Locke Starkweather, Jane Ermina (1805-1859)

Title

Mrs. Jane Ermina Locke Starkweather

Author

Locke Starkweather, Jane Ermina (1805-1859)

Date

April 25, 1805 - March 8, 1859

Place of origin

Worthington, Massachusetts

Ashburnham, Massachusetts

Country of origin

United States of America

Language

English

Profession

Poet

Biographical details

A deacon's daughter, Jane Starkweather Locke reflects in her work the religious and patriotic idealism nurtured in her childhood home. Her uncle Ezra was a Massachusetts state senator and a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820, as was Locke's father-in-law, John Locke. She was the youngest of 10 children. Locke followed her husband to New York shortly after their marriage. The first of their seven children was born there; three of the children were to die in early childhood, and only one, Grace LeBaron Upham, was to survive to adulthood. The family settled in Lowell (1833) and in Boston (1849). While John pursued a career in business and government service, Jane cared for the children and pursued her own literary interests.

Locke's first collection of poetry is Miscellaneous Poems (1842). In the preface, the author tells us that the poems were written "for the most part…to relieve the soul of what would cumber it unuttered." The poems range in subject from reminiscences of her childhood home to expressions of love and concern for husband and children, and beyond this family circle to acknowledgements of the genial accomplishments of others—mostly contemporaries. […] Between 1850 and 1854, Locke worked as a newspaper correspondent for the Boston Journal and the Daily Atlas. In the same period, she also worked for the James Monroe Publishing Company, writing prefaces for the English publications that they reproduced in this country.

Selected publications

"Dante"

(1854) "Dante", The recalled: in voices of the past and poems of the ideal (Boston and Cambridge: 1854)

Link to external sources

Jane Ermina Locke Starkweather - Encylopedia