http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8vh5vcm No online items Charlton Thomas Lewis and family letters Finding aid prepared by Gina C Giang and Olga Tsapina. Manuscripts Department The Huntington Library 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Fax: (626) 449-5720 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org © June 2018 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. Charlton Thomas Lewis and mssLewisc 1 family letters Descriptive Summary Title: Charlton Thomas Lewis and family letters Inclusive Dates: 1726-1963 Bulk Dates: 1850-1884 Collection Number: mssLewisc Creator: Lewis, Charlton T. (Charlton Thomas), 1834-1904 Extent: 12 boxes Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Fax: (626) 449-5720 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org Abstract: The Charlton Thomas Lewis and family letters consist of correspondence related to his family, and the family of his wife, Nancy Dunlap McKneen Lewis. Language of Material: The records are in English. Access Collection is open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, please go to following web site . Publication Rights The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher. Preferred Citation Charlton Thomas Lewis and family letters, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Acquisition Information Purchased from Michael Brown Rare Books, LLC, January 2011. Biography Charlton Thomas Lewis (1834-1904) was an American minister, lawyer, classicist, actuary, and social reformer. Lewis was born on February 24, 1834 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, son of Joseph Jackson Lewis (1801-1883) and Mary Sinton Miner Lewis (1808-1860). He hailed from a prominent Pennsylvania Quaker family. His paternal grandfather was Enoch Lewis (1776-1856), the founder of The African Review, and an active member of the Underground Railroad. Charlton Thomas Lewis' father was Joseph Jackson Lewis (1801-1883), a prominent abolitionist lawyer, editor, and Republican politician. The elder Lewis received his law degree from the University of New York in 1824, and was admitted to the bar in West Chester, Pennsylvania County in 1825. In 1827, Lewis married Mary Sinton Miner (1808-1860), daughter of Charles Miner (1780-1865), a United States congressman, journalist, and mining entrepreneur. Miner was married to Letitia Wright (1788-1852). Joseph Jackson Lewis and Mary Sinton Miner had eight children: Anna Meredith Lewis (1829-1855); Letitia Miner MacVeagh (-1862); Josephine Jackson Lewis (1836-1910); Charlton Thomas Lewis (1834-1904); Enoch Edward Lewis (1838-1879); Mary Ellen Lewis (1841-); Alice Catherine Lewis Murphy (1846-1935); and Willie Rosalie (1850-1938). Charlton Thomas Lewis married Nancy (Nannie) Dunlap McKeen (1837-1883) in July 1861. Nannie came from the family of Joseph McKeen, the first president of the Bowdoin College. Her father, Joseph McKeen (1787-1865), was a Brunswick merchant and the Treasurer of Bowdoin College. Nannie's mother, Elizabeth Farley McKeen, hailed from a prominent Maine family with extensive connections in New England and New York. Nannie siblings were Elizabeth Farley McKeen (1830-1907); Joseph McKeen (1832-1881); James McKeen (1844-); and Alice Farley McKeen Scott (1855-1912). Nannie died on August 19, 1883. Two years later, the widower married Margaret P., daughter of Reverend Thomas Sherrard and his wife, Valeria G. Sherrard, of Tecumseh, Michigan; they had two children, Margaret and James. Charlton Thomas Lewis and mssLewisc 2 family letters Charlton Thomas Lewis and Nancy (Nannie) Dunlap McKeen had four children: Joseph McKeen Lewis was born on June 26, 1863 in New Brunswick. He graduated from Yale in 1883, studied in Berlin and Athens and was tutor at Yale. He died on April 29, 1887, at Morristown, New Jersey, evidently of a disease he had contracted while staying in Greece. The second son, Charlton Miner Lewis, was born on March 4, 1866. He graduated from 1886. In 1899, he became the Emily Sanford professor of English Literature at Yale and author of numerous books on the English medieval and Renaissance literature. He died in 1923. Elizabeth Dike Lewis was born on August 13, 1873. She went to Smith College and studied at Sorbonne. She later taught history and political science and contributed to Lippincott Monthly and other magazines; in 1904, she married a well-known economist Clive Hart Day (1871-1951). The youngest daughter, Mary Sinton Lewis, was born on September 8, 1876. She attended Smith College, Columbia University and schools in France and Germany. In New York, she served as an inspector of women's prisons. She later became a contributing editor to Harper's Monthly, the New York Herald, and the New York Evening Post. On leaving these positions, she began a world tour on sailing ships and tramp steamers to gain insight into native languages and customs. In 1907, she married Captain John David Leitch and settled in Lynnhaven, Virginia. She was one of the founding members of the Poetry Society of Virginia. She died on August 20, 1954. Scope and Content The collection includes correspondence from both Lewis and McKeen families, thus, covering Pennsylvania, New England, New York, war-time Washington, and even, the West. Correspondence of Charlton Thomas Lewis and his first wife, Nancy (Nannie) Dunlap McKeen Lewis, along with their extended families constitutes the core of the collection. The correspondence of Charlton Thomas Lewis with his parents begins with his Yale years. The letters discuss Charlton's studies, his future, family affairs, and political news. In his letters home, Charlton also shares his religious experiences, shedding new light on the history of the Second Great Awakening in New England, especially at Yale. On Feb. 27, 1851, he writes to his mother: "Seventeen years old! If I ever attain to common sense, I ought to have some of it now. Yes, and if I ever gain heaven, I ought to have a pre-taste of it now. And I didn't know any better place than the first Methodist church in New Haven. The work moves gloriously on. Sixty one were admitted as penitents last Sunday afternoon. Every evening, the altar is crowded with penitents, and the pews have to be vacated to make room, as well as the benches between the pulpit and the pews...It is stated that there are fifteenth thousand souls in New Haven, who, if they were die now, would leave no hope behind...the prayer of the church now is to shake and sweep the city." He continues: "It will be my duty, at some future day, instead of devoting the energies of my immortal soul while on earth to the elucidation of musty follies of litigation, for the sake of earthly riche, to become a Methodist preacher, study Moses and the prophets, not forgetting the newer and more glorious covenant, and endeavor to lead souls with me, who shall be stars in the crown of my rejoicing...And my object in telling you so is to ask you opinion of what Father would think, at this point. I know you would not object to my immuring myself in the deserts of Africa, among Caffres, if God called. But perhaps he may view this matter in a different light; and I know he has long looked forward to seeing me settled in practice; has gathered a library...I am heartily sick of this worlds jigs, and feel sometimes that I could not live in any money-making employment." The letters of Joseph Jackson Lewis to his son, Charlton Thomas Lewis, detail his literary writings, trials, trips, as well as updates on local and national politics, not to mention, local gossip. He reports on his encounters with fellow Republican politicians, such as Washington Townsend (1813-1894) and other political celebrities, such as Horace Greeley, who fails to impress him as "a man of decidedly intellectual cast." In 1855, he describes his encounter with Emma Alice Browne (1836-1890), a gifted but somewhat elusive poet, who was then attending school in Westchester: "I like her exceedingly. She has not only vast ideality but an excellent rationative mind. She thinks well and accurately...She has greatly interested your mother who you know cares in general very little about poets and poetry. They have talked very freely together, and Emma has told your mother a good deal of her private history. Yesterday at the American she recited to us her battle of Balaclava which your mother says if superior to any thing Tennyson ever wrote." At times, the elder Lewis' letters are delightfully chatty. In an 1853 letter to Charlton, Lewis describes a nice party to which Charlton's mother did not go for fear of being forced to dance. Her husband remarks that her fears were unfounded: "there was no dance nor any other subject of special horror – unless indeed it was the killing looks of some of the young ladies" who were trying to impress "the crowd of hirsute dandies that fluttered about the room." The elder Lewis' letters depict conscientious man, if a bit, overbearing parent. He was very much concerned with proper education for his children. His daughters were brought up in accordance to Lewis' standards of femininity, which went well beyond customary emphasis on beauty, modesty, and domesticity. In 1853, Lewis who had come to accept his son's choice, advises him on his conference sermon: "I would have you retouch it...make it sing, bright, sharp, as that it will not merely blaze but cut and burn." Charlton Thomas Lewis and mssLewisc 3 family letters In his letters from Albany and then Cincinnati, Lewis and Charlton discuss the politics of the eve of the Civil War.