Rebecca Hasteltine and the Reverend Joseph Emerson

Joseph Emerson's early life and first marriage.

John Haseltine's (2C8X) four daughters were each extraordinary in their own way. We've already written about John and his daughters Abigail and Mary and their connection to the Bradford Academy in their hometown. In our last post we wrote about John's daughter Nancy and her missionary life in Burma. Our next three posts will deal with John's oldest daughter Rebecca (3C7X), who married the Reverend Joseph Emerson in 1810 when she was 28.

Note: Joseph was a 3rd cousin 1 time removed of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Much of the information we have on the Reverend Joseph Emerson comes from a wordy and extremely detailed biography written by his brother Ralph Emerson.

Joseph was married twice before he married our cousin Rebecca. He had been ill as a child and his health turned out to be a life-long trial. He graduated from Harvard in 1798 and took a tutoring post there while he studied for the ministry. One of his students was our cousin Nancy Eaton (5C6X) who descended from our Eaton family which settled in Lynn, MA in 1642. From extensive research into Joseph, it appears that Nancy was the love of his life. According to an account about Joseph written by Francis Wells Fox in 1924, "[i]t was Nancy’s aptitude for learning that first interested him in advanced education for women." 

While Joseph was courting Nancy, two of his diary entries, just two weeks apart, indicated the unpredictability of his health and moods:

April 8, 1803. — Morning as beautiful as perhaps any other since God commanded the light to spring out of darkness: and I perhaps nearly as healthy and happy as at any time since I first drew the breath of life.

April 21, 1803.— The weather is chilly. The sun is sinking behind the clouds. My soul is sorrowful. I have been more unwell this afternoon than for several months before. It is with some difficulty that I can speak; though I have found less difficulty in performing chapel duties than I had feared. My throat is a little sore. I hope sickness will not prevent my going to Windsor. Most of the time my existence this week has been but a few degrees above vegetation. But God forbid that I should complain. I trust the sun of righteousness will soon disperse the clouds that shade my soul.

By the fall of 1803, Joseph had finished his studies and married his beloved Nancy. He took a post as minister in Beverly, MA and, according to his brother Ralph, "[h]is earthly bliss seemed now complete." From letters Joseph wrote to Nancy's family, who lived in Framingham, MA, it's obvious that he was quite fond of them. From a letter to Nancy's sister Betsey (5C5X):

Beverly, March 23, 1804.

Early this morning, we determined to devote some part of the day to the animating employment of writing to our dear kindred at Framingham. They are the subject of some of our most endearing meditations and devoutest wishes, when we converse, when we read, and when we pray. When for a while we had been thinking and talking of these things, how very agreeably surprising did we find it, to open and read a letter from our much loved sister . . .We wish, by all means, that you may be here when we move into our own hired house, as we shall then peculiarly need your friendly assistance.

It would prove that Betsey's assistance, however, would not be needed. Shortly after Joseph sent the letter to his sister-in-law, Nancy became fatally ill. In June, another letter went out to her family:

My dear Friends, — Mrs. Emerson is yet living. How much longer she has to stay, is not for us to determine. Perhaps a few more hours may carry her to the arms of her Redeemer in glory. The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice. Shall we, can we feel, the least unwillingness that the dear object of our tender affection should be delivered from this body of death, and wafted to the abodes of unchanging joy ?. . .Your happy — yes, my friends — your happy son, brother, friend, J. Emerson.

Joseph wrote in the same light to a friend on the day of Nancy's funeral:

Today every thing appears uncommonly pleasant and delightful. The sun never shone so bright, and nature never appeared so beautiful. Today I think my happiness has exceeded every thing that I have ever before experienced. — The bell is now tolling for the funeral of my departed Nancy. — Never before was a knell so pleasing. Perhaps she whom I so much delighted to think and call my Nancy, can hear the sound so animating to her bereaved husband. Must it not be inexpressibly delightful! Perhaps, even now, her heavenly Father is granting her the satisfaction to rejoice with her dearest earthly friend.

By September, however, grief had taken sway over Joseph's faith. In a letter to his brother-in-law William Eaton (5C5X):

Our loss, how unspeakable.. .Alas, my brother, we shall never behold her equal on this side heaven. — Shall I, too, weep? Where then is fortitude. Jesus wept. Greater, no doubt, is my cause. These eyes, dry for so many years, have at length become familiar with tears. And there is sometimes, in weeping, a joy above all earthly dignities. Yet I must acknowledge that sometimes I feel not only solitary, but dejected and unhappy.

And to his sister, he wrote:

Though my Nancy is taken from my arms, she is not taken from my heart. I still continue to converse with her; sometimes in the most delightful manner, and sometimes in tears and sighs, that cannot be uttered. . .But I still have the letters that passed between us. What a treasure! what a solace! though sometimes, alas! but a dear aggravation of my sorrows. They never speak coldly.

In a tribute Joseph wrote about Nancy, he included a footnote about the Eaton family:

The first thing in her which attracted my more particular notice, not to say admiration, was the attention which she gave. . . especially when I attempted to explain the rudiments of English grammar or astronomy. . .soon formed the opinion, that she was possessed of a very superior understanding, and a memory above the common level. . .The answers which she gave to the questions I proposed to her upon the branches she was pursuing, often surprised and delighted me. . .The qualities of her heart, I do verily believe, no language can fully describe. . . Thursday morning, I visited the noble beech, now sacred to the memory of my departed Nancy. I found it more affecting than I had ever found it before. Surely time can never wipe away the traces of tender affection engraven on my heart towards the wife of my bosom, and the companion of my soul.

. . .My much respected father-in-law, Mr. Ebenezer Eaton (4C7X), lives in a very retired situation, in the north part of Framingham, at the end of a small road, about four miles from the meeting house. On the south of his house, is a wood at the distance of a few rods ; on the east, a pasture whose hills rise above the house. But this situation, however solitary, however dreary it may appear to some, has many charms for me; and it had charms for me when I bebeld it with the eyes of a stranger. Ten thousand dear associations have only brightened and multiplied its charms. This family have found much time for cultivating their minds. Amid domestic, toilsome avocations, very few are willing to pay the price of knowledge, that they have paid.

While Joseph would marry twice more, he never wrote so tenderly or beautifully about anyone after Nancy.

Joseph's second marriage

Joseph waited a year after Nancy's death and then found comfort in one of her friends. He wrote a letter to a friend explaining how Nancy had led him to Eleanor Read:

You know something of what I lost in my Nancy, endeared to my soul by every tie — too bright for earth — too excellent for me. For months, the wound grew deeper and deeper — and no created bosom on which I might lean, whose sympathy might solace my affliction. The world seemed to have forgotten the glowing energies and heightened virtues of my Nancy. God pointed my view to her dear friend — the only guest invited to our nuptials — the very image of her own soul. I paused, I pondered, I prayed, I took advice, and addressed my Eleanor.

She seemed, and still seems, an angel of consolation, sent to pour the oil of sympathetic tenderness into my bleeding bosom, and mitigate my woes. Not by charming the ten thousand endearments of my Nancy into oblivion.

In July of 1806 a child was born to the couple and they named her Nancy. But Eleanor, even when Joseph first met her, "was naturally of a slender constitution, inclining to consumption; was often very sick, and afllicted with extreme pain, and occasionally brought so low that her life was despaired of." While Joseph traveled to preach the gospel, Eleanor went to Leicester to "try and regain her health." The move was to no avail. Eleanor died in November of 1808 leaving little Nancy at just two years old. Joseph wrote about it in his diary:

Nov. 9. — I have just past through the solemn, affecting, and, I hope, improving scene of the funeral of my dear, dear, departed companion. When I wrote before, I did not think of attempting to have the body conveyed to Beverly, this week. But we are now making arrangements for the purpose. In very great haste.

Joseph's third marriage

Joseph's letters to his brother throughout 1809 all mention at length his ill health. Then he had a spot of sunlight in 1810 when he married our cousin Rebecca Haseltine (3C7X). How they met is not explained in Ralph Emerson's book but only twenty miles separate Beverly from Rebecca's home in Bradford. Though this marriage would last for 23 years, it appears that the bulk of it was spent apart. Rebecca, however, was a good fit for Joseph. She came from a devout family and was a helpmate to him in his work. Over the next 18 years, the couple had eight children. All but two, however, seemed to have inherited their father's ill health. Four children died under the age of two. The rest lived to ages 19, 29, 57 and one son made it to the grand old age of 84.

Two years after Joseph's third marriage, Rebecca's sister Nancy married Adoniron Judson and the couple sailed for India to do missionary work. Ralph Emerson covered this incident in his biography of his brother. It's possible that he might be overstating Joseph's influence on Ann's decision.

There was another circumstance which greatly increased the difficulty of a decision. No female had ever left America as a missionary to the heathen. The general opinion was decidedly opposed to the measure. It was deemed wild and romantic in the extreme, and altogether inconsistent with prudence and delicacy. Miss H. had no example to guide and allure her. She met with no encouragement from the greater part of those persons, to whom she applied for counsel. Some expressed strong disapprobation of the project. Others would give no opinion. Two or three individuals, whom it might not be proper to name, were steady, affectionate advisers, and encouraged her to go. With these exceptions, she was forced to decide from her own convictions of duty, and her own sense of fitness and expediency.

It is proper that I should now say, that my brother must have been one of these "advisers who encouraged her to go." And more than this; I am warranted from the best authority to say, that ''probably he did more for this object than any other person, or than all others. Indeed, at one time, it is doubtful whether she would have gone but for his efforts."

It may not be out of place here to mention, as an instance, that one evening, just before the embarkation, a purse of fifty dollars in specie was cast in at the door of my brother's dwelling, by an unknown hand, with the label, "For Mr. Judson's private use."

1812, however, turned out to be a hard year for Joseph healthwise. He took several journeys to try and improve his constitution. The following letter home to Rebecca was typical of so many she received from him. She remained a patient sounding board over the 23 years of their marriage.

Westfield, June 22, 1812.— Friday.

Most of my way from Beverly to Leicester, seemed dreary, and I proceeded sorrowing. The most beautiful prospects, such as a few days before I had so delightfully shared with you, could scarcely attract my attention. My cold was distressing, and I often found myself much more fatigued by riding, than I had anticipated.

hard years

In October of 1815, Joseph was in Reading for some months under the care of a doctor. His health only deteriorated so, in June of 1816, he went with his brother 150 miles southwest to Norfolk, CT. where "the region was elevated and healthful."

(1) Beverly, MA (2) Norfolk, CT

Joseph's letters to Rebecca, who remained in Beverly, seem to be solely about religion and his improving health. He told her that he was "as happy as you can easily imagine, when you consider my distance from my beloved family, and the destitute condition of my dear people."

Rebecca, left with four children and another due in two months, suffered a major blow in July with the death of her youngest child, two year old Edwin (4C5X). Joseph, far from the family and obviously in a despondent state, wrote home:

We know not how soon we shall be deprived of the privilege of praying for them. One is not. Dear Edwin! he seems more and more pleasant, precious, and desirable every day. How soon may N, and L, and A, be snatched away! and we be written childless!  

Note: The other children Joseph writes of are Nancy, from his second marriage, Luther (4C5X) and Alfred (4C5X).  

Such was the nature of Rebecca and Joseph's relationship, that the news of his daughter's birth the next month came to him from someone other than his wife. It seems that Rebecca had gone to Bradford to be with her family for the birth. Joseph wrote:

I am now on my way home, with brother R. . .Last Saturday, I was astonished to learn, by a line from Paulina, that I had a little daughter at Bradford, more than a week old when she wrote. I have neither time nor power to describe the conflicting emotions of joy and anxiety by which I was agitated. But I endeavored to stay my soul upon the eternal Rock. Dearest Rebecca, what would I now give to know the exact state of your health, and that of our sweet little daughter — if indeed she be yet alive.

The little girl did not live long, possibly dying shortly after birth. Rebecca and Joseph were reunited in Beverly where the state of Joseph's health forced him to give up his ministry. To make matters worse, the Beverly weather still did not agree with him and, in October, he sailed to Wilmington, North Carolina where he hoped the milder climate would improve his health.

While in Wilmington, Joseph's letters to Rebecca consisted mainly of nuts and bolts about his health and preaching. Then this on 1 Dec 1816:

I have now been here more than a month; and if I have ever found it good for me to draw near to God, it has been in this place. I have here enjoyed one of the happiest months of my life. O how good and how pleasant it is to feel my heart glowing with love to my wife, my children, my parents, my connexions, my friends, my enemies, and the whole human race. My willing soul would stay in such a frame as this.

Five days later, he wrote, "Is it not astonishing that I can be so far removed from connexions and friends, so amiable and so dear, and yet seem to enjoy them almost as though I were present with them?"

By April of 1817, Joseph was in Charleston, SC and his was health had improved to the point that he began giving lectures on astronomy. He wrote to Rebecca that he wanted "to do something for the support of my dear family; but hope my exertions will not injure my health." The astronomy lectures would continue for most of Joseph's life and were a welcome source of income.

Rebecca and Joseph's story will continue in our next post.