Sophia Foord (1802-1885) was an American schoolteacher and abolitionist from Dedham, Massachusetts.

Personal life

Foord was the daughter of James Ford, the clerk of Norfolk County.[1] She lived nearby James Richardson.[1]

She was the first depositor at Dedham Savings.[2]

While living with the Alcott family in Concord, Massachusetts, she met Henry David Thoreau.[1] Despite being 15 years older than him, she fell in love with him.[1][3] She proposed marriage to him, but he declined.[1][3] She had feelings for him for many years, which she would write about in letters to Louisa May Alcott.[1][lower-alpha 1]

Foord spent the last years of her life in Dedham, living with her sister, Esther.[4] She died in 1885 and was buried in Brookdale Cemetery.[4]

Career

Foord taught in the Dedham Middle School in 1833 before moving the Northhampton, Massachusetts to join the Transcendentalist Northampton Association of Education and Industry.[5] It was likely there that she met Amos Bronson Alcott, who convinced her to move to Concord, Massachusetts to join a new school that ultimately never materialized.[1] She lived with the Alcotts in Hillside in 1845.[1]

Ralph Waldo Emerson was so impressed with her teaching ability that he hired her to instruct his children.[1]

Notes

  1. ↑ Louisa May Alcott once worked in the Richardson home.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Parr 2009, p. 73.
  2. ↑ "Dedham Savings Bank". The Bay State Banner. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  3. 1 2 ""Sophia Ford: The Great Love Henry David Thoreau Didn't Want"". New England Historical Society. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  4. 1 2 Parr 2009, p. 74.
  5. ↑ "SOPHIA FOORD — ABOLITIONIST AND TEACHER". Duke University Libraries. Retrieved July 29, 2023.

Works cited

  • Parr, James L. (2009). Dedham: Historic and Heroic Tales From Shiretown. The History Press. ISBN 978-1-59629-750-0.
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