"A New Home--Who'll Follow?"
Letters of a New England
Emigrant Family in Ohio,
1831-1842
By CHARLES L. SANFORD*
A dominant characteristic of the
fifty-year period following the
American Revolution was the rise of
national self-consciousness,
reflected by patriotic experiments in ??
literature, in fine arts, in science,
and in other areas of culture. Cultural
nationalism was whetted by
the War of 1812 and by the end of the
period had made its way
into foreign policy with the Monroe
Doctrine and into domestic
policy with Henry Clay's American System
of protective tariffs and
internal improvements. In all this a
recurrent theme was the con-
trast of America's simple rural virtues
with the supposed decadence
of urban, industrial Europe and the
eastern seaboard. The East-West
polarity accelerated the movement of the
population into the trans-
Allegheny regions and helped to identify
the American national
character with frontiersmen like Davy
Crockett or with Jefferson's
virtuous yeoman farmer.1
The westward migration of peoples
looking for a better, more
abundant material life gave to America
the proud title "promised
land," or "land of
opportunity." The promises of the frontier were
not reckoned merely in material terms,
however, for the New
England Puritans had early associated
the business of reclaiming the
wilderness with moral and spiritual
destiny. Something of this
buoyant hope for the new country as well
as a cultural self-
* Charles L. Sanford is a member of the
department of language and literature at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,
New York.
1 Cf. my article, "The
Garden of America," Modern Review, LXXXXII (1952),
23-32; also Henry Nash Smith, Virgin
Land (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), especially
Chapters III and V.
"A NEW HOME--WHO'LL
FOLLOW?" 153
consciousness with respect to the people
back East is found in the
following Stevens correspondence,
written to persuade members of
the Stevens family who had remained at
home to share a richer
inheritance in Ohio.2 The
various enticements offered in these letters
from the "earthly paradise"
included cheap land, a start in business,
a life of ease and domestic bliss, a
pastoral setting with fruit trees,
and, not least, a bevy of pretty maids
ripe for marriage. These
letters also communicated a child-like
enthusiasm for such curious
providences as floods, epidemics, and
revivals of religion.
The writers of these letters were
descendants of the New England
Puritans. Their ancestors included the
Rev. Timothy Stevens, a
graduate of Harvard in the class of
1687 who preached in Glaston-
bury, Connecticut, and Elisha Stevens,
a Revolutionary War patriot
who left fragments of a war diary. An
enthusiastic progenitor of
his race, Elisha Stevens had three
children by his first wife and
eleven children by his second. An
offspring of the second marriage
was Ashbell Stevens, the father of the
letter-writers. A second son,
Oliver, in 1844 wrote a family
chronicle in which he recorded the
fact that "four of Ashbell's
[children] have gone to Cincinnati,
Ohio."3 These were
Ellen, the oldest (sometimes called "Eliza" or
"Elvia"), Jane (or
"Ginny"), John ("Hopy"), and the youngest,
"Ashbel," who was about seven
years old in October 1830 when
the family left for Ohio. These
children had little of their mother's
religious piety, and their letters, on
the whole, are singularly free
of the mawkish sentimentality common to
the period in which they
were written.
The children were accompanied on their
westward trip by their
mother, Mary Stevens, and removed
originally to Norwalk, Ohio,
from Salem Bridge (now Naugatuck),
Connecticut. Apparently
their father had died, and they were
invited to live in Ohio with
their mother's brothers (mentioned in
the letters as "Uncle Joel"
2 These fourteen letters of the Stevens
family are reproduced in whole or in
part by permission of their owner, Miss Edna Kott of 30
Welch Street, Waterville,
Connecticut. Miss Kott has since died.
In reproducing them I have made every effort
to preserve the original punctuation and
spelling. The only change consists in
modernizing the old style "s"
which appears occasionally in the letters of the mother.
3 In H. Wales Lines, ed., Elisha
Stevens, Fragments of Memoranda (Meriden, Conn.,
1922), 9. Oliver here spells Ashbell's
name with a double "1," but the letter-writers
use a single "1" for their brother's name.
154
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and "Uncle Edmund"), who were
merchants in the Mississippi
trade to New Orleans. The children left
behind in Salem Bridge
two older half-brothers: George Stevens,
a clerk in a button factory,
and Berzilla, who had taken up farming.
The chief drama in these
letters centers on attempts to persuade
George and Berzilla to join
the rest of the family in Ohio. In her
first letter to George, dated
Norwalk, Ohio, February 6, 1831, Ellen
wrote that they had come
part-way by steamboat, that Norwalk had
a "paper mill that goes
by steam," and that according to
the evidence of her cousin's
wedding at the age of fifteen,
"they marry very young, hear." Ellen
herself could not have been much older
than twelve at this time
and certainly had not made great
progress in writing since leaving
school in New Haven, Connecticut. Soon
after getting settled, as
the next letter indicates, the mother
started her children in school.
The mother's letter to George, which
follows, officially launched
the family siege on George and Berzilla
by promoting Ohio as the
land of opportunity:
Norwalk, Ohio
April 6th, 1831
Dear Child
I received your letter the 15 of Feb
which informed me of the deaths
of our relations. it calls upon us to be
readdy the time of our departure
is drawing near You and I are seven
months nearer the close of life than
when we last saw each other You wished
to hear how I like the western
country I am better pleased with it than
I ever was with Salem. I think
you would like it at least I hope you
will come and see it if you wanted
a farm you could get a good one and git
it cheap. If you wished to take a
school you can. Should you chuse to go
into partnership or as a cleark in
a store you could. here is all kinds of
bissiness carried on here except
Button Bissiness I think you would not
be troubled to find such employ
as you would like
Dear child. Barzilla. I think you are so
much of a farmer that you
would do well to come here and by you a
farm. I believe you would like to
own such land as this. You never would
stumbile over a stone when you was
at plowing. I have rode miles with out
seeing a stone little or big. We
have short winters here. we have a very
pleasant fall[,] a great deal of
snow in the winter[,] and an early
spring the ground has been settled for
"A NEW HOME--WHO'LL
FOLLOW?" 155
some weeks past. It is [a] pleasure to
ride here in a sleigh I rode more
last winter than I have in years before.
The most welthy people we have
among us is from the State of Conn and
the State of New York. they are
merchants and farmers that have lately
come in Ohio agrees with us all.
Elvia is a little tawler than I am Hopy
has not grown as fast as Jane or
Ashbel they grow very slimb They all say
a great deal about you too.
they often wish you was here Elvia has
cried many a time to think She
must be deprived of seeing you.... I
hope you will come. Elvia hes gone to
squire Bolts this after non with too of
her cousins, the other children are
at school....
Mrs. Stevens then made it plain that she
had dictated the letter
to another person and was not
responsible for its errors in spelling
and punctuation, for she concluded:
"Let no one see this. I have
not time to copey it off." This
remark and others like it scattered
throughout the letters show the family's
sensitivity to the cultural
pretensions of the people back East.
Mrs. Stevens' concern for edu-
cation was also, in part, an extension
of the New England missionary
zeal for the moral and spiritual
development of the West.
In September Ellen was sent to the
Female Seminary at Cincinnati
opened by Dr. John Locke in 1823 for
daughters of the economically
privileged.4 The seminary had
the dubious distinction of being one
of the few institutions in Cincinnati of
which Fanny Trollope ap-
proved. Mrs. Trollope, who compensated
for her failure to make
American money by loathing American
manners, had recently de-
parted from Cincinnati, but her
grotesque bazaar and acidulous
remarks kept her memory fresh in
Cincinnati. She had once attended
the school's graduation exercise,
expressing surprise that the higher
branches of science were "among the
studies of the pretty creatures"
and that they received degrees, or
diplomas: "One lovely girl of
sixteen took her degree in
mathematics, and another was examined
in moral philosophy."5 Mrs.
Trollope fervently hoped that young
ladies like Ellen would be "much
improved in their powers of
companionship" by exposure to Dr.
Locke's progressive theories of
female education. For herself, Ellen had
little to say on the subject.
4 Cf. Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger, A
History of Ohio
(Columbus, 1953), 145.
5 Frances M. Trollope, Domestic
Manners of the Americans (New York, 1832), 81.
156
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
From Cincinnati she renewed the family
campaign to entice George
and Berzilla to Ohio:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Sept 2nd, 1831
My Dear Brothers
.... I have been sorry that I did not
stay to New Haven to School
another year and by that time you would
have been ready to come with me
to ohio. Uncle told me to write and tell
you that if you would go to New
Orleans next winter he would find
business for you. I expect to go to
Salem next summer with Hopy and Uncle
Joel and you must prepare your-
self to come back with us and berzilla
must come and live with us and you
must go to New Orleans one winter and
then get married. Berzilla must
live an old Bachelor and let me keep
house for him. I am now in Cincinnati
at school I was hear seven weeks and
then Uncle Joel and myself went home
and Hopy came back with us. We commenced
School last Monday at Dr.
Locks it is called the best school in
this city-- we are not a going home
till next Spring we have got to stay
till Uncle comes from New Orleans.
When I first come to Cincinnati I
boarded dose by the ohio River could
look acrost and see Kentucky. I have
been in the Musium there is a place
in it they call the Infernal Regions the
Devil and the Serpents with firey
toungues such a place I never see
before.
.... There is great revivals of religion
in this State they have meet-
ings that they call 7 day meeting but
they get so ingaged that they continue
30 and some 76 days. We had a meetin in
Norwalk that lasted 16 days.
I want to see you very much Ashbel grows
like a little weed he dont
say much about his play mates in Salem,
Jane says very often she wishes she
could see Gorgie and Berzilla and
Grandmother and I hope I shall if I
live another year, do answer this as
soon as you receive it....
I remain your affectionate Sister
Eliza Stevens
Ellen's fascination for
"Dorfeuille's Hell" in the wax museum,
her reference to the revivals, her
half-humorous concern for her
mortality mingled a youthful zest for
life with an almost religious
sense of imminent destiny. But her
youthful scepticism and humor
protected her from the apocalyptic
visions and the emotional en-
thusiasms which afflicted many of the
seekers of a New Jerusalem
in the West and proved to be proof
against all but the secular
"A NEW HOME--WHO'LL
FOLLOW?" 157
vision of prosperity. Her next letter
dealt lightly with heavenly
phenomena:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Feb. 17th, 1832
My Dear Brother
.... There is such a flood in Cin that I
went out and took a sail out
on the streets the water came up so high
that it drove people out of their
houses. The people have got a tail about
that the wourld is comming to an
end next July and that their is a commit
comming and is going to strike the
earth and burn it up. They say that their
is agoing to be an earthquake at
three oclock but three oclock is past
and no earth quake I do not know
what they will have next.... I believe I
told you ... what my studys was.
I have grown so fleshy that you would
hardly know me I am well and feel
very contented. I wish you would come to
ohio.... I do not want you to
think of comming to Ohio but to know it.
I had almost forgot to tell you
to direct your letters to the care of
Dr. Locke....
Your affectionate
Sister Ellen H. Stevens
The world did not end in July--an
oversight which must have given
Ellen some satisfaction--but during that
summer a serious epidemic
of cholera raged in Cincinnati and other
cities. Ellen escaped
unharmed.
In the meanwhile, Ellen's letters had
succeeded in arousing her
brother George to make private inquiries
among business acquain-
tances and friends about prospects in
the West. The nature of his
inquiries indicates that he looked to
the West to get rich without
having to work very hard. The next
letter is from one of George's
business informants, J. K. Mead, who
reveals, among other things,
that George had definitely made up his
mind to see Ohio for
himself. J. K. Mead may have been
"Uncle Joel."
Philadelphia, July 11th, 1832
Sir,
Your letter to my brother was received
by him the day I left Ohio.
Your Stepmother desired me to reply to
your enquiries about business.--
In the first place then as it respects
Lottery tickets, the Vending of them
158
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
in the state of Ohio is prohibited by
law and made an indictable offence.
It is the same also in Kentucky. Nothing
therefore can be done in that
way. As to a fruitery in Cincinnati I
cannot speak with certainty, but my
impression is that it cannot be made an
object worth your attention.
However, if you desire it, I will, on my
return there, make the necessary
enquiry as to that or any other business
you name, and communicate to you
the result.
It will be very gratifying to your
sisters and brother6 and also to your
step mother to receive a visit from you
in the fall. If it shall be your desire
to gratify them in this particular I
have no doubt but you will be able to
spend the winter there as pleasantly and
as profitably as you can in Salem.
I shall be pleased to receive a line
from you during my stay in this City
which I expect will be protracted, at
least two or three weeks longer, unless
the Cholera should commence its ravages.
As yet not a case has been known
to have occurred here,
I am respectfully
Yrs.
J. K. Mead
If J. K. Mead were Ellen's Uncle Joel,
as seems likely, his response
to George's inquiries and oblique
invitation to George to share his
residence must have seemed rather
chilling. In September of 1832
Uncle Joel established Mrs. Stevens and
her family permanently in
Cincinnati.
At this time Cincinnati was a rapidly
expanding city of some
thirty thousand inhabitants. Mrs. Basil
Hall, the British traveler,
considered it an immense town "with
a greater appearance of bustle
and business than any town we have seen
since those in the Northern
and Eastern States."7 In
its cultural aspects and in the origin and
composition of its population Lyman
Beecher, the new president of
Lane Seminary, likened it to a "New
England City." The influence
of some of its citizens already extended
well beyond Cincinnati.
6 It was apparently planned that Ashbel
would start school in New Orleans that
winter and would not be in Cincinnati.
7 Mrs. Basil Hall, The Aristocratic
Journey . . ., 1827-1828, edited by
Una Pope-
Hennessy (New York and London, 1931),
285-286. Other interesting accounts of
Cincinnati in this period to which I have
had access are Lyman Beecher, Autobiography,
Correspondence, Etc., edited by Charles Beecher (New York, 1865), II, 224,
266-268;
Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of
Western Travel (New York, 1838), II, 35-55;
Frances M. Trollope, op. cit., 51-150;
and George W Pierson, Tocqueville and
Beaumont in America (New York, 1938), 552-565.
"A NEW HOME--WHO'LL
FOLLOW?" 159
Well-known figures included Bellamy
Storer and Timothy Walker,
the city's leading lawyers; Dr. Daniel
Drake, who founded the
medical college; the Welds and the
Beechers, rising stars in the
abolition movement; Salmon P. Chase,
beginning a famous political
career; the author Timothy Flint; Judge
James Hall, editor and early
delineator of frontier life in fiction;
and many visiting celebrities.
A
cultural center of the West, Cincinnati could boast at this
time two colleges, numerous schools,
twenty-three churches, two
museums, libraries, and printing
presses. Cincinnati offered Ellen
every opportunity to stretch her mind
and soul.
At the moment, however, Ellen was the
rather inclined to share
this munificence with George. She wrote
what she hoped would be
her last letter to him before his
arrival in Cincinnati:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Sept 27th, 1832
Dear Brother
We are now in this city-- we arrived
here on the 21st inst all well.
On monday Jane and I shall commence
school-- Ashbel will go to New
Orleans with Uncle this winter. We have
a pretty good house and com-
fortably furnished. Uncle will leave us
for the winter in two or three
weeks-- when he is gone we shall feel
quite lonesome unless we can get
some friends to stay with us, if you
were with us we think we should be
contented and happy, Uncle has told me
to invite you to come out here and
stay with us if you can do so
conveniently, we can furnish you a good
chamber and bed and make you as
comfortable as you can be in Salem. and
it will cost you nothing-- you may
perhaps find business here, and if you
should not you might go to school a few
months to perfect yourself in
Book Keeping and some other branches of
knowledge necessary for a man
of business which may prove hereafter
more advantageous than to remain
where you are and receive a small
Salary. If you can come set out as soon
as posible but if not write immediately.
but you must not fail of coming
for we all wanto see you. Give my love
to Berzilla and all my friends.
Yours E. H. Stevens
In a postscript to the same letter Mrs.
Stevens was even more
pointed in advising George to prepare
himself for a better em-
ployment. She added the information that
"Brother has furnished
160
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the house and will lay in provisions and
wood before he leaves us.
we shall not have to go out of doors for
wood nor water." She also
directed him to their new address on
"third street oppsit the post
office and as there is but one in this
city you can find us soon."
Following this letter there is a gap in
the Stevens correspondence
of almost two years span, during which
the only certainty is that
George did not come West after all. For
some reason, whether
commitments at home or an epidemic in
Cincinnati or want of funds,
George did not appear in Cincinnati
until June 7, 1834--and then
to pay more attention to business
prospects and to the fine show of
prosperity made by the uncles than to
the brothers and sisters whom
he had not seen for so long. Soon after
his arrival he described to
his brother Berzilla in Connecticut the
results of his preliminary
investigations:
Cincinnati, Ohio
June 15, 1834
Dear Brother
I now for the first time address you
from cincinnati.... I Have had
some chance to get information
respecting the land as rode through the
country of ohio in stage think the
improved land verry good but the best
of the wild land is taken up and I
should not think of emigrating west
unless I went into Indiania or Ilinois I
have talked with men that been
in those states They say the wild land
is of the best quality particularly the
dry Prairies where all you have to do is
to Burn them and they are ready
for the crops I have been out into the
country and hoed corn 1/2 day where
two men keep up with a plough and they
Hoe there corn but once I
enquired about land farmers Oh--they ask
for good improved land from
25$ to 40$ pr acre and the best working
oxen 35$ the average price of
wheat is 62?? corn 25?? I shall
probable get more information of the
farmers if stay here through the summer
but look for me home the last of
July or first of August but do not think
I am Home sick for I enjoy my-
self finely here stroling about town and
taking a sly squint at the girls....
Ashbel is a great strapping fellow has
been to Orleans twice with his
Uncle who pays 25$ a month for schooling
I found them in a large Brick
House Furnished with fine furniture the
Bed Stead I sleep on cost 150$
Besides Grand portation from Orleans.
Ellens Piano cost 400$ the chair
she sits on to play 15$ It seems as if
money was a dreg to the man he
"A NEW HOME--WHO'LL
FOLLOW?" 161
is yet in New Orleans but we expect him
every day was detained longer
than usual trying to recover some money
that was stolen from him I think
about $1500....
The children are in my room asking so
many questions I must stop
writing--
And in Haste your Affectionate Brother
George S. Stevens
Although he did not find the cheap land
in Ohio which his step-
mother had pictured, he spent the rest
of the summer in Cincinnati,
where he became acquainted with a Miss
Clark and several other
eligible young ladies.
In his next letter to Berzilla, dated
August 3, he indicates that
upon his return to Connecticut in the
fall he and Berzilla both ex-
pected to migrate to Indiana, though, as
he said, "I do not think
either of us would make good
Hoshsoors." He also wrote:
J. K. Mead arrived here from Orleans the
15 July staid here 9 days and
started for the springs in virginia from
thence to Philadelphia and says if
his health which at present is verry
poor, improves he goes to Ct I stay
untill his return so if he comes to
Salem you must not expect me untill
the Middle of Sept if he does not I come
about the 10th.
.... It is verry sickly here the last weeks
report of deaths was 98--
I now give way for Ellen to write and
Jane if she wishes give my love
to Grandmother and all enquiring friends
and so addieu
George S. Stevens
After the other members of the family
had added all the family
news to the letter and Ellen had
apologized for its literary im-
perfections, George concluded with
another allusion, somewhat re-
vised, to the uncle's wealth: "We
have all wrote without saying
a word about Ashbel he has grown finely
since you last saw him
has been to Orleans two winters to
school which cost his Uncle
$18 a month. . . ."
On July 14, 1835, Ellen wrote from
Cincinnati to Berzilla and
George, who by then had returned home,
in order to hold them
fast in their intentions of coming West.
To Berzilla she said, "I
am sure you will like the place, and I
will do my verry best to
162
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
make you happy-- and just let me
whisper in your ear, that you
may possibly get a wife, and I will
promise to choose one for you
if you will come." To George she
offered a similar bribe: "I will
say one thing, that the pretty Miss
Clarke is yet single and that
there is still some chance for
you." Unfortunately for Ellen,
Berzilla chose a wife for himself in
Salem Bridge, causing a delay.
The next year Ellen went to Salem to
see what she could do per-
sonally to hasten their plans, and from
Cincinnati on June 16, 1836,
the year of the speculative boom in
western land sales, Jane tried
her hand at persuasion. To Berzilla
Jane wrote:
. . . . I would tell you something about
this country but I suppose
George has told you more than I can say.
. . . Oh Berzilla you cannot tell
how much I want to see you and the more
I think of you and how Ellen
will feel when she has almost reached
Salem the more impatient I am to
see you again. I am going to school now
but Ellen has finished. We have
a very pleasant place, The house is
situated on a small hill and it is
sorrounded by fruit trees. It is not in
the city exactly but a little ways out
so I have quite a walk from our house.
From this City we can look over the
ohio river and see Newport and Covington
in Kentucky. . . .
Ashbel added a few lines to the effect
that he was now going to
the "Woodward High School or
College," where he was "trying
to learn something useful."
After Ellen's return from Connecticut
still nothing moved, and
Ellen took a sharper, more insistent
tone with George:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Dec. 7th, 1836
Dear Brother
I received yours of the 29th Sept. . . .
Your "intentions of coming out here
are like the weather, clear &
cloudy"-- do let them settle with a
fixed determination, make up your mind
that you will come, & let
everything else give way to that. only think how
much pleasure we should have if you would
come--
In these long winter evenings all of us
around a good blazing fire, with
occasionally a little music, on your
violin & my Piano-- & plenty of books
to read, for our library is larger now,
would not it be delightful? And then
"A NEW HOME--WHO'LL
FOLLOW?" 163
Saturday nights I go to singing school--
& you could go and play on your
violin, for Mr. Mason has several young
gentlemen who play. Indeed you
must come George-- Jane & Ashbel are
up in arms about it, and Mother
is not behind. If you come now you will
be here in the spring ready to
begin business-- or if you do not like
to spend the winter idle, I think
you can find emploument.
I know what you will say-- that I do not
looke ahead, that I only care
for the present time, that you wish I
would stop teasing you, that you know
what is right & best-- I know I
plague you, I am like a dunner, following
it up & giveing you no rest until
you do.
Laura Porter I did not see, she has
slighted me in not giving me a call--
Pretty Miss Clark is married to Mr. Wood
but the ladies under the grape
vines are still candidates. . . .
Do not forget when you come to bring
your wife, as one of the gentlemen
of the Saturday nights choir calls his
violin--
Give my love to Berzilla & wife
& Grand-ma
From your ever affectionate Sister
Ellen H. Stevens
Marriage finally decided Berzilla
against going West in favor of
the home hearth, and Ellen concentrated
on George. In her next
letter, dated August 4, 1837, she
reported that she and her family
had moved their quarters to Fifth Street
between Sycamore and
Broadway, "a few doors west of the
Westlian chappel." She made
no direct reference to the Panic of
1837, but noted that her uncle
was having difficulty collecting a
year's rent due from the Smiths,
who were tenants of one of the houses
back in Salem. Her chief
interest lay in renewing her
supplications:
I believe I shall not say anything about
your coming to Cincinnati for
in very truth you must be tired of it,
but I will just tell you that if you
have more of a disposition to go farther
south, Uncle is going to want
some one to help him this winter at New
Orleans.
Self-consciously, she added: "I am
most out of breath writing these
very business like sentences I hope I
have not made many trespasses
on bad grammar etc."
In answer George apparently gave as his
excuse for not coming
164
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
this time a shortage of funds. The
effects of the panic, which were
beginning to be felt throughout the
nation, may have precipitated
George's decision to go West even as
they dried up the sources of
income which would have made it
possible. Ellen, who had never
had to worry about money and therefore
did not see why others
should have to, was furious with George.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Oct. 7th, 1837
Dear Brother
Can it be possible that we shall not see
you out here this fall? I can
hardly believe it. I had so fixed my
mind upon it that I can not give it
up--
I had fixed upon the week that I received your letter--to seeing you.
It does seem George that you might have
borrowed the money--or taken
that which is due from Mr. Smith if it
was possible to collect it. but you
have put off coming from year to year,
the best part of your life you are
spending there--the time when you ought
to be learning--the time when
you can learn most & best.
I do think that if you had been as
engaged and as determined about
getting away as you might have
been, it would have been accomplished in
some way--
Excuse me George that one so much
younger should take upon herself
to say so much but I do it because I
love you-- and I think you are
wasteing the best part of your life in
drudgery--wearing yourself out, and
not making any thing to live on either--
It is not because I want to see you very
wealthy. though to be rich if
it is made a propper use of must be
pleasant-- but I want to see you
comfortable, to settle down in life
& enjoy yourself-- tis what was in-
tended we should do-- and George I am
persuaded that there you can not
do it--there among that grasping selfish
class--where each one gets all he
can & if possible at the expense of
his neighbour-- I am not speaking ill
of Salem--I love it. it is my native
land but most of its children have
sadly degenerated. . . .
I have thought of every way to get some
money to send to you but there
is none. I could not ask Uncle for it
when he is at so much expense doing
every thing for us. Oh that I was
independent-- I think the feeling of
independence must be a comfortable
feeling. To feel that you are rich &
can give when you please, what you
please.
"A NEW HOME--WHO'LL
FOLLOW?" 165
Uncle has been detained from going to
New Orleans on account of the
Yellow fever there he will not go for
some time yet.
I ask you George to forgive me if I have
said more than I ought to, but
as a sister I think I might be allowed
to speak plain & I expect it, I ask
it from you--as a brother, to me-- I love candour, dont you? Come as
soon as possible. I can hardly give you
up this fall-- Give my love to
Berzilla & wife Amanda, Fanny &
others-- All well--
From your ever affectionate
Sister Ellen H. Stevens.
[P. S.] Has Mr Smith left the house? Is
any thing collected? and what
are the prospects? I want you to inform
us all about the business there--
Uncle wishes to know. E. H. S.
Ellen's view of the grasping people back
East breathed the pride
of place. Her own idea of the rightness
and goodness of wealth,
one might add, partook something of the
romantic idealism of place.
As the depression deepened, George grew
desperate and begged
for money of Ellen. In the meanwhile,
Ellen's uncle had died, and
Ellen married the lawyer William Rankin.
In her last extant letter
to George, a note of tragedy is struck:
Cincinnati, Ohio
July 4, 1842
My Dear Brother
I hasten to answer your letter which I
received yesterday (Sunday) morn-
ing & sorry very sorry I am to
disappoint any hopes you may have formed,
but George, I have not got, nor never
had that amount of money-- Ashbel
is as badly off as you, he can get
nothing to do & many a young man in
this city is in the same situation--
William when he read your letter said
he wished he could help you but it is
impossible-- he it is true can get
something to do, as lawyers generally
can at such times, but he can get very
little money-- The cry throughout the
land is "hard times" & I know not
what you can do, it is among the
impossibles that I can help you, I have
nothing but what comes from my husband,
Uncle left property, but property
now is not money--
Jane has come back from Indiana &
now is keeping house in the city--
Ma has a home North of us-- Ashbel has
been living with me ever since
I was married-- I have a little daughter
3 months old, called Mary, after
166
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Ma & her Grandma thinks there never
was such a baby-- it would be
foolish to say what her mother thinks. .
. .
I am sorry for you as you read this
letter to find your hopes cut off but
if I could do any thing for you or could
devise any thing for you to do
I should be glad to do it. . . .
Do burn this letter. . . .
I am dear George your affectionate
Sister
E. H. Rankin
The tragedy consisted not only in
George's inability to come when
he finally wanted to, but also in the
temporary frustration of high
hopes based on the concept of a promised
land. Ironically, Ellen's
last letter was written on the Fourth of
July. American idealism has
produced great achievement, but also
great disillusionment on oc-
casion. The American writer, Gertrude
Stein, used to tell the French
that "Europeans do not know
anything about disillusion."8 One
suspects that Ellen Stevens had the
bravery of spirit which is un-
defeated in any hardship; one is left
wondering about the character
of George.
8 Gertrude Stein, Everybody's Autobiography (New
York, 1937), 233.
"A New Home--Who'll Follow?"
Letters of a New England
Emigrant Family in Ohio,
1831-1842
By CHARLES L. SANFORD*
A dominant characteristic of the
fifty-year period following the
American Revolution was the rise of
national self-consciousness,
reflected by patriotic experiments in ??
literature, in fine arts, in science,
and in other areas of culture. Cultural
nationalism was whetted by
the War of 1812 and by the end of the
period had made its way
into foreign policy with the Monroe
Doctrine and into domestic
policy with Henry Clay's American System
of protective tariffs and
internal improvements. In all this a
recurrent theme was the con-
trast of America's simple rural virtues
with the supposed decadence
of urban, industrial Europe and the
eastern seaboard. The East-West
polarity accelerated the movement of the
population into the trans-
Allegheny regions and helped to identify
the American national
character with frontiersmen like Davy
Crockett or with Jefferson's
virtuous yeoman farmer.1
The westward migration of peoples
looking for a better, more
abundant material life gave to America
the proud title "promised
land," or "land of
opportunity." The promises of the frontier were
not reckoned merely in material terms,
however, for the New
England Puritans had early associated
the business of reclaiming the
wilderness with moral and spiritual
destiny. Something of this
buoyant hope for the new country as well
as a cultural self-
* Charles L. Sanford is a member of the
department of language and literature at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,
New York.
1 Cf. my article, "The
Garden of America," Modern Review, LXXXXII (1952),
23-32; also Henry Nash Smith, Virgin
Land (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), especially
Chapters III and V.