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.
Online version 1.
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- Family Relations (Sedgwick Family)
- Death
- Health and Illness
- Self-reflection
- Travel and Touring, US
- Transportation
- Religion
- Bible
- Social Life and Networks
- Fatherhood
- Motherhood
- Childhood
- Friendship
- Gifts
- Literature and History
You are before this apprized by my letter to Mrs Channing of the reason why I have not written to you -- My mind has often turned to you my beloved friend -- to the tones of your voice to your sweet face -- as we recure to the last bright gleams of daylight after the night has closed upon us -- -- --
My journey after we parted was far more agreeable than I expected -- the first days ride was delightful, and even after Mr Appleton left us, and I was fairly consigned to the unwonted grandeur of the Coach, I was made very happy and comfortable --
Mrs A submitted to the few inconveniences that occurred with patience and grace -- and I donot doubt made herself quite a heroine at all the Inns by her grace courtesy and condescension --
We arrived at S late on Saturday Eve'g -- and early Sunday morn'g the express arrived from NYork with the intelligence that our dear Egbert was there and just alive -- -- My Brother and Sister were on their way in less than ten minutes, and I followed with their eldest daughter in the course of an hour -- We overtook them before they arrived at Hudson -- and I was very thankful we did so, for my Sister needed all the support that I could afford to her -- You know we found him 2 alive -- Oh what a word is that when your own existence seems suspended on it -- --
When George told him that his father had arrived -- and then added after a moments pause “and Mother -- and Aunt Catharine -- “That is too much” he exclaimed -- And then dear Eliza we had to meet this dear child who had left us with his youth and beauty unimpaired, whom our tenderest thoughts had hovered over, and who had exchanged with us the most ardent expectations of our reunion -- -- to meet him with composed faces and tearless eyes -- and thank God we were enabled to -- even his father and mother -- and he smiled on us with supernatural sweetness -- kissed us again and again -- and expressed in all the calmness and patience and piercing tenderness of his last hours that the anguish of death was removed -- that his most ardent prayer had been granted
There was something beautiful in George's devotion to him -- he was as intent as a mother upon her only child, and oh it was most touching to see these young brothers -- George performing with composure the last tender offices, and Egbert again and again drawing him to him and kissing his lips -- -- and then his father at the last moment held him in his arms, and in the ecstasy of his feelings blessed God aloud for permitting him to enfold his dying child -- -- and so much were his parents inspired by the completeness of his 3 preparation -- by his heroic self-command -- by his christian resignation -- that they laid this child whose life had gratified their affections, their pride, and their ambition they laid him in the grave with thankfulness -- -- praise was on their lips and christian submission in all their actions --
My dear Eliza -- I do not weary you I am sure I do not -- You know how difficult it is to turn the mind from the subject that masters all your thoughts -- and besides it is not a mere selfish indulgence -- You will not only be willing that I should think and write of this dear boy who I loved with all my heart -- but you will love too to dwell on his sweet image -- on those beautiful affections that are now a part of that treasure that is laid up in Heaven
God grant my beloved friend that this event may have an abiding influence on me pray for me Eliza that it may make me more worthy of your love -- more earnest in my preparation for that departure which is near to us all -- -- Oh how have I been rebuked by the example of this sweet boy -- when I have profession -- -- how long I had lived, with all means of improvement about me -- -- --
Egbert seems to have left no duty unperformed -- every kind -- every consoling every disinterested attention to his friends was remembered when he laid in that dreadful ship -- with his bones pierced thro’ the skin -- without any food that he could relish -- with that agonizing cough and raging fever -- and mere common attendants -- Oh Eliza something is meant by these mysterious sufferings -- -- -- 4
I shall always think of my visit to you with gratitude for the many and most undeserved hospitalities which I received -- but such bustle and gaiety and self seeking is not good for me -- and thank God it does not engage my affections -- and I now only think with satisfaction of those pleasures that I had in intimate intercourse with those I love -- dear Eliza -- I feel deeply grateful that I have been permitted to be so much with you -- that you have gratified my fondest wishes -- that you have in no one thing disappointed me -- and I have an eye that can see and I have watched you -- Oh how “narrowly -- narrowly” 1 ______
I am very desirous to hear all about your housekeeping -- How is my thriftie Mary? Tell her not to give up the blessing that rests on her own sweet name for the burthen of Martha’s 2 -- all your brothers and all your Sisters including your
I found the basket at Stockbridge and it produced almost the first smile that had been on my face since I left you -- and those beautiful -- beautiful lines -- Oh Eliza I cannot doubt that some of those oriental wizards have put magic in the web of this same
Your little friend Fanny remains faithful to you, if asked -- who she loves -- she says “My mother and Miss Cabot” -- Kate is quite scandalized that I am not writing this letter to Aunt Louisa Minot to thank her for her workbox -- do give my best love to Mr & Mrs M _
Love to all your household, and do not let the sweet children forget me -- Jane Elizth and Charles all send their kindest love -- Jenny and Lizy, are going over to day to see Sister Jenny the Elder --
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blot and tear; The PSs are written in the left margin of page 1, upside down in the top margin of page 1, and in the margin between pages 2 and 3, respectively. There is no close.
Miss Eliza Lee Cabot/No 1 Mount Vernon/Boston --
1825 is written in the upper right margin of page 1
Likely a reference to Sir Walter Scott's poem, part of The Lady of the Lake (1810), excerpted and variously titled "Hunters Watch So Narrowly, Narrowly" and "Hunter's Song."
A reference to the Biblical sisters Mary and Martha, whose story, along with that of their brother Lazarus, is told both in Luke 16 and John 12.