Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s early letters document the intellectual development of a prolific woman writer from her childhood in the early national period through the 1813 death of her father Theodore Sedgwick, a Federalist member of Congress and Massachusetts supreme court judge. The youngest daughter in a family of seven siblings, Sedgwick practiced epistolary conventions in her early letters while introducing her lifelong theme of balancing personal and family expectations with the obligation to write. As Sedgwick reported in her later autobiography, she felt that she lacked a satisfactory formal education, but “these great deficiencies” were offset by the quality of her homelife. Her adolescent years were marked by her mother’s chronic ill health and death in 1807, her father’s remarriage in 1808, and her engagement with her siblings’ growing families throughout the period. By 1812, as a 22-year old republican woman reflecting on her social position, CMS felt the call of a “life dignified by usefulness” and compared her father’s contributions to her own potential: “You may benefit a Nation my dear Papa, & I may improve the condition of a fellow being” (1 Mar. 1812).
Letters from Sedgwick’s pre-publication adulthood demonstrate her intellectual and religious development as she grappled with events both personal and national. Her siblings became the central focus of her domestic life, and the Sedgwicks’ experiences with “the market of matrimony” (15 Aug. 1813) provide intriguing fodder for epistolary debate. Sedgwick rejected at least two marriage proposals in her twenties, one in 1812 and another in 1819. In the summer of 1821, she traveled to Niagara Falls and Montreal and began keeping a journal. As Sedgwick developed her authorial persona and worked on her first novel, her full-throated dedication to family, female relationships, and personal usefulness emerged as primary concerns. Sedgwick’s letters also become more philosophical, and her lifelong dedication to republican service and intellectual Unitarianism come into focus. Sedgwick explains her sense of vocation to her lifelong friend Eliza Cabot Follen: “my ministry must be one of watchfulness and steady devotion, and all those cares that love teaches, and can pay without being asked” (15 Nov 1822).
With her first novel A New-England Tale (1822), Sedgwick established herself as a professional writer, and she published four additional literary novels and more than 30 stories during this period. As a dedicated family woman, who also chose to be single and an author, she constructed domestic arrangements that complemented her writing career. She lived in the homes of her brothers and sisters-in-law in Stockbridge, Lenox, and New York City, deepening her relationships with her siblings as well as caring for the children and contributing to their education. Redwood, her second novel, received “much more praise and celebrity than [she] expected” (18 Oct. 1824). As her fame grew, she continued to find her spiritual home in Unitarianism, while her range of acquaintances expanded to include artists, politicians, reformers, educators, and intellectuals. Sedgwick began to travel more widely, visiting friends in Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia, and making extended trips to Washington DC and the South. As a measure of her celebrity, she was selected for inclusion in the National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans (1834), the only woman included other than Martha Washington. The period was also punctuated by “the real and bitter sorrows that cloud our life” (13 Mar. 1830), including the deaths of her sister Eliza, her childhood nurse Elizabeth Freeman, and her brother Harry.
As a member of the American literati, Sedgwick navigated transatlantic fame while experiencing personal loss at home. She pursued new avenues of benevolent activism in her life and writings. Letters from this period will be available soon.
Sedgwick’s engagement with mid-nineteenth-century reform movements informed her writings during this period. Her primary residences continued to be New York City and the Berkshires. She deepened her relationships with her niece Kate Minot and other members of the next generation of Sedgwicks. Letters from this era will be available at a future date.
During the Civil War period, Sedgwick grappled with issues of national importance alongside personal losses at home. She published her last book and final story and, after a medical crisis, resigned as Director of the New York Women’s Prison Association. In her final years, she resided with Kate Minot and her family near Boston. Letters from this era will be available at a future date.
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r20' 1824 --
If you knew how anxious you make me by such a lapse of time between your letters you would certainly stir up your kindly thoughts within you -- -- I must hear once a week, or I do not feel at all tranquil -- If any thing prevents your writing a letter just send me a sentinel call of "all is well" if thro' the mercy of Providence you can say so, & I will be content -- You seem to have abandoned the writing field to me and I shall lay down my weapons too if you give me so little encouragement to go on -- --
We have had quite an alarm about poor Mr Ellery -- I beleive there is no doubt that he had an apoplectic fit -- and that with the remedies have reduced him extremely -- His spirits are entirely gone -- Poor Man -- he has lived for this world and he finds it utterly disagreeable to enter upon the thoughts of another -- Harriet seems deeply affected with his situation -- She is a very lovely girl -- her faults are in my estimation quite effaced by her virtues -- her faults have been the almost inevitable consequence of her associations and education -- and her habitual disinterestedness & invincible sweetness of temper amply atone for a few levities that will evaporate like mist -- She was as usual here last evening & tho' quite depressed she emitted some of her bright sparks -- Long leandrawn out" -- There was a Mr Prentiss here too a partner of Carters -- I said I thought liked him tho' I was feased 1 of Editors -- "But" said Rit "he's but a Prentiss" -- -- -- --
There is a Philaa expedition talk in the wind, but tho' Harry is bent upon the breeze filling my sails I am resolved not to go -- He is appointed one of the delegates to go on to Mr Furnace ordination -- --
Little Fan is quite well again -- and our nursery composed once more -- 2
Thanksgiving Morn'g Dec 21 -- -- Never was there a more heartfelt morn'g to be thankful for -- and I We cannot make this festival like that in the land of our fathers but in humble imitation of it we are going to have a supper-party where all our friends and kin are to be assembled including our good Cousins Marg't & Rodc -- -- One of my first thanksgiving thoughts takes me to the little cluster at Lenox, which I cannot dwell upon without such emotions of the heart as are appropriate to the day, and just now while I was reading some of the fullest strains of Davids praise I could not help just tucking in a little parenthesis of my own --
Wednesday -- Dearest Chs, I have just received your most beautiful letter and it has sent its sweet savor into my very heart of hearts -- I know that I do not deserve such expressions from you -- but tho' this consciousness dashes a few drops of the bitter of humiliation into my cup still I drain it to the very dregs -- dregs it has not but to the last sparkling drop -- -- Never was a letter more welcome for I had got my head as full of notions as Kate, and last night after our Supper, I had a feeling like a warning to prepare for bad news -- and I could not sleep -- at least my sleep was broken by those awful thoughts and shadowy appearances that intrude on the imagination the saddest scenes of human experience -- But with the morn'g hath come joy 2 -- and I am very very thankful -- Poor little Charley! -- and still more pitiable Father if he has got to pass through another childhood of apprehension of that terrible disease -- -- Many children have one attack without its being followed by another and as Charley has never manifested a constitutional tendency to it I trust that this instance has been purely accidental -- --
I recd a most excellent letter from Uncle Bob containing many facts and dates -- and from them Harry has drawn up a very concise notice -- The work in the press is an appendage to Lemprieres ly and the scale the Editors have prescribed to themselves will not allow them any thing more that a very meagre notice 3 -- -- but such as it is it will serve to show that our fathers talents and virtues were used for his Country and 3 received its honor -- -- --
We had a very pleasant Eve'g -- among our other guests, a Dr Anderson -- the present Editor of the Atlantic 4 -- -- an extremely interesting and accomplishd young man -- Jane provided us a beautiful supper -- Oh my dear Charles and Lizy I cannot tell you how often nor how fervantly I wish that you could share some of these social pleasures with us -- and yet in the midst of them all how often do I feel a lingering for the happiness within your little tenement . . .
23' The weather here continues as mild as October -- There was a little effort at a snow yesterday, but it was a good deal like the snow-storm recorded in the Arabian Nights -- 'It fell and instantly disappeared without leaving any stench behind' 5 -- -- Robt has just looked in upon us to say that they are all well -- Can we be thankful enough that the voices of health and cheerfulness are in all our habitations -- -- -- Poor darling Kitty and her fits -- She is quite too young to begin to be nervous -- -- I must relate to you an anecdote I heard today of a little boy of Mrs H. Carey's -- who is a little more than four -- His mother had just put on to him a new suit of clothes and for some misdemeanor had punished him and told him to stand in the corner -- Soon after she perceived that he had cut his sleeve in several places from the elbow down -- She called him to her and asked him what he meant by such behaviour -- "Mother' said he "it was excessive grief -- the bible you know says they rent their garments" -- The boys cleverness averted his punishment -- what Mother could be expected to maintain her gravity in such circumstances
I daresay the Edgeworths 6 who are so fond of making great trees from little acorns grow 7, would conclude that the most mischievous associations had been introduced into the boys mind -- who will henceforth think it safe to deviate from the strait path of right provided he has wit to lend him her pinions to waft him over the pitfalls in his way --
I went to day to see about the paper, and I felt so uncertain about the pattern that I didnot venture to take it -- I want you dear Lizy to send me a bit -- Har Robt has found out the articles that are used for it, and I will send you some by the first oppy but in the mean time there are I beleive 4 of mine left in a square tin box in my closet -- -- We use it at R's
Are not you pleased that the Nation's guest 9 after so many dinners has got Ma" do for mercy sake tell me if you know anything about her -- Maria made a thousand r & Mrs S -- Dear Charles & Lizy Farewell
My darling Kate --
when is that next week coming when you are going to write me a letter -- I am looking out for it every day -- you know my beloved Kitty that nothing pleases me so much as to get a letter from you & to hear that you and dear Charley are well and good -- You cant think how pretty little Harry grows his little cheeks are as red as a rose, and his deep blue eyes as bright as the stars -- and he laughs as heartily as a little man -- -- tomorrow will be Christmas here -- -- and then we shall have merry music with the ringing of the bells -- -- I ho I wish my beloved Kitty was here -- Good bye darling --
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blot, bleed through, darkened creases; long vertical lines in left margins of pages 2 and 3, short lines within paragraphs.
Charles Sedgwick Esqre/Lenox/Stockbridge/Massatts
CMS. Decr 1824
Fease, also spelled feeze: "to frighten or put in a state of alarm" (OED).
A reference to Psalm 30:5.
Lempriéres Biographical Dictionary, by John Lempriére, was abridged and added to and republished by N. White in 1826. It includes a brief notice about Theodore Sedgwick I (p. 368) and a slightly longer one on Sedgwick herself, not only noting her relationship to Theodore but also referring to her as "deservedly ranked among the most elegant prose writers of the day" (p. 441).
The Atlantic Magazine (1824-25) was edited by Robert C. Sands.
We have been unable to locate the source of Sedgwick's quotation.
A reference to Anglo-Irish author Maria Edgeworth and possibly her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth.
A 14th Century proverb (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations).
Seidlitz powder is "a laxative consisting of two powders . . . which are mixed in solution and drunk while effervescing" (OED).
A reference to General the Marquis de Lafayette's thirteen-month commemorative tour (July 1824-September 1825) of the United States, during which Lafayette traveled to each of the then 24 states and enjoyed the hospitality of local notables.