The Dictionary’s coverage of the leading transcendentalist, HenryDavid Thoreau, is largely due to the monumental efforts of a single woman,Miss Alice Byington of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, who sent in 5,000 slipsfrom books that included several by Thoreau:

Byington shared her uncle’s interest in and support for indigenousculture and language, serving as President of the Stockbridge branch of theIndian Rights Association, and on the Education Committee for the Women’sNational Indian Associatio

But it was her uncle, the RevdCyrus Byington, who had the greatest influence on her life and interests. Hehad been a missionary with the Brewer sisters’ father to the Choctaw NativeAmerican Communities at the old mission station in Stockbridge; he hadtranslated the Bible into Choctaw, and wrote a grammar and dictionary of thelanguage.

The New England Telephone Company had planned to put a pole intheir front yard and workers from the company began digging the hole. Butthe Brewer sisters and Byington came out and sat in the hole, blocking theirefforts by sleeping there in a tent overnight. The telephone company installedthe pole across the road instead, making this a successful result fornineteenth-century Nimby activism.