Manuscripts
Horace Austin letter to William David Lewis
Image not available
You might also be interested in
Image not available
Horace Austin letter to William David Lewis
Manuscripts
Mr. Austin informs Mr. Lewis of his business, in which he trades groceries for cotton, and details thereof. He also tells of his family, and how his son has been named Lewis in Mr. Lewis' honor. Through these successes, Austin hopes he has fulfilled the promise made to Mr. Lewis.
mssHM 23164
Image not available
Orville Hungerford letter to J.C. Pattridge
Manuscripts
In this letter, Hungerford writes of the annexation of Texas to the United States, and the issues of slavery that might be affected as a result.
mssHM 26629
Image not available
William Lawrence Austin letter to Joseph Burn Austin
Manuscripts
William Lawrence Austin wrote this letter to his father, Joseph Burn Austin, in the midst of the Leadville silver boom. Leadville had been founded only two years earlier, but not all is well. Lawrie writes to his father in South America from a smelting works in Leadville, Colorado, seeking financial help. "My dear Papa, Can't you borrow the money to keep Cecil at Yale under a guarantee from me to pay it back with interest? It is really too bad for me to be taking all these chances...I am overworked, under paid, & tied up in such a way, than a human being can't be expected to stand it." One of his co-workers, Abarci, left some time ago and two more are going to leave the smelting works soon. He suggests, "Now I'll give you the boys' plan & you can see what a temptation it is to me. They intend to start an assay office up town, then add on a store, to consist of simply miner supplies, then do a general professional business besides. We will be working for ourselves..." He is confident that "...we will make the strongest team in the country." Lawrie is in despair because he must endure the dangers of the smelting works and shortchange his own future by attending to his brother's needs first, a brother who spends his time reading novels and his money on "pleasure seeking." He states, "You don't know how interesting life has been becoming for me, & I must stay in the poisonous fumes of furnaces, & give up every thing...I have to look far enough into the future, anyhow, in order to see a blue sky, but to think that I must give up my Leadville, & start again at some future day, possibly in some camp, & certainly without one cent to back me is very hard Papa." He concludes, "You must pay some attention to my case, as well at Cecil's. You could not keep one man in a hundred as you are keeping me, & there will be a final blow up, if you keep on, & that I want to avoid if possible." The letter is simply signed "Lawrie."
mssHM 80808
Image not available
William Lawrence Austin letters to Joseph Burn Austin
Manuscripts
Five letters written by William Lawrence Austin to his father dealing with the Leadville Colorado silver rush of 1878-1879. One of the letters contains a sketch. Some are on J. B. Grant & Co's Smelting Works letterhead. Four of the letters were written from Leadville (one from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.)
mssHM 81295-81299
Image not available
Horace Bell letters to Lewis C. Granger and Belle Granger Ekman
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
Image not available
Mary Austin letters
Manuscripts
Nine letters by Mary Austin consisting of six letters to John Northern Hilliard, dated [October 1913?] (41072); [September-October 1915] (HM 41073); March 16, 1916 (HM 41074); [Spring 1916] (HM 41075); May 24 [1920?] (HM 41076); and undated (HM 41077); one letter to Ida Louise Harrison Hilliard, dated December 5, 1916 (HM 41071); one letter to Grace (Sartwell) Mason, dated December 22, 1915 (HM 41078); and one letter to James "Redfern" Mason, dated May 16, 1915 (HM 41079). The letters primarily discuss mutual friends and Austin's writing projects and activities. The letters to John Northern Hilliard mention Austin's work and frustration with the Western Drama Society and its treatment of Vernon Kellogg, Austin's work with the Panama Pacific International Exposition, a missing part of a manuscript, and the Forest Theatre, as well as an undated note that accompanied a gun that Austin gave Hilliard.
mssHM 41071-41079