Manuscripts
Letters from Humphrey Griffith to his mother Mary and brother Reece, written from 1849 to 1857 and covering Griffith's travels to California and his life and experiences there. The letters begin in St. Louis, where Humphrey was waiting to depart for California with a large number of other immigrants ("the merchants do know a Californian as soon as they see him," he wrote), and trace his travels through Indian Territory (he wrote to his mother of his well-being and religious faith, noting that "God is great - he is the same God on the prairie or in the Temple"), his stops at Scott's Bluffs, Castle Bluffs, and Chimney Rock (where he inscribed his name "some 200 feet up"), and his encounters with Sioux Indians near Chimney Rock, where they "came in and we had a village of fifty lodges containing near a thousand Indians." The rest of the letters were written from California, and Humphrey specifically writes of his initial situation in Washington, agriculture, the price of goods, the uncertain nature of his business ventures, damaging rain and flooding (1852), his election to the California legislature (1853), and his canvassing activities for James Buchanan (1856). He also writes of family matters, including his love for his fiancé Helen, whose parents opposed her moving to California, his marriage to a woman named Cordelia (1852), and his grief over the death of their 2-year-old daughter Laura from typhoid in 1857. The final letter was written by Humphrey's friend Joseph J. Underhill to Mary Griffith following Humphrey's death in 1865.
mssHM 74800-74815
