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| Daguerreotype of Sophia Thoreau, ~1855 |
Sophia was two years younger than Henry David. While Helen was
described as the quiet Thoreau, Sophia was known to be talkative and
opinionated, with a dramatic wit. Their mother and their aunts were all active
abolitionists and members of the Concord Ladies’ Antislavery Society. Sophia and
her sister also belonged to the Middlesex County Antislavery Society. At an
1844 convention they signed a petition in favor of dissolving the country rather
than being party to a country with states where slave ownership was legal. Prominent
abolitionists visiting Concord - Parker Pillsbury, Loring Moody, and John Brown
among them - made their way to the Thoreau home. The family provided lodging
and aid to fugitive slaves. Henry’s antislavery activism rested on the long-time
commitment of the women of his family.
After John Jr. died in 1842 and Helen in 1849, Sophia and Henry
grew closer. They were both living in their parents’ house (Henry having done
his stint at Walden Pond 1845-47). They would collect plant specimens together,
make berry-picking excursions in season, and Sophia would occasionally accompany
Henry on boat trips up the Concord, Sudbury and Assabet rivers. Both helped out
in the family’s pencil and graphite businesses.
Henry David Thoreau died May 6, 1862, having attained only
limited recognition in his own time. It was during Henry’s decline from tuberculosis
and after his death that Sophia made the largest contributions to his literary
legacy. She served as nurse and companion after an 1860 bout with bronchitis
exacerbated his disease. She assisted in writing his letters and preparing his
manuscripts for publication. In a lengthy 2016 article by Kathy Fedorko, titled
“Henry’s brilliant sister”, a case is made that Sophia alone edited her brother’s
essay collections for publication after his death as “Excursions”, “The Maine
Woods”, “Cape Cod” and “A Yankee in Canada”. (Previously, more credit had been
given to Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Ellery Channing, with little or no
acknowledgement of Sophia’s contributions.)
After the death of her mother in 1872, Sophia spent the last
three years of her life in Maine, with relatives, during the declining illness
that finally took her life in 1876. Before dying she had entrusted her brother’s
journals first to Bronson Alcott, who failed to follow her instructions about
their care. She consequently deposited them in the Concord Free Public Library
in 1874, along with many books and memorabilia that had been Henry’s. Sophia’s
will dictated that the journals go to Harrison Gray Otis Blake, who saw to the
publication of more content from the journals in the 1880s.
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| Portion of Thoreau’s poem “Fair Haven”, copied onto leaves (1868). Click on photos to enlarge. |
Sophia was an artist and musician. Her drawing of the cabin
by the pond was chosen by Henry for the cover page of the first edition of
“Walden; or, Life in the Woods”. Sophia left behind one odd piece of memorabilia
- five shagbark hickory tree leaves on one twig bear sixteen lines of poetry
from her famous brother. Created October 13, 1868 (six years after his death).
The poem – “Fair Haven” refers to a widening of the Sudbury River, on the
border between Concord and Lincoln, and also to the hill on the east side of
the river. The last four lines of the poem are “And when I take my last long
rest,/And quiet sleep my grave in,/What kindlier covering for my breast,/Than
thy warm turf Fair Haven.” The leaves are in the Concord Library archives.
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In passing, Thoreau’s given name was David Henry Thoreau, after
his recently deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau. But since everyone always
called him Henry, he decided after finishing college that he would prefer to go
by Henry David.
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