Letter from Horace Sumner Lyman on saving, slavery stories, and racial origins

Oberlin. Oct. 30, 1880

Relatives all,

Have read your letters with pleasure. Your plan [?] of coming East to go home with me is one of exceeding merit if it can be by any means [?] and carried out. It would be a pity to come only as far as San F. I think that by that time the U.P.R.R will be so far completed that you can come by that route. I would to the mischief that I could ruin a few [?] own and above my expenses, so as to [?] your [?] for the purpose. I honestly think that [?] to visit, travelling East, would be the best use you could put your money to. What else would you want to do with it? You would have just as good a chance to make more when you should have returned, if you needed to; and you wouldn't need to anyhow. I will get some snug little place like W. Salmon, a Clatsup, a Canby, or Olympia to labor, and I shall have to have you to lead the singing. So you see you could come in time to be here when I graduate, then we could head out East and see the relatives. During the summer - that is '82 - I might get a job of filling a vacant pulpit, or get a job of milking cows, so as that my expenses would be defrayed for doing a little travelling with you, much as going to Boston and New York, to Washington, Phil, and other noted places. Then we could come back by way of the lakes, stay a season at Chicago, to see Mr. G[?] and Co; go on to Iowa, then put out N.W. for the headwaters of the Columbia, and [?] the gates of the mountains to loved Oregon. It seems as if that might be practicable. I made if we could [?] interest cousins Sarah and Henry in taking a little trip to Oregon with us. It might be sort of jolly if we could. My land, you know, will be worth a good deal before long and on the strength of that we would be [?] in a little more extravagance. Beautiful trip for thee and me. We can cherish this plan, and it may turn out well. I certainly do wish that Sarah could be strong enough to come. But I know it would almost [?] her up, if not quite [?] do so. Ever in the [?] sleeping curse, I doubt if she could sleep much, and on the emigrant can, sleepy head as I am, about 6 hour per night I [?] sleep was all that I could get, to save me. You would have no trouble in San F. because you, a [?], or both could write to the Tennys, who could meet you at the steamer if you went by S.F. And of course there would be no trouble at P. if you started from there by rail [?].

My mind is, so to say, occupied with the idea. We can [?] it float our us. $300, ought to do it for you. You have [?] down $80 already. You must keep its eye of a dragon on your [?] to see that what you put down don't [?] used in small ways like paying for bread, a fish, or the meat bill, or the Chinaman; or in any frilling away of it. Put it where you will have an awful trouble to get to it, under a mountain of old books; or sew it up in a dozen or two thick [?] of buckskin. Don't let it be lying around [?] be when it is handy to get a little change; and don't for the world have it in small coins, [?] as 5 cts, dimes, and half dollars. If you do you will be spending a bit here and there without knowing it. Be a miser. Even though you should seriously in conscience yourself on some body else, you must not [?] a [?] of that shining gold. Let it be sacred. So you will have the spring curled tight in your hands, which when [?] off, will send you [?] [?] of [?] miles, to see many things. You owe it to the [?] and to me, to say nothing of yourself. It make a tower of the East the brood land; before you settle down to lifelong struggle with life. Then in after[?] when you are in your sixties you can say how you saw Chicago when it was but a small city of half-a-million, etc etc.

You had better keep an account of the incomes from the boarding (of whom you have lately said little) and the [?] due to void boarder being there, and if there be any profit [?] [?] put that profit into your stand box. Where else could it better?

I am waxing a little more ferveant over this than I need perhaps. But your getting old enough now to begin to look out for yourself a little. But, yet, yet, I do not mean to imply such a plan is a selfish one. You are bound to educate yourself, make youself cultivated, [?], and enlarge in as to be a perfect member of society. How many years have you been the mainstay of the family? C. intended like most girls of beauty and talent and get up and go, of spending about $3,000 in being educated, you have poured out your energy in behalf of the family, and now you ought to reap the fruits of your unselfish devotion. And so sure as my name is B[?], you shall especially as you are contemplating doing it with your own earnings.

Do you remember the heavy days of the Walla Walla year? Ah ha! It was a little hard. With [?], and we did not know but it was Death [?] his evoked [?] [?] Father's back and the rest of us not all well, particularly S, there was a [?] of uncertainty about matters that rather took the stiffening out of us.

May you be happy as man or woman may all this winter. So. You must bear in mind that you are to save this year's money. It might happen that you would be out of a job for next year perhaps.

You will of course Will, go slow, and carefully in the Wh. Sol. matter, not to jeopardize anything so far as there is anything to jeopardize.

Harper's Weekly of [?], has its keenest native on Hancock's [?] [?] that I have seen. You have probably been gloating over it. I am glad to hear of you sweeping in the speech you made. You will probably be running for the legislature before long

Well I must go down cellar and for some kindling wood a man [?] just brought.

I went to see Mr Lewis Clark. 'George Harris' again last evening, in Company with Mr. Powell a theologue. It is a matter of honor, [?], to hear him tell how things were done down South in slavery times. Such stories as those about old P[?] are not exaggerated He says that he has known many cases of slaves being whipped, so as to be helpless, the flies 'getting to them' etc etc

The original of Uncle Tom was whipped to death: partly whipping and partly being pounded on the head and face with a heavy cane. That did it. When whipped he was tied by his hands to the beam or 'plate', of a shed, so that he feet dangled. There more tied together, and a rail [?] between his legs. Then he was murdered. The whips were long tough thin raw [?]. That would cut almost like a knife.

He knew of a cure of a girl, Lu 10 years old, whom her mistress was in the habit of punishing by pounding her head against the stone joint of their fireplace. This was carried so far that this child's head became festered and literally cracked. Pieces of bone worked their way out. She became idiotic and died in a year or so.

Whipping on the feet, tying the two hands together so that the ends of the fingers would be exposed and then beating them with a board so as to break the nails, were favorite methods of punishment with one mishap. She also once made a woman who had tried to run away fill her shoes with sharp gravel and walk until her feet were cut and lacerated, and filled with the gravel points.

Uagh! It makes one feel like thinking God too merciful in not sending down fire and brimstone to lick up [?] such people.

Mr Clark has nine children. His oldest daughter, by her picture, is a very smart-looking girl. She is school-teaching in Indiana.

There are some most [?] homely negroes here. I happened to see some taking a little lunch on one of the streets of cheese and crackers, I had to look away. One woman who had something of a mouth ate in such a way as to expose to view the entire bolus, as prepared for swallowing.

There is one quite pretty mulatto girl at our table. There are quite a number of colored persons in the school.

I have been reading a book by Prof Winchell of Ann Arbor, in which he labors to show that Adam was not the ancestor of all men, but only of the white race. I think he makes out a pretty clear care. That is the view I have been trying to hold, and this fill in my [?]. He thinks man first appeared in it tertiary age, in one place, and that place was the sunken continent now under the Indian ocean. He considers this view scriptural, as by tracing out the descendants of Adam he finds all the [?] to belong to the white races. [?], [?] - the [?] - and [?], all are white. The negro race was fully differentiated in the year 2000 B.C. as shown by Egyptian pictures. That would leave but a little time, if we take the common chronology, for much differentiation to be accomplished. etc

One interesting [?] he [?] is that Adam was not 940 year old. or [?] 960, but those were the [?] periods during which their families flourished . 'Adam lived to be 120 years old, and left [?] us his representatives. He had sons and daughters, and the [?] number of the [?] of the Adam family was 940 years' Lo [?] be paraphrase its [?].

Any such change of interpretation seems a little like twisting the language. But I do not believe the book of Genesis is all a humbug, nor do I think there is any reason to believe that the accepted interpretation is [?] the [?] one. And in spite of the [?] of old theologians, we may try to disown a truer meaning to the Bible, where the old one don't do

Your letter, Father came very far. Such matter as the potatoes, the barn, the prospects for rains, grapes, fruits, etc. in which you and I are more especially interested (- it must be from you that I get my liking for such matters - seemed to my mind its [?] [?] very vividly. I above [?] broken-backed). The rest do not speak of them with the same accuracy and intent. We have been having cloudy and rainy weather for more than a week. It is warm though. I got me an [?] [?], for $3.50. It is far better than cloth for keeping off the rain and snow, and is warm also. My cloak does not look very bad, and if there should be a spell of simply cold clear weather I could use it. But most of the times there is rain or snow falling. I am [?] over my [?] [?] [?] do then. I got me some [?], and a pair of warm gloves.

The mud here is vile about as greasy as that of [?]. The roads are very heavy sink now. We had one part a while ago that I did not speak of; [?] [?] 1/3 of an inch thick.

There is a girl here, Miss Holt, for [?] I cut some kindling. She threw an apple at me once while cutting wood. She is, alas, not so very interesting. You see what a great [?] I am writing.

By Bye.
H. S. L.

I [?] the autograph of Lewis Clark, with some linen thread spun by himself.