John Bridge Pratt

Who is John Bridge Pratt?

John Bridge Pratt 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, and moved with his family to Concord, Massachusetts. As a member of the Concord Dramatic Union, he fell in love with Louisa's elder sister Anna Alcott Pratt, supposedly during a production of "The Loan of a Lover". The two were married in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, on May 23, 1860. They had two sons, Frederick Alcott Pratt and John Sewall Pratt, 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, where he and Anna were living. 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.

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.