136
28. Wednesday. A scrawl from Andrew not
in answer to mine, but about the Appletonian debt.
Office, (meeting Cahill by the way.) Paterson
edited a Chinese newspaper in California, one
column only being printed or rather lithographed
in English, the remainder being published in the
native character. He describes the Celestials as
a very ill-used community. / Writing part
of the evening.
29. Thursday. Office both morning and after-
noon. Very busy. Streets unspeakably filthy,
and ancle deep, crossings hardly fordable and
my big thigh-boots a luxury. Met Pounden.
30. Friday. Office. Saw Welden who
asked about that fellow (!) Forbes.
Ellen Levison is dead. I learnt it this af-
ternoon of the servant girl, who coming into my
room, told me. Her disease which had grown
into typhoid took an unfavorable turn yester-
day, and this morning poor Levison spoke of
her vomiting blood and said he didn t expect she
would outlive the day. She died ere his return.
I hardly think the poor child s existence would
have proved a happy or healthy one. But such
events disease, suffering, death trouble one.
Human nature recoils from them and piteously
asks why. It seems a waste of life and hope.
I knew well enough that good grows out of
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight: page one hundred and forty-four |
| Description: | Regarding the death of Ellen Levison. |
| Date: | 1857-01-28 |
| Subject: | Andrew; Cahill, Frank; Children; Chinese; Diseases; Forbes, Hugh; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Levison, Ellen; Levison, William; Paterson, Thomas; Pounden, Frank; Welden, Charles |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-02 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of the process of publishing his book, ''The Physiology of New-York Boarding Houses;'' his poor mental state upon returning to New York from England; meeting Walt Whitman; visits with Fanny Fern, James Parton, and Harriet Jacobs' daughter Louisa who is living with them; a visit to the Catskill Mountains with the Edwards family; moving into the boarding house at 132 Bleecker Street; working on the publication ''European'' with Colonel Hugh Forbes; the death of publisher William Levison and his daughter Ellen in his boarding house; visiting the scene of the murder of a dentist to get a sketch of the suspect; visiting Newport, Rhode Island, on assignment to sketch for Frank Leslie; and the death of his brother-in-law, Joseph Greatbatch. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Journalism; Medical care; Mental illness; Publishers and publishing; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Newport, Rhode Island |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-one volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
