Hoar, Elizabeth Sherman, 1814-1878

Elizabeth Sherman Hoar (July 14, 1814-April 7, 1878) was a schoolmate of Henry Thoreau and his siblings. After his death she assisted Sophia Thoreau and Ellery Channing in collecting the posthumous works of Henry, close friend and traveling companion of her brother Edward. In her youth Elizabeth was engaged to marry Charles Chauncy Emerson, her father's young law partner. Charles died of consumption in May, 1836, before they were wed. Much beloved by his family, Elizabeth was for the rest of her life called "Aunt Lizzie" by the Emerson children and treated as a member of that family. She and Ralph Waldo Emerson were like brother and sister. He invited her to join the Transcendental circle. She helped prepare copy for the Dial magazine. Through Waldo Elizabeth became close friends with Margaret Fuller, Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley, the Alcotts, and the Peabody sisters. Sophia Peabody sculpted two medallions of Charles Emerson in profile, one for Waldo and one for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth often managed the Emerson household during Lidian's confinement or illness. Ruth Emerson, R.W.'s mother, died in her arms. Elizabeth was one of the few who could consistently deal with the eccentricities of R.W.'s Aunt Mary Moody Emerson. She often arranged her lodging and paid some of her expenses. When Nathaniel Hawthorne and his bride, Sophia Peabody, moved to the Old Manse in Concord, Elizabeth and Henry Thoreau prepared a vegetable garden for them.

In November, 1844, Elizabeth Hoar accompanied her father to Charleston, South Carolina. Judge Hoar had been commissioned by Governor George Briggs and the Massachusetts legislature to treat with the South Carolina government. Free black sailors, ashore in South Carolina to load cotton aboard Massachusetts ships for transport to Massachusetts mills, were apt to be impounded and, unless their ship's captain paid a ransom, sold into slavery. South Carolina legislators did not take kindly to Northern "meddling" with their State laws. When they learned of Hoar's mission, he was told to get out of town. A mob threatened to drag him from his hotel. Friendly residents with Harvard connections, among them the Rev. Samuel Gilman, minister of the Unitarian Church, and Dr. Joshua Barker Whitridge persuaded him to leave without further attempt to address the authorities. Elizabeth and her father were got secretly out of the hotel and onto a ship. On December 27 Squire Hoar reported the story to a Concord Town Meeting.

Concord people were incensed at the South Carolinians' rudeness to their most respected citizen and his daughter. Roughly to threaten an emissary from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and summarily to dismiss an issue of law was outrageous behavior. Moreover, subjection of Massachusetts ships to a shortage of hands was a serious economic matter. The episode had far-reaching effects throughout Massachusetts. Many who had seen no good in "abolitionist agitation" and those who had been reluctant to countenance the anti-slavery cause, changed their minds.