An introduction to Collyer's Thoreau essay by Corinne H. Smith
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Before Henry David Thoreau set out on his 1861 trip to Minnesota with Horace Mann, Jr., Ralph Waldo Emerson gave the naturalist a list of people he could contact and meet along his route. That roster did not survive the passage of time, and we do not know if the Reverend Robert Collyer's name appeared on it. According to Thoreau's travel notes, he spent three hours with the Unitarian minister on the afternoon of May 22 in Chicago. (Harding, 30) Walter Harding remarked in explanation that Collyer was a "friend of Emerson," but no documentation exists to substantiate that statement. In fact, careful study concludes that Collyer exchanged correspondence and personally entertained Emerson only after Thoreau's visit, not before. Thus did Collyer touch the realm of the Transcendentalists first through one of its disciples, and not through its most notable figurehead of the day.
[2] Robert Collyer was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1823, and emigrated to America in 1850. He found work as a blacksmith in Pennsylvania and simultaneously ministered as a lay preacher in the Methodist church. While Collyer had been raised to believe that slavery was wrong, the growing abolitionist cause captivated and embraced the young man when he heard Lucretia Mott lecture. (Collyer, 69) So full of new passion was he that he attempted to transfer that mission to his Methodist congregation. The feeling was not mutual, and as a result he resigned from that church in 1859. Subsequently drawn in like-mindedness to Unitarianism, he accepted a position in that faith in Chicago later that year. He served parishioners in that area for 20 years and endured in spite of losing both his house and his church in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. He was involved in the community, read, wrote, and was even a charter member of The Chicago Literary Club, formed in 1874. Collyer moved on in 1879 to serve the Church of the Messiah in New York City. He died in 1912.
[3] Thoreau's notes state that he met with Reverend Collyer from 1 to 4 p.m. at 173 Randolph Street in Chicago on May 22, 1861. (Harding, 30) That night Collyer dashed off a short letter to Thoreau, thanking the Concordian for his visit and encouraging him to write a travelogue about his trip, in the style of his first two books. The minister further extended an invitation for Thoreau and Mann to stop by Chicago on their way home and to spend more time with him. (Thoreau, 617) But it was not to be. In July, the New Englanders instead took a more northerly route and crossed Wisconsin by rail in order to board a ship in Milwaukee. It made no difference, as Reverend Collyer had been temporarily called away from Chicago that month. Always eager to lend a hand, he took a job with the Sanitary Commission in Washington, D.C. The Civil War was raging, and men were getting injured and killed. Help was needed, and Reverend Collyer responded. The paths of the minister and the naturalist did not cross again.
[4] Collyer's lecture was first delivered to the parishioners of the Church of the Messiah in 1883 and was published in Clear Grit: A Collection of Lectures, Addresses and Poems in 1913. With the years gone by, Collyer misremembers the exact date of Thoreau's visit. He also reminisces about traveling to Concord and meeting with Emerson some time after Thoreau's death, though that event is not mentioned in any of Emerson's published journals or correspondence. Perhaps we can forgive this possible use of literary license, for we do have proof that Collyer hosted Emerson during later Midwestern lecture tours. The minister's house was also a stopping point for Edward Waldo Emerson during his own western trek in the fall of 1866. (Rusk) And Ralph Waldo Emerson's visit to the Collyer home for Thanksgiving on November 30, 1871, must have been a touching occasion, coming less than two months after the conflagration. (Emerson, 413) Collyer by that time was well-known in the Midwest and within Unitarian circles. He knew Theodore Parker, he quoted Emerson in his writings, he wrote an essay about Nathaniel Hawthorne's works. But above it all, the Reverend Robert Collyer was an obvious ardent fan of Henry David Thoreau. And as with the other passions in his life, he felt the need to relay this inclination to his listeners, his people. These words on paper are just as fiery today as they must have been from the pulpit 120 years ago.
Selected sources
Collyer, Robert. Some Memories. Boston: American Unitarian Association, [1905]. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Volume XVI, 1866-1882. Edited by Ronald A. Bosco and Glen M. Johnson. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982. Harding, Walter, ed. Thoreau's Minnesota Journey, Two Documents: Thoreau's Notes on the Journey West and The Letters of Horace Mann, Jr. Geneseo, N. Y. : The Thoreau Society, Inc., 1962. Rusk, Ralph L., ed. The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson in six volumes. Volume Five. New York : Columbia University Press, 1939. Thoreau, Henry David. The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau. Edited by Walter Harding and Carl Bode. New York : University Press, 1958.
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