20
The Life and Adventures of
Her origin must have been of the lowest;
Gill, her first husband, told Mrs. Potter that he
supposed his wife had been bar-maid to a tavern.
She was pretty and grossly ignorant, which lat-
ter peculiarity she retains to this day. Gill
married her and send her to school, that con-
stituting the bridal trip. He was a merchant
of some sort, probably in the dry-goods way,
and bankruptcy induced him to try his fortune
in the United States. He had two children
by her, Rawson and a daughter, Rawson s
elder. In New York he proposed, had, I
think, a store in Broadway. His wife s con-
duct made the man miserable, it was bad
morally, next to infamous. Her reputation
for beauty attracted pseudo-friends of his to
the house, one of many such as Gouverneur.
She kept a lodging or boarding house once (I
infer either of Gill s outset or subsequent to
his prosperity, which could hardly have amount-
ed to much), which establishment was of ques-
tionable character. I suppose men lived there
who had liaisons with her. Finally Gill
left her, taking away the children. He wished
only to secure the girl, but the woman put
Rawson out of the house after him, by force,
the child screaming and objecting. With both,
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Twelve: page twenty-seven |
| Description: | Describes a conversation with Mrs. Potter and Miss Cooper about Mrs. Theodore Griffin's past. |
| Date: | 1860-01-23 |
| Subject: | Gill; Gill, Miss; Gill, Rawson; Gouverneur; Gouverneur, Mrs. (Gill, Griffin); Gunn, Thomas Butler; Potter, Mrs.; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, [New York] |
| Coverage (Street): | Broadway |
| Scan Date: | 2011-01-29 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Twelve |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of boarding house living, his freelance writing and drawing work, antics of the New York literary Bohemians, visits to the Edwards family, the activities of London detective Arthur Ledger who is staying in his boarding house, Thomas Nast's courtship of Sally Edwards, two masked balls at his boarding house, a visit to Lotty Granville at Fordham, the state of Charles Damoreau's marriage, and a visit to the ''Phalanx'' in New Jersey with George Boweryem. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Detectives; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Journalism; Marriage; Publishers and publishing; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Fordham, New York; New Jersey |
| 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. |
