ELIZABETH PEABODYSEWALL ALCOTT • 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 Elizabeth Peabody Alco HDT WHAT? INDEX ELIZABETH SEWALL ALCOTT ELIZABETH PEABODY ALCOTT 1835 June 24, Wednesday: Cesar Franck began lessons in composition with Anton Reicha in Paris. Elizabeth Peabody Alcott, called “Lizzie” and “Betty” and “Beth,” and destined to have her middle name officially changed from “Peabody” to “Sewall,” was born to Abba Alcott. This was Abba’s third child. She was naming her infant after her friend Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody — but this was a friendship not destined to endure. A most unusual thing for those times: the father Bronson Alcott insisted on being present for the birth. Arthur Ricketson, first son of Friend Daniel Ricketson, was born. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT December 22, Thursday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 22 of 12 M / This morning in straping my Razor to Shave it accidentally slipped & took off the tip of my little finger, it bleed so much & was so painful that I did not go to Meeting. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS Elizabeth Peabody Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ELIZABETH PEABODY ALCOTT ELIZABETH SEWALL ALCOTT Bronson Alcott self-published, through James Munroe and Company of Boston, the 1st volume of CONVERSATIONS WITH CHILDREN ON THE GOSPEL (264 pages). This, and the 2nd volume (Boston MA: CONVERSATIONS, VOL. I Russell, Shattuck and Company, February 1837, 198 pages), would cost the author $741.00 he did not have, CONVERSATIONS, VOL. II and buy him an incredible amount of trouble. These conversations had been transcribed by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. However, the original title page, which in accordance with the convention of the time did not list the name of the author, was preceded by a page that read CONVERSATIONS WITH CHILDREN ON THE GOSPELS CONDUCTED AND EDITED BY A. BRONSON ALCOTT rather than “transcribed by Elizabeth Peabody,” and evidently resulted from the desire of others who had been involved in the generation of this material that they not be implicated in the folly of its dissemination. Elizabeth Peabody and the new teacher at the school, Margaret Fuller, could see what was coming — the self-convicted supersalesman and self-convinced enthusiast could not Abba Alcott the faithful wife could not help but sympathize with her husband rather than with the helper who wanted no share of the repercussions: in the family record, she altered the name of her third child from Elizabeth Peabody Alcott to Elizabeth Sewall Alcott. MR. ALCOTT. Do you think these conversations are of any use to you? CHARLES. Yes; they teach us a great deal. MR. ALCOTT. What do they teach you? GEORGE K. To know ourselves. ... MR. ALCOTT. Now, does your spirit differ in any sense from God’s spirit? Each may answer. CHARLES. (10-12 years old). God made our spirits. MR. ALCOTT. They differ from His then in being derived? GEORGE K. (7-10). They are not so good. WILLIAM B. (10-12). They have not so much power. HDT WHAT? INDEX ELIZABETH SEWALL ALCOTT ELIZABETH PEABODY ALCOTT AUGUSTINE (7-10). 1 don’t think our spirit does differ much. HDT WHAT? INDEX ELIZABETH PEABODY ALCOTT ELIZABETH SEWALL ALCOTT CHARLES. God is spirit, we are spirit and body. JOSIAH (5 years old). He differs from us, as a king’s body differs from ours. A king’s body is arrayed with more goodness than ours. EDWARD B. (10-12) God’s spirit is a million times larger than ours, and comes out of him as the drops of the ocean. MR. ALCOTT. Jesus said he was the son - the child of God. Are we also God’s sons? WILLIAM B. Oh! before I was born - I think I was a part of God himself. MANY OTHERS. So do l. MR. ALCOTT Who thinks his own spirit is the child of God? (All held up hands). Now, is God your Father in the same sense that he is the Father of Jesus? (Most held up hands). MR. ALCOTT. Does Father and Son mean God and Jesus? CHARLES. No; it means God and any man. MR. ALCOTT. Do you think that were you to use all that is in your spirit, you might also be prophets? SEVERAL. If we had faith enough. WILLIAM B. If we had love enough. CHARLES. A prophet first has a little love, and that gives the impulse to more, and so on, until he becomes so full of love, he knows everything. MR. ALCOTT. Why did the angel say to Mary, “The Lord is with thee”? GEORGE K. I don’t know. The Lord is always with us. ARNOLD (?). The Lord is with us when we are good. AUGUSTINE. The Lord is with us when we are bad, or we could not live. ELLEN (10-12). [mentions Judgment Day] MR. ALCOTT. What do you mean by Judgment Day? ELLEN. The last day, the day when the world is to be destroyed. CHARLES. The day of Judgment is not any more at the end of the world than now. It is the Judgment of conscience at every moment. MR. ALCOTT Where did Jesus get his knowledge? MARTHA (7-10) He went into his own soul. AUGUSTINE. Heaven is in our spirits - in God. It is in no particular place. It is not material. It is wherever people are good. CHARLES. Heaven is everywhere - Eternity. It stops where there is anything bad. It means peace and love. High and white are emblems of it. ANDREW (7-10). Heaven is like a cloud, and God and Jesus and the angels sit on it. MR. ALCOTT Where is it? ANDREW Everywhere. Every person that is good, God looks at and takes care of. FREDERIC (10-12). Wherever there is good. SAMUEL R. (10-12) But in no place. FRANKLIN (10-12). Heaven is the spirit’s truth and goodness. It is in everybody; but mostly in the good. MR. ALCOTT. Can you say to yourself, I can remove this mountain? [Now comes an astonishing rhapsody by the five-year-old Josiah Quincy.] HDT WHAT? INDEX ELIZABETH SEWALL ALCOTT ELIZABETH PEABODY ALCOTT JOSIAH (bursts out). Yes, Mr. Alcott! I do not mean that with my body can lift up a mountain - with my hand; but I can feel; and I know that my conscience is greater than the mountain, for it can feel and do; and the mountain cannot. There is the mountain, there! It was made, and that is all. But my conscience can grow. It is the same kind of spirit as made the mountain be, in the first place. I do not know what it may be and do. The body is a mountain, and the spirit says, be moved, it is moved into another place. Mr. Alcott, we think too much about clay. We should think of spirit. I think we should love spirit, not clay. I should think a mother now would love her baby’s spirit; and suppose it should die, that is only the spirit bursting away out of the body. It is alive; it is perfectly happy; I really do not know why people mourn when their friends die. I should think it would be a matter of rejoicing. For instance, now, if we should go into the street and find a box, an old dusty box, and should put into it some very fine pearls, and bye and bye the box should grow old and break, why, we should not even think about the box; but if the pearls were safe, we should think of them and nothing else. So it is with the soul and body. I cannot see why people mourn for bodies. MR. ALCOTT. Yes, Josiah; that is all true, and we are glad to hear it. Shall someone else now speak beside you? [But Josiah’s eloquence is like a mighty river; its momentum is such that he can barely restrain himself, and he is quiet only on condition.] JOSIAH. Oh, Mr. Alcott! then I will stay in at recess and talk. NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE Elizabeth Peabody Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ELIZABETH PEABODY ALCOTT ELIZABETH SEWALL ALCOTT April 1, Wednesday: The Liberty Party met in Albany to nominate James Gillespie Birney of New York and Thomas Earle of Pennsylvania for president and vice-president. Rochester’s Myron Holley was one of the party’s organizers. With the encouragement of Waldo Emerson and with him at least initially paying the rent for them, the Alcotts moved into an unoccupied tenant cottage on the estate of Edmund Hosmer in Concord, in order to have the company of the Emersons and to try if they could not “dig Bread from the bosom of the earth” while Bronson Alcott went around offering his dollar evening conversations.