December Was an Eventful Month for Mr. Emerson
Mr. Emerson’s garden on a snowy day. Photo by E. Emerson.
In the 19th century as it is today, December was a time of celebrations and gatherings. For Ralph Waldo Emerson, it was also a month when he experienced many life changes.
On Christmas Day in 1827, 25-year-old Emerson met 17-year-old Ellen Louisa Tucker in Concord, New Hampshire and promptly fell in love. He found “nothing but light & oxygen” in New Hampshire and returned several times to see her. The following December of 1828 they became engaged, Emerson declaring, “now as happy as it is safe in life to be.” They married on September 30, 1829; sadly, Ellen succumbed to tuberculosis in early 1831.
By then, Emerson was serving as minister of the Second Church in Boston. After Ellen’s death he continued his duties, but was grieving. In September of 1832 he resigned his position at the Second Church and on Christmas Day, 1832 he sailed for Europe. He disembarked in Malta and traveled through Italy, Switzerland, and France. In July of 1833 he arrived in England and met with the writers Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle—who became a lifelong friend. These meetings had a profound effect on Emerson.
December was often the month when Emerson started his lecture series, and as his speaking tours were a major source of income, it was often a very busy month.
In December of 1845, Emerson purchased 41 acres of land at Walden Pond. He let his friend Henry David Thoreau build a cabin on land that he owned—a stay that resulted in Thoreau’s Walden, published in 1854.
Emerson’s Poems collection was published in December, 1846. A young Emily Dickinson received a copy of Poems when she was 20 and wrote, “Ralph Waldo Emerson has touched the secret spring.” After hearing Emerson’s lecture, “The Poet”, a young Walt Whitman wrote, “I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil.” Whitman was so inspired by Emerson’s words that he later went on to write Leaves of Grass. In December, 1862 Whitman wrote to Emerson requesting a letter of reference as Whitman sought employment working within President Lincoln’s cabinet.
The first meeting of Boston’s Saturday Club, cofounded by Emerson, was on December 16, 1854. Early members included scientist and educator Louis Agassiz; Judge Rockwood Hoar; author Nathaniel Hawthorne; poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; poet James Russell Lowell; and others. The group met monthly and a form of the Saturday Club still exists today in Boston.
Emerson certainly also partook of the season to be with friends and family. In December of 1846, for example, the Emersons rode to the Alcotts’ home via horse-drawn sleigh to enjoy a festive Christmas dinner that included individual notes enclosed in pieces of pie. One can imagine that the Alcott and Emerson children provided joyous entertainment.
— B. Ewen, Emerson House guide
