British-born Sara Hoding (1798 to ?) has left little mark on history. A poet and writer, she lived a quiet life hemmed in by the role assigned to her as a woman. However, she has left behind an amazing journal full of witty and keen observations and poetry about her daily life, about nature, and about her travels. The Land Log-Book; a Compilation of Anecdotes and Occurrences Extracted from the Journal Kept by the Author, during a Residence of Several Years in the United States of America. Containing Useful Hints to Those Who Intend to Emigrate to that Country was published in 1836 and provides a look at American life for the period. It is a journal well-worth reading.
What is known about her has been gleaned by Dr. Benjamin Colbert from her journal, from censuses, and from a street atlas of Philadelphia. A poem by her, “A Fairy’s Song” was published in 1828 . You can see a watercolor by her at the Princeton University Art Museum titled “Bough Apple”, signed by her and dated August 1819.
Sara Hoding’s journal focuses on the period between 1819 and 1825, during which she and her father lived in Philadelphia. There she met many people from various walks of life and visited museums, artists, and nature.
She started her “Land Log-Book” at the instigation of a retired sea captain she became acquainted with in Philadelphia. She and three companions agreed to each keep a log and to share their entries when the captain came to visit. In her land log-book, Sara recorded the weather, descriptions of local artists, the American gentry, Dutch, German, Greek, and English settlers, the ill treatment of slaves and servants, Quaker services, the plight of Native Americans, the exhibits at the museums, and much more.
In the following excerpt, Hoding shares her thoughts upon seeing a mammoth’s bones for the first time and includes the first half of her poem “To the Mammoth in Peal’s Museum.” (pp. 21-25)
Have been to the Philadelphia Museum, and surely he whoever doubted the existence of a Supreme Being ought to view the bones of the stupendous Mammoth . What a treasure to the comparative anatomist ! He towers above man, beasts, birds, and fishes most majestically. The moment you look at him the words burst from your lips , ” O Lord, how manifold are thy works ; in wisdom hast thou made them all.” The philosopher will ask ” why is the huge race extinct?” As I believe only the bones and a carcass buried in the snow of ages, somewhere in Canada, have been found. Some think the Mammoth is the Behemoth of Job; and certainly the description seems very like the Mammoth as to size;” he trusteth he can drink up Jordan. “Really I do not know what man would do with him. The elephant, horse, and ox have been made subservient to us, but think the Mammoth would have lorded it through the wilderness untamed.
The skeleton of a mouse is placed beneath him in the Museum to show the vast difference between the largest and the smallest quadruped. Many things surprised me certainly , but the Mammoth was in size so far beyond the elephant, that he looked like a visitor from some other planet. A comparative anatomist with whom we were acquainted brought a grinder which had belonged to a Mammoth, for my Father to sketch for him, and as nearly as I can I will give the size. About 10 inches long and nearly as high, 5 inches broad and the sides were much worn away, as the gentleman thought trees had been its owner’s food. I may not recollect accurately, but seeing such a wonder of a tooth I ought to have done. The beast whose skeleton was found near LaPlata, by the thickness of his jaws , was suppose not to be content with herbage alone; that he borrowed the branches: whereas my Mammoth being larger, the American Professor thinks large trees did not escape him . He was much longer than Shaw’s Magatherium*.
Seven, or, I don’t know what o’clock it is, but this I know, I am going to write some more about the noble Mammoth.
TO THE MAMMOTH IN PEAL’S MUSEUM, PHILADELPHIA
Most noble pile of bones, allow
A scribbler to address thee now;
For thou can’st understand as well
As Gods ‘fore whom the heathen fell :
Not that I mean to offend-oh, no !
Only, when critics give a blow
I can retort; and tell them bones
Are certainly as good as stones,
All chisell’d into statues grand,
At best are made by human hand.
But when thy Mammothship is by
All know the Architect on high,
Who formed thee thus, and bid thee stand
An object in Creation grand.
So, now great Mammoth, I’ll address
Some questions to your Mightiness.
What did’st thou do when thou did’st live?
Can’st thou no information give?
O give to naturalists a hint
Of what thou did’st, and where thou went.
The other day thy tooth I saw–
At least one from a Mammoth’s jaw,
And heard a gentleman declare,
He thought huge trees had been thy fare.
Oh, how I should have liked, great beast,
To’ve seen thee at thy timber feast:
Resting a rocking forest near,
On which old Boreas was severe;
Then see thee snap a towering oak
As cabbages by cows are broke!
What is the reason thou shouldst lay
Hidden so long, nor see the day ?
Until all in this wond’rous age . . .
Sara Hoding’s Writings
The Land Log-Book; a Compilation of Anecdotes and Occurrences Extracted from the Journal Kept by the Author, during a Residence of Several Years in the United States of America. Containing Useful Hints to Those Who Intend to Emigrate to that Country. Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., London, 1836.
“A Fairy’s Song.” The Pocket Magazine, Part 1, p. 311, 1828.
Learn more about Sara Hoding
“Sara Hoding” by Benjamin Colbert under British Travel Writing, Centre for Transnational and Transcultural Research, University of Wolverhampton, 2020
Sara Hoding, despite her fear of criticism, still took the risk of publishing her journal. I am glad she did. Here are her thoughts on critics.
On Critics
“Now some must have pity on me, as I cannot write verses at all. How many people might write, if not for the critics. How much one might write, if not for the critics. How much might one write, if not for fear of them. Many an article might be written down, only the Captain might call me spiteful. Critics are as the bones in a herring; the heavy billows to the laboring ship; the wrong-way wind to that self same ship; and to my log.”
~ Sara Hoding ~
Do you like your writing to be criticized?