had been named in her relative’s honor). One of the founders of the Boston Asylum for Female Orphans, this older Abigail May also acted as a director of that institution. A friend described her as “lovely in person and character, and distinguished for her benevolence and practical good sense.” HDT WHAT? INDEX ABBA ALCOTT ABIGAIL MAY • Mr. Amos Bronson Alcott born November 29, 1799 as Amos Bronson Alcox in Wolcott, Connecticut married May 23, 1830 in Boston to Abigail May, daughter of Colonel Joseph May died March 4, 1888 in Boston • Mrs. Abigail (May) “Abba” Alcott born October 8, 1800 in Boston, Massachusetts died November 25, 1877 in Concord, Massachusetts • Miss Anna Bronson Alcott born March 16, 1831 in Germantown, Pennsylvania married May 23, 1860 in Concord to John Bridge Pratt of Concord, Massachusetts died July 17, 1893 in Concord • Miss Louisa May Alcott born November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania died March 6, 1888 in Roxbury, Massachusetts • Miss Elizabeth Sewall Alcott born June 24, 1835 in Boston, Massachusetts died March 14, 1858 in Concord, Massachusetts • Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), born July 26, 1840 in Concord, married March 22, 1878 in London, England to Ernest Niericker, died December 29, 1879 in Paris “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Abigail May HDT WHAT? INDEX ABIGAIL MAY ABBA ALCOTT 1449 Pogrom in Toledo, España, now alleged by historian Benzion Netanyahu to have been part of the complex social circumstances leading up to the Catholic Inquisition. INQUISITION ANTISEMITISM HDT WHAT? INDEX ABBA ALCOTT ABIGAIL MAY 1478 November 1, Sunday (Old Style): Pope Sixtus IV issued the papal bull that extended the power of the Santo Oficio, or Inquisition from France into the Iberian peninsula. The Inquisition, which had been initiated during the 13th Century, was not only involved in the suppression of religious dissidence, but had been and would be responsible for the torture and execution of many individuals whom they supposed to be possessed by an evil spirit, individuals whom we would now describe as having one or another mental illness. At Seville, inquisitors Miguel de Morcillo and Juan de San Martin would in about 3 years account for, in round numbers, about 500 such individuals. In Aragon, inquisitor Thomas de Torquemada would make quite a name for himself in the pursuit of deviance. Not until the regime of Adolf Hitler would there again be such a ruthless extermination of the helplessly ill. PROTO-NAZISM PSYCHOLOGY Of course, this sort of treatment was not reserved for the mentally ill. Forced Jewish converts to Catholic Christianity, known politely as conversos and impolitely as “swine,” who still (allegedly) practiced Jewish rites in secret within their own families, would be tortured until they confessed to such and then “relaxed” to the civil arm of government to be burned at the stake. –Unless, that is, they managed to flee the country, in which event they would be burned in effigy. (In either case their family estate would be divided among their persecutors.)1 1. See Lea, Henry Charles. HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN and Netanyahu, Benzoin. THE ORIGINS OF THE INQUISITION IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY SPAIN (Random House, 1995). HDT WHAT? INDEX ABIGAIL MAY ABBA ALCOTT 1547 The Santo Oficio, or Inquisition, spread like a pestilence from Spain into Portugal. HDT WHAT? INDEX ABBA ALCOTT ABIGAIL MAY 1800 October 8, Wednesday: Abigail (Abigail = “Father’s Joy,” Abby or her “baby name,” Abba) May (Alcott) was born in Boston, daughter of Colonel Joseph May and Dorothy Sewall, just in time for the nation’s 2d census. THE ALCOTT FAMILY This infant would be baptized at the King’s Chapel. Ludwig van Beethoven received 200 florins from Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz for the String Quartets op.18/4-6. During this year a young woman with cancer, named Abigail May, traveled to Ballston Springs, New York to try the mineral water baths there, in search of relief from the pain of her illness. At first she was nervous at the sight of the douche hoses but, making sure she had her laudanum handy, she took the plunge into the soothing waters: I felt finely for two hours after bathing. OPIUM NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Abigail May “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ABIGAIL MAY ABBA ALCOTT 1801 March: In an autobiographical sketch she prepared at the end of her years, Abba Alcott recounted that at some point during this month “At six months, was badly burned on the face and right hand.” In addition to the permanent facial scar, two fingertips were so contracted that she would never be able to play the piano. THE ALCOTT FAMILY So there was a reason why, when her daughter May Alcott drew pictures for her daughter Louisa May Alcott’s book extrapolating on the family, the mother figure was seated and facing as she was. The facial scarring and the damaged hand were being concealed from the public view. NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Abigail May HDT WHAT? INDEX ABBA ALCOTT ABIGAIL MAY HDT WHAT? INDEX ABIGAIL MAY ABBA ALCOTT 1819 On a trip through Charleston, South Carolina, the Reverend Joseph Tuckerman, a distant relative of Abba Alcott, watched as a carpenter was sold for $490.00, then a “very likely boy, about 12 or 13” for $400.00, then a seamstress for $375.00 — and this gave him the willies.2 But he sort of accepted it, at the time, as the way the world worked. In fact, in the next year, when he went off to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, he assumed that free black citizens would not be eligible for state office, just as he assumed that white women would likewise be ineligible. It wasn’t that he was a wicked or uncaring person, it was just that this was the normative framework which he had never thought to challenge. Tuckerman would later (1826) found the Unitarian Ministry at Large in service to the poor. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT 2. By the way, this is not what Friend Maria Mitchell would be talking about, when she would opinion famously that “The needle is the chain of woman, and has fettered her more than the laws of the country.” HDT WHAT? INDEX ABBA ALCOTT ABIGAIL MAY 1822 A prisoner was hanged for murder, and one for highway robbery, in Boston. In about this year, the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, brother of Abba Alcott, since he believed it was wrong to kill, refused even to participate in killing to the extent of administering “last rites” to a prisoner being hanged. THE ALCOTT FAMILY LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Abigail May HDT WHAT? INDEX ABIGAIL MAY ABBA ALCOTT 1824 September 2, Thursday: The Marquis de Lafayette breakfasted in Newburyport on yet another rainy day, and William Lloyd Garrison was among the hundreds of townspeople who obtained his handshake at the Tracy mansion on State Street (a building which now houses the town’s public library) prior to his departure for Concord. When the illustrious citoyen reached Concord, Squire Samuel Hoar, on behalf of all, rose to deliver the welcome. Lafayette, nous sommes ici! —General “Black Jack” Pershing, arriving with US troops in France at the very end of the WWI trench warfare. Unfortunately, Squire Hoar did this in a manner which would begin a long and bitter controversy with Lexington over which town’s militia had been the first to fire upon the colonial army in America, by pointing out in his speech of welcome that it had been at the Old North Bridge over the Concord River rather than during the prior slaughter on the green in Lexington town that “the first forcible resistance” had been offered by the militia to the army. Before this visit by the marquis, there had in fact been very little note taken either in Concord or in Lexington of the anniversary of the April 19th dustup between the militia and the army. This invidious discrimination between two outbreaks of smallarms fire would produce a “storm of protest” from indignant Lexingtonians. Major Elias Phinney of Lexington would begin to pull together the depositions of survivors, none of whom had forgotten any details of the “battle” and some of whom were finding that they were able to recall details that hadn’t actually happened.
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