Hawthorne

by Brenda Wineapple

  9     His conviction disgraced: “Hawthorne Seeks Apology,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 1913, p. 20.

  10   “In such extremities”: JH, The Subterranean Brotherhood (New York: McBridge, Nast, 1914), p. 16.

  11   “I was sure”: “Convict Three Men in Hawthorne Case,” New York Times, Mar. 15, 1913, p. 2.

  12   “It is a very common”: “Etherege,” American Claimant Manuscripts, p. 328.

  13   “his tendencies”: Feb. 1, 1849, AN, p. 420.

  14   In 1908 … he managed: Hawthorne’s letters to prospective dupes usually included this sentence: “I have dropped literature, and taken up the development—and the exploitation—of a mine.” See, for instance, JH to Paul Hodgeland, Sept. 24, 1908, Minnesota Historical Society.

  15   “Why not go on”: JH, Confessions and Criticisms (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1886), p. 9.

  16   “I think we take”; “a bread-and-butter calling”: JH, Confessions and Criticisms, p. 16; “Julian Hawthorne Dead on Coast, 88,” New York Times, July 15, 1934, p. 22.

  17   “better than I do”: JH, diary, July 3, 1879, Bancroft.

  18   “I cannot sufficiently”: JH, Confessions and Criticisms, p. 16.

  19   Friends thought she: SH to FP, Mar. 31, 1865, NHHS; see Charlotte Cushman to EPP, July 25, 1869, MHS.

  20   “But he is he”: RH to Clifford Smythe, Apr. 6, 1913, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.

  21   “I know that he really”: Vernon Loggins, The Hawthornes (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1951), p. 331.

  22   “I am consoled”: RH to JH, Mar. 15, 1913, Bancroft.

  23   “What had I to do”: JH, The Subterranean Brotherhood, p. 11.

  24   “She is to be”: NH to William B. Pike, July 24, 1851, C XVI, p. 464.

  25   “I think you inherited”: SH to RH, May 20, 1868, Morgan.

  26   Rose wanted to write: Memories, pp. 422–23.

  27   “I have not the smallest”: SH to EPP, Feb. 16, 1851, Berg.

  28   “The men of our family”: EH to Rebecca Manning, Mar. 2, 1874, PE.

  29   “Love is different”: RH, “For a Lord,” Harper’s Bazaar 25:3! (July 30, 1892), p. 615.

  30   George … got a job: Factual details about Rose Hawthorne Lathrop and George Lathrop’s life during this period, where not otherwise indicated, are taken from Theodore Maynard, A Fire Was Lighted: The Life of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1948), chap. 3, or Maynard’s research notes and primary documents in the Theodore Maynard Collection, Georgetown University Library.

  31   “abrupt and strange”; “usefulness”: JH, “A Daughter of Hawthorne,” Atlantic Monthly 142 (Sept. 1928), p. 372; RH to Charlotte Holloway, Apr. 22, 1895, Berg.

  32   “He was as earnest”: RH, memoir, Morgan.

  33   “I gave up”: RH to Katherine Lee Bates, Apr. 11, 1902, Amherst Archives.

  34   “From close observation”: RH, “Resolution,” manuscript, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.

  35   “The ice in the blood”: Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969), p. 219. It should be noted that on February 4, 2003, Mother Alphonsa was proposed a candidate for sainthood.

  36   Una Hawthorne installed: UH to EPP, n.d., Berg; NHHW, vol. 2, p. 371.

  37   “I do indeed love”: UH to Rebecca Manning, Apr. 18, 1871, PE.

  38   “Sometimes I wish”: Memories, p. 354.

  39   “Her natural bent”: Jan. 28, 1849, AN, p. 411.

  40   “If there were not”: Feb. 6 [1849], AN, p. 422.

  41   She was educated … A few years later: SH to Mrs. EPP, July 15, 1851, Berg; SH to EPP, Oct. 26, 1853, Berg.

  42   TO vanquish the vanquishers: In his perceptive reinterpretation of the Hawthorne marriage, Walter Herbert reads Una’s “misery” as “a parable of the psychic entrapment of women.” See T. Walter Herbert, Dearest Beloved: The Hawthornes and the Making of the Middle-Class Family (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993), p. 176.

  43   Calm again: EH to Rebecca Manning, Dec. 31 [1861], PE.

  44   “insanity”; “nearly took”: Nathaniel Cranch Peabody (SH’s brother) to Dora Inwood, Oct. 11, 1871, PE.

  45   “She will fulfil”: SH to EPP, Oct. 31, 1854, Berg.

  46   When the effort: See Valerie Bonham, A Joyous Service: The Clewer Sisters & Their Work (Windsor, England: Valerie Bonham and the Community of St. John the Baptist, 1989), p. 43. Sister Mary Ashpitel, who presided over St. Andrew’s Cottage, where Una died, was an especial friend.

  47   “Has Una had”: JH, diary, Feb. 3, 1877, Bancroft.

  48   “The idea that you”: UH to Mrs. Horton, Aug. 6 [1877], PE.

  49   “almost at the time”: RH to EH, n.d. [1877], Rosary Hill.

  50   From afar: RH to EH, n.d. [1877], Rosary Hill. It may have been similar, especially if father and daughter suffered from a similar infection or from ulcerative colitis. See Chapter 26.

  CHAPTER TWO: HOME

  1     Called Naumkeag: For information and statistics on early Salem, see C. H. Webber and W. S. Nevins, Old Naumkeag (Salem, Mass.: A. A. Smith, 1877); Samuel Eliot Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921); and Salem: Maritime Salem in the Age of Sail (National Park Service, Peabody Museum, and Essex Institute: National Park Handbook 126, 1987).

  2     Bandanna handkerchiefs: In addition to Samuel Morison, see Luther S. Luedtke, Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Romance of the Orient (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1989), chap. 1, for a good composite history of the Salem trade.

  3     Generals, jurists: Charles E. Trow, The Old Shipmasters of Salem (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), p. 49. See also James Duncan Phillips, Salem and the Indies: The Story of the Great Commercial Era of the City (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), who irately defends Salem against its imagined detractors: “It is not the flamboyant morons of Hollywood or Broadway, however smart, who make for the eventual good of a community,” Phillips observes, “but people of taste, culture, and mental activity, living decent, restrained lives” (p. 191).

  4     One Salem daughter: Eleanor Putnam, Chronicles of Old Salem, ed. Arlo Bates (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899), p. 27.

  5     Nathaniel Hathorne, as the name: See William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., 1784–1819 (reprint, Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), vol. 3, p. 5.

  6     “No family”: Bentley, Diary, vol. 3, p. 167.

  7     “Azure, a lion’s head”: “The White Old Maid,” in Tales, p. 320.

  8     William Hathorne was a man: For an account of the early years and political and civic accomplishments of Major William Hathorne (1606/7–1681), see Loggins, The Hawthornes, pp. 29–95, and Margaret B. Moore, The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1998), pp. 28–37, as well as the related excerpts in Sidney Perley, A History of Salem, Massachusetts, 3 vols. (Salem, Mass.: Sidney Perley, 1928); for his son John Hathorne (1641–1717), see Loggins, The Hawthornes, pp. 96–141, and Moore, The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 37–46, as well as Joseph B. Felt, Annals of Salem (Salem, Mass.: W. & S. B. Ives, 1827); NH to WDT, Mar. 16, 1855, C XVII, p. 319. James T. Fields recalls having seen a copy of Sidney’s Arcadia in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s library. See Yesterdays, p. 62, and “Grandfather’s Chair,” in True Stories, p. 32.

  9     200-acre land grant: Copies of the land grant stipulation can be found in Essex Institute Historical Collections 4 (1862), p. 113.

  10   He voted to banish: Felt, Annals of Salem, p. 179.

  11   He ordered Ann Coleman: Perley, A History of Salem, vol. 2, p. 254; Felt, Annals, pp. 183, 195.

  12   For his own pains: Perley, A History of Salem, vol. 2, p. 250. See also Land Grant to William Hauthorne [sic], UVA.


  13   “Let us thank God”: “Main Street,” Tales, p. 1039.

  14   “I cannot remember”: Fragments [from the letters of EH] in the hand of JH, Bancroft.

  15   “dim and dusky grandeur”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 126.

  16   According to his family: Putnam, Chronicles of Old Salem, p. 27. See, among other sources, Loggins, The Hawthornes, p. 133. NH uses these legends, as well as stories about Hathorne’s claim to land, in The House of the Seven Gables. See also Chapter 17.

  17   Federalists and Republicans: M. C. D. Silsbee, A Half-Century in Salem (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1887), p. 2. See also Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts, p. 174.

  18   “The jealousy & envy”: Bentley, Diary, vol. 1, p. 248.

  19   In 1804 the Federalists … The congregation: Bentley, Diary, vol. 3, pp. 96–97; Salem: Maritime Salem in the Age of Sail, p. 58.

  20   The bride, Betsy Manning: Elizabeth was born on March 7, 1802. Betsy Hathorne’s pregnancy and its possible impact on her is mentioned in James Mellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), p. 12, as possibly accounting for her later, so-called reclusive tendencies; it is discussed more specifically in Nina Baym, “Hawthorne and His Mother: A Biographical Speculation,” American Literature 54 (1982), pp. 1–27. However, since the Mannings and the Hathornes were neighbors and friends, it is unlikely that the Hathornes would have judged the pregnant ECH as harshly as she suggests. See also Gloria Erlich, Family Themes and Hawthorne’s Fiction (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1984) p. 188; unfortunately, Erlich also takes for granted an estrangement between the families. Yet Baym does try to quell the speculation concerning the supposed rift between the Hathornes and Elizabeth Hathorne after the death of the captain by saying ECH was not “overly fond of his family” (p. 63). On similarly scant evidence, Arlin Turner, Nathaniel Hawthorne (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1980), p. 11, mentions the “distance and coolness” between ECH and her Hathorne relatives after the captain’s death. Since EPP is evidently the sole source of the presumed estrangement, it should be handled with care. See also Moore, The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, p. 71, who provides a balanced view of the pregnancy and discounts rumors about any disaffection. But none of these critics mentions the close relations between ECH and her sisters-in-law.

  21   Old even by Salem standards: Daniel Hathorne (1731–1796) and Rachel Phelps (1734–1813) married in 1756. In 1772 Hathorne purchased the house on Union Street from his father-in-law, Jonathan Phelps. Daniel and Rachel Phelps Hathorne had eight children: Rachel (1757–1823), Daniel (1759–1763), Sarah (1763–1829), Eunice (1765–1827), Daniel (1766–1804), Judith (1770–1827), Ruth (1778–1847), and Nathaniel (1775–1808). See Vital Records of Salem, vol. 1, pp. 45–48; Loggins, The Hawthornes, pp. 168–89; Moore, The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 50–55. Rachel married the wealthy merchant Simon Forrester, befriended by her father even before Forrester first came to America.

  22   The Hathorne place sat: Elizabeth Manning, “The Boyhood of Hawthorne,” Wide Awake 33:6 (Nov. 1891), p. 500.

  23   Not surprisingly: Bentley, Diary, vol. 2, p. 323; shipping records, PE.

  24   Robert Manning put: Nathaniel Hathorne (father), Manning invoice, shipping papers, PE.

  25   He was also hitching: For an overview of the Manning family and a genealogy, see William H. Manning, The Manning Families of New England (Salem, Mass.: Salem Press, 1902), pp. 714–32.

  26   She was a bashful: Personal Recollections, p. 33; Yesterdays, p. 43.

  27   “strange reserve”: NH to SH, Feb. 27, 1842, C XV, p. 611. ECH’s own correspondence does not suggest that she was undemonstrative or cold.

  28   “capacity for placid”: EH to JTF, Dec. 13 and 16 [1870], BPL. Hildegarde Hawthorne, Romantic Rebel (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1932), p. 11.

  29   “looked as if”; “full of sensibility”: EPP to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, n.d., Berg; EPP to Francis Henry Lee, 1882, PE.

  30   Hathorne’s father: Loggins, The Hawthornes, p. 176; Salem Gazette, Apr. 26, 1796.

  31   By then his son: “Domestic Affairs,” Salem Gazette, May 3, 1796.

  32   “In Storms when”: Nathaniel Hathorne, logbook, 1795–96, PE. Hathorne was at the time chief mate on the Perseverance, which was owned by brother-in-law Simon Forrester and which traveled to Batavia, Manila, and Canton.

  33   “I hear your darter”: EPP to JH, transcript by JH, notebooks, Morgan.

  34   “inclined to melancholy”: Yesterdays, p. 43.

  35   Granite, he said: NHHW, vol. 1, p. 96.

  36   Hathorne had brought home: As first mate on the Herald under Captain Nathaniel Silsbee, Hathorne had been authorized by President John Adams in 1800 to subdue or seize any French ships within jurisdictional limits of the United States. JH, flyleaf of logbook, Nathaniel Hathorne, Bancroft. JH writes of his own father: “In particular he was interested in the fight with the French privateer, recorded on Nov. 3rd or 4th 1800, when Hathorne’s ship, The Herald, beat her off when she was attacking the ship Cornwallis of the British East India Co.”

  37   From these books: Nathaniel Hathorne, logbooks, Bancroft and PE.

  38   Having shipped … third child: Maria Louisa Hathorne was baptized on March 18, 1808, First Church Records.

  39   In 1804, after the birth: Walter Muir Whitehill, The East India Marine Society and the Peabody Museum of Salem: A Sesquicentennial History (Salem, Mass.: Peabody Museum, 1949), p. 162.

  40   In 1808 no ships: For the tribulations faced by Salem in this period, see Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts, chap. 13. For a partisan view, see Phillips, Salem and the Indies, chap. 17.

  41   On April 10: Bentley, Diary, vol. 3, p. 353.

  42   “I remember very well”: EH to UH, Nov. 12, 1865, transcript by JH, notebooks, Bancroft.

  43   “died in India”: SH to EPP, n.d., Morgan.

  44   Captain Hathorne had died: Nathaniel Hathorne, shipping papers, PE.

  45   “He left very little”: EH to UH, Nov. 12, 1865, transcript by JH, notebooks, Bancroft.

  46   In later years: Elizabeth Manning, “The Boyhood of Hawthorne,” p. 504; ECH to Richard Manning III, Jan. [26], 1820, PE.

  47   “The billowy Ocean”; “those for whom we weep”: “Poetry,” Spectator, Sept. 25, 1820, PE, quoted in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 44; “The Ocean,” n.d., in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 6.

  48   “Of what mysteries,” “Of sunken ships”: “Foot-prints on the Sea-shore,” in Tales, p. 568.

  49   “The rovers of the Sea”: See EH to UH, Feb. 26, 1865, transcribed by JH, Bancroft. JH omits part of this passage in NHHW, vol. 1, pp. 123–24, which he loosely transcribes, and George Parsons Lathrop has changed “rovers” to “pirates” in his summary of NH’s early work. See George Parsons Lathrop, A Study of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1876; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1969), p. 134.

  50   “The weather not looking”: Nathaniel Hathorne, logbook, inscribed by NH in 1825, Huntington.

  51   A friend recalled: JTF, Yesterdays, p. 92; F. B. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1909), p. 523.

  52   “came fresh”: NH to SH, Apr. 3, 1940, C XV, p. 434.

  53   He wanted to do “everything”: Richard Manning Jr. (father) to Richard Manning III (son), Feb. 4 [1804], PE. Richard Manning III is henceforward referred to as Richard Manning.

  54   “There were four Uncles”: EH to JTF, Dec. 12 [1870], BPL. The aunts and uncles were Mary, born June 1, 1778; William, Nov. 27, 1780; Elizabeth Clarke Manning (Hawthorne’s mother), Sept. 6, 1780; Richard, July 31, 1782; Robert, July 19, 1784; Maria, June 18, 1786; John, Feb. 10, 1788; Priscilla, Jan. 10, 1790; and Samuel, Dec. 17, 1791.

  55   According to relatives: Rebecca Manning, “Some Facts about Hawthorne,�
� PE.

  56   It was a singular case: After Maria Manning’s death in May 1814, the Reverend Dr. Bentley also noted that “the d. [daughters] have united elsewhere [First Church] & the youngest became one of the fanatics.” See Bentley, Diary, vol. 4, p. 257.

  57   “All have something”: Mary Manning to Richard Manning, Dec. 14, 1814, PE.

  58   Reputedly he removed: RH, “Memoir,” Morgan.

  59   At one time he owned: EH to UH, Dec. 20, 1865, transcribed by JH, Bancroft.

  60   He played … theological questions: Manning Hawthorne, “A Glimpse of Hawthorne’s Boyhood,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 83 (1947), p. 160. See also undated newspaper clipping, John M. Conklin, “Hawthorne,” address at the Franklin Literary Society, pp. 7–8, PE.

  61   He was especially good-looking: EH to JTF, Dec. 12 [1870], BPL.

  62   Forrester angrily informed: EH to JTF, Dec. 12 [1870], BPL.

  63   In later life: NH to SH, Apr. 14, 1844, C XVI, p. 30.

  64   “Study the hard lessons”: Robert Manning to NH, Aug. 14, 1813, Berg.

  65   On Saturday, April 17 … The funeral: Bentley, Diary, vol. 4, p. 163; Salem Gazette, Apr. 20, 1813.

  66   No more would: EH to JTF, Dec. 13, 1870, BPL; See Bentley, Diary, vol. 4, p. 163.

  67   “The heart never breaks”: “Grimshawe,” in American Claimant Manuscripts, p. 439.

  68   The Maine holdings: Manning legal papers, estate of Richard Manning, PE. Taken together, the property was assessed at more than thirty thousand dollars, a figure that did not include Manning’s personal worth of about twenty thousand dollars, judging from promissory notes, mahogany furniture, his jewelry and his pewter, three tea sets from China, and his horse and carriage.

  69   “Uncle Richard he can grow”: Robert Manning to NH, Aug. 14, 1813, Berg.

  70   “I do not forget”: Richard Manning to ECH, Jan. 29, 1815, PE.

  71   “I should rather live”: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Dec. 18, 1820, PE.

  72   So he put off moving: Robert Manning was also encumbered by the family stage business, run for a time by Samuel and William Manning until “illicit trade” (likely gunrunning) threatened to bankrupt it, and Robert was forced to take it over in early 1815. See Bentley, Diary, vol. 4, p. 307, and (Salem) Essex Register, Jan. 4, 1815, p. 2.