Manuscripts
Six letters sent by Horace Bell in Los Angeles to Lewis C. Granger and his sister Belle Granger Ekman between 1870 and 1893. In the first letter to Granger, dated 1870, Bell writes of his family life since 1862, of a lack of heirs and titles in the Gray estate and of his plans to "let the matter go to the state." In 1872 he writes of deciding not to sell his house for his wife's sake and of his son's education; in 1882 he notes "I am grieved at your silence;" in 1885 he writes of being busy in the Superior Court and of a land matter relating to Granger; and in 1887 writes that the "world of rascality here has combined under the leadership of G. Wiley Wells employed by E.J. Baldwin, to brake [sic] down my paper...and disgrace me." He further notes that "this arrant [sic] scoundrel" Wells had gone to Oroville, where Granger lived, and asks Granger to watch him and to send Bell his own recollection's of Bell's time in Oroville between 1852 and 1858. Included is a newspaper clipping with a derogatory story about Bell, which calls him a "drunken debauchee, [who] frequently found his way into the chain-gang," among other things. The final letter was sent to Belle Granger Ekman in 1893, and in it Bell thanks her for sending him a book on the Granger family, and advises her to "take the original biographical sketch and have it published in a neat centerable book."
mssHM 30938-30943
