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Kimball Family Papers

Call Number

MS 348

Date

1813-1866 (bulk 1853-1855), inclusive

Creator

Extent

0.834 Linear feet (2 boxes)

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

The papers of the Kimball family of New Hampshire and elsewhere offer a glimpse of the life of a mid-nineteenth century family. The papers are mostly correspondence but also include poems, speeches, photographs, tintypes, court documents, and two volumes. Portions of this collection relating to the Civil War have been digitized and are available to on-site researchers and to users affiliated with subscribing institutions via EBSCOhost.

Biographical Note

David Kimball, a minister, married Eliza Epes Carter in 1822 and they eventually had five sons and two daughters. Of these children, their son Edward became a doctor's apprentice in New York, their son William became a teacher in the South and died serving in the Confederate Army, and their daughter Elizabeth suffered from "insanity" which the family attributed to a head injury as a child.

Arrangement

The 110 letters in the collection are arranged chronologically. Several letters are started by one person and finished by another, or, letters from one family member are copied in a letter from the recipient of the original to another family member.

Scope and Contents

The papers of the Kimball family of New Hampshire and elsewhere offer a glimpse of the life of a mid-nineteenth century family. The earliest letters in the collection are from Eliza in Arundel, New Hampshire, to David Kimball when he was a student at Yale College. The letters primarily discuss religious matters and seem to indicate that the couple is in the early stages of courtship. Portions of this collection relating to the Civil War have been digitized and are available to on-site researchers and to users affiliated with subscribing institutions via EBSCOhost.

The bulk of the collection consists of letters by one of the Kimballs' sons, Edward, who worked as a physician's apprentice at Nursery Hospital on Randall's Island, New York City, from 1853 to 1855. In his early letters to his family at home in Hanover, New Hampshire, he wrote of the sights of "Gotham." For example, in a letter dated January 10, 1854 he observed, "N. Y. is vastly easier than Boston to find one's way about in. . . . It is not very surprising that one in N.Y. soon becomes steeled + almost indifferent to misfortune + calamity, there is so much of them in this great city." A letter of December 28, 1853 details a fire Kimball witnessed on the Great Republic, a ship in the harbor.

The hospital in which Kimball worked treated charity cases, exclusively. "None are attended who are able to pay for doctrinal services, --So you see I have a capital chance to become acquainted with any number of the first families of N. Y. (that is, reckoning in the ascending scale.)" (March 12, 1854). His later letters focus on all types of hospital functions from how laundry is done, to treatment of a condition Kimball calls "pustulent ophthalogia," which caused one patient's corneas to slough off. Cholera is also described in his letters as a persistent problem.

In April 1855, Dr. Kimball was stricken with typhoid fever and shortly died. Included in the collection are letters to his parents from his friends at the hospital describing his last hours and conveying condolences to the family. Subsequent family letters discuss the funeral arrangements.

The letters of William, Edward's younger brother, who worked as a teacher in Kentucky and Louisiana, comment on the differences between his old home and his new one. In a letter from Sicily Island, Louisiana, of February 4, 1860 to his brother Buchanan, he wrote, "Were I resident of the West, I should follow your intended course, and marry a northern wife. But if I adopt the South, I shall not go above the line for matrimony. Southern ladies of equal social rank show less supercilious self-importance. They accept the man of their choice whether rich or penniless."

He joined the 31st Louisiana Regiment of the Confederate Army in April 1862. He was stationed in several places, including Monroe, Louisiana, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Kickapoo, Texas. At times, he sent letters to his mother and sister through a friend, W. T. Atkins. Some of William's letters to Atkins are included in the collection and offer more specific descriptions of his situations than do the letters to his family.

On December 31, 1862, William wrote to his mother regarding his choice to join the Confederate forces, "My hope is grounded upon a willingness on your part to give us peace; on the only condition it ever can be madeĆ¢??the entire independence of the Confederate States. Give us that and this terrific tragedy of carnage and war closes immediately. Refuse it and war is the heritage of our children's children. This is the unanimous spirit of the Southern people." William died January 7, 1865 of a "billious [sic] fever."

In addition to family news, letters in the collection sometimes focus on major news of the day. On April 15, 1865 Eliza Kimball wrote to her daughter Isabella, "I begin in a very different strain from what I should if I could have written this mor[nin]g, before the melancholy news of the death of Lincoln at 7 this mor[nin]g from wounds at the theatre. I can hardly forgive him for going there. I cannot realize that one who 'loves Jesus,' can wish for such an amusement. But E. says he must have some absorbing amusement at time to relieve his mind of the immensely weighty cares of state. I am sorry for the example. . . . I meant to ask if many a black cheek will not be washed with tears for good 'Massa Linkum.'"

Collected together in folder 4 are two poems and a speech written by Edward H. Kimball, which was delivered at Dartmouth College on June 17, 1852, two essays written by Eliza Kimball, and an unattributed poem. Biographical material on David Kimball, including an article from a Rockford, Ill., newspaper for which he set the type, and a transcript of a eulogy in the Congregational Quarterly is housed in folder 5. Folder 6 houses an oxydized daguerreotype and a photograph of David Kimball and a photograph of Eliza Kimball. None of these items are dated.

Six items relating to the Cutts family, relatives of Eliza Kimball's, are included in the collection: four printed claims of Edward Cutts for French spoliation in the Court of Claims, October Term 1886 (Isabella's memoir briefly explains these), a notarial document in Spanish regarding George Cutts, Captain of the frigate Alexey, dated Montevideo, July 27, 1818, and a City Weighers Certificate of the loss on sugar, in Dutch, dated Amsterdam, March 1804.

There are also two volumes included with the collection. One is a Hebrew grammar copied from an existing text by Eliza in 1818 for the use of David Kimball while at Andover Theological Seminary. A penciled note in Eliza's hand on the inside cover reads, "This Grammar was copied by E. E. Carter later Mrs. Kimball, between the hours of 9 & 12 at night by the dim light of a one-wick oil lamp."

The other volume is an undated memoir of approximately 100 pages by Isabella Kimball Edson entitled "Desultory Reminiscences," in which she writes of family history and the ways in which everyday life has changed since her girlhood. The memoir was apparently written at the request of a younger relative, and offers descriptions of the physical appearance of relatives and information about the disposition of family heirlooms. Several clippings are pasted into the volume.

Access Restrictions

Open to qualified researchers.

Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to twenty exposures of stable, unbound material per day. (Researchers may not accrue unused copy amounts from previous days.)

Use Restrictions

This collection is owned by the New-York Historical Society. The copyright law of the United States governs the making of photocopies and protects unpublished materials as well as published materials. Unpublished materials created before 1 January 1978 cannot be quoted in publication without permission of the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as the Kimball Family Papers, MS 348, The New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Laurie Smith Camp, 1997, 2009, 2011, and 2015.

Collection processed by

Megan Fraser and others, circa 2012; updated by Joseph Ditta, August 2017.

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:48:57 -0400.
Language: Description is in English.

Processing Information

Accessions from 1997-2011 were processed and a finding aid prepared by Megan Hahn Fraser and others circa 2012. The 2015 accession of additional photographs found in box 2 was processed by archivist Joseph Ditta in August 2017.

Edition of this Guide

This version was derived from kimball.xml

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024