Zilpah

Once, Thoreau wrote, a frequenter of the woods passed Zilpah’s house and claimed to have heard her muttering to herself, witchlike, over a gurgling pot — “Ye all are bones, bones!”

But Zilpah was no witch; she simply shared her brother’s stubborn freedom-seeking streak.

Thoreau also recalled Freeman’s sister, Zilpah White, in her tiny cabin, where she wove linen into cloth for people in town while “making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill singing, for she had a loud and notable voice.”

Zilpah shared her tiny hut with her hens, straining her eyes to near blindness with the intricate task of weaving, Lemire writes.

Shortly after Freeman’s escape, arsonists burned Zilpah’s home to the ground.