John Bridge Pratt

John Bridge Pratt (June 16, 1833 – November 27, 1870) was the husband of Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt, the elder sister of novelist Louisa May Alcott. He inspired the fictional character John Brooke in his sister-in-law Louisa May Alcott's best known novels.

John Bridge Pratt was born in Boston on June 16, 1833, the second child of Minot Pratt and his wife Maria Jones Bridge Pratt. The Pratt family lived at Brook Farm from 1841 to 1845,^[1] after which they moved to Concord, Massachusetts. As a member of the Concord Dramatic Union, John Pratt fell in love with Louisa's elder sister Anna Alcott Pratt, reportedly during a production of "The Loan of a Lover".^[2] The two were married in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, on May 23, 1860.^[3] They had two sons, Frederick Alcott Pratt (1863-1925) and John Sewall Pratt (1865-1923), who were the models for Demi and Daisy Brooke in the Little Women trilogy. After a brief illness, John Pratt died on November 27, 1870 in Maplewood (part of Malden, Massachusetts), where he and Anna were living.^[4] He was buried in an extension behind the Alcott lot in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord on Author's Ridge, and Anna was eventually interred beside him.^[5]

John Bridge Pratt's life became the basis for the character of John Brooke in Alcott's Little Women and Little Men, with both his wedding and early death becoming important events in the story lines. In fact, Pratt's unexpected death in 1870 had prompted Louisa May Alcott, who was staying in Rome at the time, to write Little Men (published 1871) in order to provide financial security for the widowed Anna and her sons.^[6] His younger son, John Sewall Pratt, took Alcott as his surname when he was adopted by his Aunt Louisa near the end of her life. He was also buried in the Alcott lot in Sleepy Hollow when he died in 1923.^[7] John and Anna's elder son, Frederick Alcott Pratt, married Jessica Cate, with whom he had five children before his death in 1925 in Chelsea, Massachusetts.^[8]

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