Isaac Thomas Hecker was a religious enthusiast who came to Brook Farm
for the same reason that Emerson left the Unitarian Church, namely, for
his soul's peace. He belonged to a well-to-do family in New York,
engaged in the manufacture of flour specialties, but the restraints and
the questionable practices of business were irksome to him, and he
eagerly sought a home among the congenial spirits who were trying to
live a higher life on their sterile little property in West Roxbury.
Being one of the thoroughgoing kind, he had learned all the uses of
flour from beginning to end, and this knowledge he gladly made available
as baker-general for the Brook Farm community. He was a faithful and
competent baker for several months; usually happy and cheerfully
interested in all that was going on, but occasionally taking a day off
for fasting and prayer. Early in the spring, Annie Page and I were
hunting arbutus, or Mayflower as we called it, on the far side of the
pine woods, when we came upon Mr.
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