Susan Burley

Born: September 2, 1791

Died: June 3, 1850

Burial Location: Anemone Path

Susan Burley was the oldest child of William Burley and Susan Farley Burley. She had two younger siblings, Elizabeth and Edward. Though nothing is known of her childhood or her education, she was noted for her skills as a clever hostess and for the intellectual groups she hosted at the home of her sister Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s husband Frederic Howes with whom she lived in Salem. One of her guests was Nathaniel Hawthorne who attended her Saturday gatherings with the Peabody sisters, Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia, whom he would later marry. Hawthorne named these gatherings “Hurley-Burleys”. Many of the guests were members of Salem’s North Church as Susan and her family was. The interests of the group were literature, history and philosophy all of which were elements of Transcendentalism. Susan Burley was also a great benefactor. She helped to publish Hawthorne’s short story The Gentle Boy in 1839. This work also contained a drawing by Sophia of the main character. It marked the only collaboration by the couple.

When Hawthorne moved to Boston to work at the Customs House, Susan Burley arranged a membership for him at the Boston Athenaeum. In this way, he could continue the research that was necessary for his writing. Miss Burley moved to Boston in 1840. While she lived there, she attended the conversations conducted by Margaret Fuller, covering similar topics to the Saturday evening salons in Salem.

By 1848, Susan Burley was back in Salem, where she instituted the Salem Book Club, which expanded to become the Salem Athenaeum.

Susan Burley died on June 3, 1850 and is buried with members of the Howes family at Harmony Grove Cemetery. She was remembered as a loyal friend. No known portrait exists of her, but Sophia Peabody Hawthorne remembered her glowing eyes and long dark hair.

Sources Consulted:

• ‍Internet: Findagrave.com/memorial/214080369/susan-burley
• Books:
  • Van Wyck Brooks: The Flowering of New England: 1815-1865, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the Beginnings of American Literature, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1936.
  • Megan Marshall: The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 2005.
  • James R. Mellow: Nathaniel Hawthorne In His Times: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1980.
  • Edwin Havilland Miller: Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A life of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991.
  • Margaret B. Moore: The Salem World Of Nathaniel Hawthorne; Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998.