Jones Very, a transcendentalist poet, was born in 1813 in Salem, Massachusetts, the oldest of the six children to Jones and Lydia (Very) Very. As a young boy, Jones sailed with his father, a ship captain, to Russia and New Orleans. After being tutored for four years by J.P. Worcester, Jones became an assistant in Henry Kemble Oliver's Fisk Latin School. There he was able to earn tuition expenses and entered Harvard in 1834 as a sophomore. After graduation in 1836, he was appointed a Greek tutor for freshmen, which allowed him to pursue studies at the Harvard Divinity School. In 1837, Very evidently had some sort of religious experience and, believing that he could directly communicate with the Holy Ghost, he wrote a series of religious sonnets. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody introduced Very to Ralph Waldo Emerson who admired Very's poems and essays. Emerson helped Very prepare a collection of his writing Essays and Poems, which was published in 1839. Very's religious fervor caused his Harvard colleagues to question his sanity and he was relieved of his teaching duties in 1838. After his dismissal, he entered McLean Asylum, then located in Somerville, for a month.

Very moved back to Salem in 1840, where he lived until his death. He never completed his divinity degree but was licensed to preach in 1843, by the Cambridge Association. Very held various temporary posts including one in Eastport, Maine, and North Beverly, Massachusetts. The years 1836 to 1838 were Very's most productive and successful. After 1840, Very continued to write poetry sporadically, but none of his later work contained the inspirations and religious fervor of his earlier work. He died in 1880.

Lydia Louisa Ann Very, author and illustrator, was born in Salem in 1823, the youngest child of Jones and Lydia (Very) Very. She was educated in Salem public school. Between 1846 and 1876, she taught primary grades at Henry Kemble Oliver's classical school in Salem. Lydia never married and lived with her mother, sister Frances, and brothers Jones and Washington at 154 Federal Street, Salem.

Lydia Very's poems and prose pieces appeared in various Salem and Boston newspapers. In 1856, her first small volume, Poems, was published. In 1890, it was reprinted with additional poems and essays added as Poems and Prose Writings. Her additional books include two nature books: An Old Fashioned Garden, and Walks and Musings Therein (1900), and Sayings and Doings Among Insects and Flowers (1897); three novels: The Better Patch or Sylph, the Organ Grinder's Daughter (1898), A Strange Disclosure (1898), and A Strange Recluse (1899). A self-taught artist, Lydia also illustrated and wrote the verse for an edition of Little Red Riding Hood, and three other children's books. She died in 1901.