(WISCONSIN) Seaver Lyman H Group of letters home from a Walw

Sale 2344 - Lot 281

Price Realized: $ 562

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400

(WISCONSIN.) Seaver, Lyman H. Group of letters home from a Walworth County pioneer. 4 Autograph Letters Signed to brothers Joseph Warren Seaver and William Seaver of Genesee County, NY, each 4 pages, about 10 x 8 inches; worn with separations at folds and early tape repairs, but complete and legible. Vp, 1839-40

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Lyman Hunt Seaver (1796-1864) was an original settler of the town of Darien, Wisconsin. These four long and informative letters describe Seaver's journey west from rural New York via the Great Lakes to Milwaukee, and his family's frontier life on Turtle Creek near Wisconsin's southern border. Delevan, the nearest town, had only been first settled in 1836. Seaver describes "the best grain soil you had ever seen . . . as black as a stack of black cats" (13 October). He describes the first funeral at his prairie settlement, for an old man who was stricken by dysentery: "We lowered him into the same earth that hides the badger and gopher, and left him alone in his sollitude, and the wolves will howl his requiem tonight" (26 October). His family's initial dwelling was primitive: "12 of us live in a log house 20 by 16, 2 beds and my large stove are fixtures, judge how much room for cutting around" (18 December). Seaver's brother Joseph Warren Seaver (1793-1864), the recipient of these letters, followed Lyman's advice and soon settled in Darien himself.