By Bonnie Withers

Have you ever visited Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass.? There you might have come upon the grave of a lesser-known member of the Ralph Waldo Emerson household. Elizabeth Sherman Hoar was born on July 14, 1814, to a prominent Concord family. She went to school with Henry Thoreau and his siblings. As a young woman, she was engaged to Waldo Emerson’s brother, Charles, with plans for the couple to live with Waldo and Lydian’s family. Sadly, Charles died before the wedding, yet Elizabeth remained a beloved family member for the rest of her life. She took over the household several times when Lydian was ill; the children called her Aunt Lizzie. Emerson loved her as a sister, inviting her to join the Transcendental circle where she came to know Margaret Fuller, the Alcotts, Channing, and the Peabody sisters.  On a trip to England, she met Emerson’s idol, Carlyle. She was considered a woman of great intellect by this august circle.

As emissaries from the Massachusetts legislature, Elizabeth and her father traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1844, to protest the treatment of free black sailors. South Carolina legislators took offense to this “meddling” and a mob formed to force them out of town. With the assistance of Unitarian minister Rev. Samuel Gilman and others, they secretly fled the city. Once back in Massachusetts, the story of their rude treatment was widely spread. As a result of these reports, many who had been reluctant to embrace the abolitionist cause changed their minds.

A sweet note: when Nathaniel Hawthorne moved to Concord with his bride, Sophia Peabody, Elizabeth and Thoreau planted a vegetable garden for them. 

Elizabeth Hoar died in 1878 and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.