John Neal collection

John Neal (1793-1876), along with his twin sister Rachel (1793-1858), was born to John and Rachel (Hall) Neal in Portland, Maine (August 25, 1793). After an education in the public schools, young John became a "Yankee jack-of-all trades." In 1809 he moved to Boston and later went into business with John Pierpont (1785-1866), poet, reformer, and life-long friend. In 1815, Neal moved to Baltimore and immersed himself in legal and literary study and involved himself with the Peale family of painters. He also became the youngest member of the literary Delphian Club. During those years, he wrote his first novel, Keep Cool, two long poems, "The Battle of Niagara" and "Otho," and four more controversial novels in the course of two years: Logan, Randolph, Errata, and Seventy-Six. After practicing law in the early 1820s, he traveled to London, where he attempted to make a case for the American literary and artistic scenes, publishing numerous articles in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.

In 1827, Neal returned to settle in Portland, Maine, despite hostility from those who were offended by his published works. In 1828, he published and edited The Yankee, a cultural and literary publication, continued to write, and married his cousin, Eleanor Hall (1809-1877), in 1828. John and Eleanor had five children: Mary (1829-1914), James (1831-1856), Margaret Eleanor (1834-1927), Eleanor (1844-1845), and John Pierpont (1847-1915).

While raising his family, Neal wrote several more novels, edited and published in numerous periodicals, and became involved in wide-ranging causes including phrenology, gymnastics, boxing, women's rights, anti-racism, civic improvement and temperance. His eccentricity was matched by his considerable literary, cultural and civic legacy, and his works, particularly his early American art criticism, are still reprinted and studied today.

Neal's daughter Mary wed Robert H. Sherwood of New York and had three children: Eleanor Sherwood (1853-1884) who wed Robert Hodges, Laura Sherwood (1856-1933) who married Henry Forry Picking, and Margaret Sherwood (1857-1921) who wed Wilson Patterson. At her husband's death, Mary moved in with her parents in Portland.

Neal's son James died on one of Walker's expeditions to Central America. Neal's daughter Eleanor died young. Neal's son John Pierpont practiced law with his father, moved to Chicago and became a railroad attorney. He married and had a son who died at the age of four.

The donors of this collection are descendants of Mary's youngest daughter, Laura Sherwood Patterson (1856-1933), who married Henry F. Picking. Their child Sherwood Picking (1890-1941) was a naval officer and historian. He married Elizabeth Warner of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Their children included Frances Goodwin Picking Heylar (b. 1928), Henry Forry Picking (b. 1931), and Elizabeth Picking Hamill, who later served as curator at the Maine Historical Society Library.

Sources:

• Lease, Benjamin. That wild fellow John Neal and the American literary revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972.
• Sears, Donald A. John Neal. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978.
• "Neal, John." American national biography. 1999. 258-259.