Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 18, 2022

Oct 30 {1857}

We have just got a letter from Guion of Liverpool, saying he knows a family about to sail for America on the 11th in the Atlantic and I shall order a passage at once for Prudie and unless you say come, I shall stay. But I hope if there is reason that I should come, your next letter will say so. 


This was a letter from Maria to her father. It was 1857, and as I have written before, the Panic of 1857 caused the bankruptcy of the father of the young woman Maria has been chaperoning through Europe. The young girl would need to return to America and Maria secured her a passage with a family to look after her. However, Maria still had funds to allow her to continue to travel. Her word, “come,” with her emphasis, is likely a reference to the state her mother, Lydia, was in. Maria had been her mother’s caregiver until this European opportunity and left her mother in the care of her younger sisters, Phebe and Anne. In this letter, Maria seems to be asking her father to be honest with her and to tell her if she is needed at home in light of her mother’s condition. He apparently said no, or gave her no reason to feel she did have to return home, since Maria would travel through Europe until June of the next year, including through Italy with Nathaniel and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, and their family.


JNLF

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