A Death in Utopia

by Adele Fasick

  On the morning of that funeral the sun was shining and the snow had almost disappeared, making the day seem more like early spring than the beginning of winter. They walked along the muddy road, not saying much until Abigail startled Charlotte by asking, "Do you think I ought to tell Thomas Hopewell that he has a grandson?"

  Charlotte drew her breath in surprise. That had never occurred to her, although once it was said, the idea seemed natural. She thought of Thomas Hopewell sitting alone in his grand house night after night. Sophia Ripley had told Charlotte she and her husband had visited the Reverend Thomas Hopewell and he found it consoling that the death of his son was almost accidental and not the result of any vicious criminal. Charlotte wasn't sure she would find much consolation in that, but it seemed to help the Reverend Hopewell. Wouldn't he be glad to know that some spark of his son remained? Why shouldn't Abigail and Timothy go to live with him and carry on the family name? But what if he still rejected Quakers? What if he rejected Abigail and only wanted Timothy?

  "That's a big question, Abigail," she finally answered. "Is that what you want to do? Do you think it would be best for Timothy?"

  Abigail pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders and walked along silently for a few minutes. "I don't know. I just don't know," she muttered. "Does Timothy have a right to know the truth? We talked about that, Winslow and I, on the last day I saw him. He said he could persuade his father to recognize our marriage and he said we could have another wedding—a "real" wedding—and everything would be all right. But I think he expected that I would stop being a Quaker and join his church. I'm not sure I want that. I don't believe Timothy should grow up to believe in war, maybe to go to war."

  "America won't go to war, Abigail," Charlotte assured her. "We've won our independence and we have a country far away from Europe and all its wars. You don't have to worry about that. Think how happy Reverend Hopewell would be to find out he has a grandson."

  "Would he be happy? Well, he'd be happy about Timothy, I'm sure. Who wouldn't be happy to have such a fine boy? But would he accept me? Would he just snatch Timothy away and make him his own? He is Winslow's father, but he is also a selfish old man. He only loves people who do just as he says." Her steps grew quicker and her skirts swung around her as she walked so briskly Charlotte had to hurry to keep up. She was frowning now as though she were looking Thomas Hopewell in the eye and not liking what she found. Then she stopped abruptly. "I will wait on it," she said. "I will wait for the spirit to speak to my condition. Then I will know what is right to do."

  The next few weeks were odd. Everyone went about their usual activities, but it felt as though they were walking on eggshells, tiptoeing so as not to upset anyone. People took care to be nice to one another. Fred and the other students organized a concert for New Year's Day and everyone sang hymns and listened to readings by members and guests. Margaret Fuller was there and when her turn came she read a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson about berrying. Had Mr. Emerson thought of Brook Farm when he wrote it? One thing they did well was to pick berries and make use of the blueberries, blackberries and raspberries found in the woods around the Farm. It had been one of Fanny's special pleasures. Was that why the poem was chosen?

  Berrying

  "May be true what I had heard,

  Earth's a howling wilderness

  Truculent with fraud and force,"

  Said I, strolling through the pastures,

  And along the riverside.

  Caught among the blackberry vines,

  Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,

  Pleasant fancies overtook me:

  I said, "What influence me preferred

  Elect to dreams thus beautiful?"

  The vines replied, "And didst thou deem

  No wisdom to our berries went?"

  Winter is always a somber time in Massachusetts, but at least they weren't isolated on some rural farm when the snow came and kept everyone indoors. Charlotte continued teaching the children as they grew and learned. She was pleased by the way the small ones who had known none of their letters when they started in the autumn had learned them all by the time January came. Timothy of course learned everything very quickly and was reading Aesop's fables by himself, but even little Johnny Parsons was able to get through the shorter ones without many stumbles.

  Almost every Sunday all through that long winter Daniel managed to get out to the Farm. He and Charlotte spent hours in the parlor talking about his job and his plans. His article about Winslow Hopewell's death had impressed Mr. Cabot, so he now worked regularly for the Evening Transcript. When he was first taken on the staff she teased him by asking how an "ignorant immigrant" could write about the ins-and-outs of Boston, but after a few months he knew more about Boston than she did despite her three years head start on living in the city. Then it was his turn to call her an "ignorant immigrant". Sophia Ripley was shocked one afternoon when she overheard him say that, but to Daniel and Charlotte it was a badge of honor to have learned so much about their new country and to feel at home in it.

  Spring finally came. The bite went out of the wind and once again it was a pleasure to walk through the woods. Daniel and Charlotte walked over to Cow Island Pond one afternoon in March and stood at the edge thinking about Fanny, and about Lily too, and of the way lives could be snuffed out so quickly.

  Everything was different than it had been in the fall. There were fewer people at the Farm. Leaves were coming out on the trees around the pond, but Charlotte wondered how the crops would do with fewer people to plant and harvest them. Fanny had wanted so much for the Community to survive, but even she had not survived the long cold winter.

  Daniel was still looking at the gray-blue water of the pond. "I am going to write a poem about all this," he said. "Then I will have it to remember when I leave."

  Leave? The word cut into Charlotte's mind. He had not mentioned leaving. He looked at her and she could see worry in his eyes. "Horace Greeley has asked me to go to New York City and work for his new newspaper The Tribune," he said. "I can't miss this chance. Have you ever thought of leaving?"

  No, she had not thought of such a thing. But as he talked she started thinking. So many people were going. Mr. Ripley was talking about turning the Community into a Phalanx—a very different kind of place where people were organized into rigid groups and each group had its task. Charlotte wasn't sure she would like a community like that. She hesitated and Daniel spoke again.

  "We could go to New York together, two ignorant immigrants in a new city. My pay will be better there and I've been saving money every week since I started working for Mr. Cabot."

  "That money was so you could send for your mother and sisters," Charlotte reminded him. "Anyway, I don't need your pay. I have been taking care of myself for ever since I left home. If I go to New York, I'll pay my own way."

  They left it at that and walked back to the Hive. A few days after Easter, Daniel left for New York. He loved his work with the New York Tribune and wrote letters every week about what he was doing in the city. He went to plays and to concerts. He even heard the famous violinist, Ole Bull, at his first concert in America. Ellen teased Charlotte about all the letters. She claimed Jonas Gerritson was growing weary dragging all the mail up to the Farm and his horse was wearing out. She also said that for all the money Charlotte spent on postage she could live for a year in New York and not have to write letters.

  Abigail had not yet decided whether to tell Thomas Hopewell the truth about Timothy, who was growing and learning every day. He was a happy boy and Abigail and Charlotte agreed he would grow up to be a great man. Abigail wanted him to become the patriot who would finally end slavery in America. She and Tabitha Whitelaw had been working hard to prepare the ground for that change. Sometimes Charlotte could see traces of sadness about Abigail, perhaps when she thought of lost plans and dreams, but most of the time she was serene, moving around the house in her white dress like a beautiful statue come to life. Charlotte believed that the spirit, wh
atever she meant by that, had spoken to her condition and she was at peace.

  So many people were moving and changing. Margaret Fuller had gone to New York to work for Horace Greeley's newspaper, just as Daniel was. She wrote often to Sophia Ripley and early in October she had sent a letter to Charlotte. In her letter, Miss Fuller described a new school opening in the city to teach the children of the Free Blacks in the city. The director of the school was looking for teachers who would be willing to teach the young children. Miss Fuller urged Charlotte to apply.

  Charlotte wrote to tell Daniel about Miss Fuller's suggestion and he responded enthusiastically. He said that despite how much he enjoyed his job, he found himself often alone in New York and missed having her to talk to. He even sent her one of his poems:

  Sad the bird that sings alone,

  Flies to wilds, unseen to languish,

  Pours, unheard, the ceaseless moan,

  And wastes on desert air its anguish!

  Charlotte smiled to think he was becoming so poetical, but she carried that little poem with her everywhere and read it over whenever she was alone. Another winter was arriving, but she could hope that this year the season would bring new lives for them instead of sorrow.

  AFTERWARD

  The Death of a Dream: After Brook Farm

  Weep not that the world changes – did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep. – William Cullen Bryant "Mutation"

  The Brook Farm experiment lasted less than seven years. George Ripley struggled with constant financial problems. Farming was not practical because the distance to markets made it impossible to sell enough produce. Although the school was very successful, other industries faltered because too few experienced working people were attracted to the community. Eventually Ripley tried to transform the community into a Phalanx, a rigid social group program in which people were assigned to work at specific tasks. The young, idiosyncratic rebels who had been the original members gradually drifted away. Several later became important figures in 19th century American society. And for most of them the Brook Farm experience was an important defining experience in their lives. Several later published memoirs of the community, but George Ripley never recorded his account of the experience.

  George and Sophia Ripley moved to New York in 1847 where George Ripley joined the staff of Horace Greeley's newspaper the New York Tribune. He remained there for the rest of his career, usually as book editor, and died in 1880. Sophia converted to Catholicism soon after the couple moved to New York, but her life was cut short by breast cancer and she died in 1857.

  Lydia Maria Child continued to write and lecture throughout her long life. In both fiction and nonfiction she supported the abolitionist movement and protested the mistreatment of American Indians by settlers and the government. She died in 1880.

  Elizabeth Peabody maintained her influential bookstore in Boston until 1852. Later she became interested in German educational theories and in 1860 opened the first kindergarten in North America. Her writings on education inspired generations of American teachers. She died in 1894.

  Margaret Fuller's best-known book, Women in the Nineteenth Century, was one of the foundations of the feminist movement and inspired leaders including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She became a journalist and foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune, but her career was cut short by her death in a shipwreck at the age of 40 in 1850.

  Bronson Alcott, perhaps best remembered as the father of Louisa May Alcott, was also an educator, a lecturer, and writer. He founded a short-lived communal group, Fruitlands, which espoused a more radical lifestyle than Brook Farm, including a vegan diet and a ban on using farm animals for labor. In later years he continued to give lectures and write about his philosophical theories. He died in 1888.

  Charles Dana, like Ripley, moved to New York and worked for Horace Greeley. He served as a foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune in Europe. During the Civil War he was appointed Assistant Secretary of War. Later he bought the New York Sun and built it into an important newspaper. He died in 1897.

  John Sullivan Dwight lived in New England all of his life. His marriage to Mary Bullard, another Brook Farmer, was a happy one, but unfortunately she died young and he never remarried. As the founder and editor of Dwight's Journal of Music he became the foremost American music critic of the nineteenth century. He died in 1893.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne lived briefly at Brook Farm but found the commitment to farm labor was not compatible with his desire to write nor with his desire to marry Sophia Peabody (Elizabeth Peabody's sister). Eventually he sued the community in a vain attempt to get back some of the money he had invested in the project. Hawthorne's novel The Blithedale Romance is said to be based in part on his memories of Brook Farm.

  Sources of Quotations

  "There's Nothing True But Heaven" (1829) From Thomas Moore's Sacred Songs. This was a favorite hymn sung at Brook Farm.

  "The Barrow Girl" from Collection of ballads, songsheets. 2 vols. London: J. Pitts, 1805-1840

  Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith by Sydney Smith p. 70 (Google books)

  "A Nation Once Again" An Irish Rebel Song, written by Thomas Davis.

  "Ode to Autumn" by John Keats

  "Must not a woman be..." by John Keats "Ode to Fanny"

  "We'll drink to-night with hearts as light", by Charles Fenno Hoffman "O Fleeting Love"

  "Cape Cod Girls"

  http://shanty.rendance.org/lyrics/showlyric.php/capecod

  "Berrying" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

  An old Irish lament translated into English by Charlotte Brooke in Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789)

  Other Books about Brook Farm and its Friends

  Baker, Carlos. Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait. New York: Viking Press, 1996.

  Codman, John Thomas. Brook Farm; Historic and Personal Memoirs. Boston: Arena publishing company, 1894.

  Curtis, Edith Roelker. A Season in Utopia; the Story of Brook Farm. New York,: Nelson, 1961.

  Delano, Sterling F. Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.

  Fasick, Adele. Margaret Fuller: An Uncommon Woman. San Francisco. MonganBooks, 2012.

  Karcher, Carolyn L. The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child. New Americanists. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994.

  Orvis, Marianne. Letters from Brook Farm, 1844-1847. The American Utopian Adventure. Philadelphia,: Porcupine Press, 1972.

  Swift, Lindsay. Brook Farm. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1900.