Scope and Content Note
The papers of the Horsford-Tryon families span the years 1800-2000 with the bulk of the material dating from 1835 to 1887. There are no original documents dating after 1919. Donor-provided transcripts have been assigned the approximate date of 2000. The transcripts were retained as an aid for researchers even though they do contain some errors. The transcripts should be compared to the original letters. The papers consist almost entirely of correspondence and are arranged by name of correspondent.
The papers provide the mostly personal correspondence of an extended nineteenth-century family with Eliza Horsford Tryon at its center. Most of the correspondence is between Eliza and her parents (Jerediah and Maria Charity Horsford), her siblings, her husband, her cousins, and her children. Her husband, James Tryon, also serves as the center of a circle of correspondents including letters with his wife, his college and childhood friends, his business associates, and his children. Topics included are many and diverse.
Jerediah Horsford was a farmer in Moscow (present-day Leicester), New York, and served one term in Congress as a representative of the Whig Party, 1851-1853. Jerediah's family letters tend to be short and amusing; his wife took on the job of chronicling their activities. Her letters to her adult children writtten during their time in Washington, D.C., which she described collectively as a "letter-journal," detail many aspects of social, domestic, and political life in the capital. Maria Horsford described the couple's journey to Washington, D.C., her impressions of her husband's colleagues at work and at home. She described Washington boardinghouse life, slavery in the capital city, antislavery politics, activities of the Free Soilers, and the death of Henry Clay. She had a close friendship with Myrtilla Miner, educator and abolitionist, and she relates the difficulties that Miner had in establishing her school for African-American girls. In 1851, with the help of Henry Ward Beecher and Quaker supporters, the "Normal School for Colored Girls" opened in Washington, D.C.
The correspondence of Eben Horsford mostly dates from the years before he made his fortune at the Rumford Chemical Works. Eben's many letters to his sister Eliza tell tales from his student days at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, including a lengthy description of his graduation examination by a committee that included Emma Willard, for whom he had great respect (April 1, 1838). He also describes a visit to Emma Willard's school, then called the Troy Female Academy. After graduation he worked for the New York Geological Survey helping to create maps of central and western New York state, including the Allegheny mountain region. While teaching mathematics and science at the Albany Female Academy (1840-1844), Eben's letters to his sister convey his commitment to women's education. He also describes his foray into the daguerreotype business in 1841, and his appointment to the faculty of Harvard College in 1847 and life in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
As a young woman, Eliza Horsford attended Miss Bennet's School in Auburn, New York (1835), and the Le Roy Female Seminary, Le Roy, New York (1838). Letters written to Eliza at school can be found in the files of her mother, Maria Horsford, and her brother, Eben Horsford. Eliza's letters to her cousin Harriet Hinsdale Haskell are filled with the concerns of domestic life, courtship, and marriage. Eliza's correspondence with James Tryon describe their courtship, starting in 1845, and marriage in 1848. The young couple moved to Rochester, New York, in 1848 and Eliza writes descriptions of daily life in the city, Whig political events, and an 1850 account of the visit of Jenny Lind to Rochester. James Tryon, in a letter of February 12, 1850, describes in detail the birth of their first child to his in-laws including the use of chloric ether and chloroform to ease the pain of childbirth.
James Tryon was a banker during the free banking era before the Civil War. His business correspondence relates many tales of bank runs, concerns with the security of various bank notes, and commercial activities in central New York, along the Erie Canal, Hartford, Connecticut, and New York City. Also in the collection is an extensive group of letters dating from 1836 to 1837 from his boyhood friend James Cox. Cox, at the age of fifteen, moved to New York City and worked as a commission agent. His letters occasionally describe his work and relate tales of business and banking crises, however, most of the letters are filled with gossip, courtship concerns, and dreams for the future. The letters suggest a strong and intimate relationship between the two teenagers.
Other letters in the collection concern farming in upstate New York, domestic life, medical problems and treatments, travel plans and descriptions of trips in New York state, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The papers also include letters written by Henry Clay (to James Tryon), Stephen Decatur (to Moses Tryon), and William Gillette (to Thomas Tryon).