151
And their Antecedents.
nursery, comprising seventeen acres. There we
lay on the grass and talked South Carolina un-
til John dozed and it began to rain, which sent
us back to the house, to young Bowman s study
a bare, small room with only three doors in it, ex-
clusive of that leading into the yard. It had sun-
dry cheerful books, of the Fowler and Wells kidney
in it, on Electro-Biology, Hygenic principles, Cold
Water cure and the like, in which I imagine young
Bowman to be deeply versed. His family like the
people of the vicinity, are of peculiar origin. Of Swiss
German descent, they emigrated
from Pennsylvania to this portion of Canada, in
from 1800 to 1825. Many of them being Meno-
nites in faith, (a title adopted from the
founder) were exposed to persecution during the war
of 1812, in consequence of their tenet of non-resist-
ence and opposition to war, for the Menonites,
as Bowman wrote, are a sort of Quaker sect, ori-
ginating from the Waldenses, and in blood, a
cross between Swiss and Hollanders. It now
rained outside dismally; young Bowman left us, John
Conworth dipped into an amusing publication attri-
buting all man s physical evils to his pervesity in feed-
ing upon and using other articles besides those pro-
duced by the soil upon which he was born, and I
dozed. The afternoon wore on. Supper at 6,
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Seventeen: page one hundred and sixty-three |
| Description: | Describes his visit with the Bowman family in Canada. |
| Date: | 1861-09-10 |
| Subject: | Bowman; Bowman, Amos; Civil War; Conworth, John; Gunn, Thomas Butler |
| Coverage (City/State): | [Waterloo County, Ontario, Canada] |
| Scan Date: | 2010-06-11 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Seventeen |
| Description: | Includes Gunn's descriptions of the scene in New York at the commencement of the Civil War; his visits to military camps in and around New York City as a reporter for ""The New York Evening Post;"" boarding house living; a bridal reception at the Edwards family's residence in honor of the marriage of Sally Edwards and Thomas Nast; a visit to the Heylyn and Rogers families in Rochester; and his trip to Paris, Ontario, to visit George Bolton and the Conworths. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Civil War; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Journalism; Marriage; Military; Publishers and publishing; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Paris, Ontario, Canada ; Rochester, New York |
| 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 2010 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
