He inspired the fictional character John Brooke in his sister-in-law Louisa May Alcott's best known novels.
After a brief illness, John Pratt died on November 27, 1870, in Maplewood (part of Malden, Massachusetts), where he and Anna were living.
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.
John and Anna's elder son, Frederick Alcott Pratt, married Jessica Cate, with whom he had five children before his death in 1910 in Chelsea, Massachusetts.