Seymour family papers

The Seymour Family Papers is a collection of unusual quality which spans the years 1711 to 1969, with the greatest concentration occurring from 1870 to 1945. The papers represent six generations of an intellectually and socially prominent family which included two Yale presidents as well as teachers, lawyers, prep school head masters, a Civil War general, a newspaper editor, and a sculptor.

The papers are rich in detail concerning social life and customs in New Haven, Hartford, and nineteenth century Ohio. Family members traveled extensively both professionally and for pleasure, and the papers contain interesting views of American travelers, both in the U.S. and abroad. Because these are family papers there is much in them dealing with daily family life, childbearing, and the role of women in the family, and because so many family members were teachers the papers will prove to be a fertile source for those interested in the history of education, particularly the histories of Yale University, Case Western Reserve University (at the time Western Reserve College), and Choate School.

The papers came to Manuscripts and Archives through numerous donations from family members, the most recent gift being from Mrs. Charles Seymour, Jr. in 1979. The papers now include correspondence and other material of Charles Law Watkins, formerly MSS Group 657.

The papers are divided into eighteen series with separate series for major family groups and individuals. All material pertaining to a married woman is filed under her married name, even if the material was generated prior to her marriage. The series are arranged as follows:

Each series contains a wide variety of material which may include correspondence, writings, legal and financial documents, printed material, and memorabilia. Only photographs have been segregated into a separate series.

In all cases letters between family members are filed in the series of their recipient. Thus, the researcher will have to refer to two series to follow the correspondence between any two individuals. Whenever a letter is addressed to more than one person, it is placed with the series of the eldest addressee.

At the beginning of each series is a description of the arrangement of that series. In most cases there is also a brief biographical sketch which will provide some insight into the interests of the particular family member and some suggestions as to the wide range of subjects that could be covered in the series. For additional biographical information see The Family of the Rev. Jeremiah Day of New Preston and George Dudley Seymour's A History of the Seymour Family. Familycharts, which follow this description, will help identify the relationships between family members.

1981 ADDITION

4' (10 boxes), 1843-1933

The Seymour Family Papers Add. 1981, housed in ten boxes and spanning the years from 1843 to 1933, was donated to Yale University in 1981 by Seymour St. John.

The original collection is divided into eighteen series and this addition is arranged in the same manner as the larger collection. All correspondence, therefore, is filed in the series of the recipient of the letters. Letters written to Thomas Day Seymour, for example, are found in Series VII, while those written by him to other family members are located in the appropriate series. Please refer to the introductions to each series in the register to the Seymour Family Papers for additional information. The add. 1981 contains material for ten series, but the bulk of the correspondence and other papers are found in THOMAS DAY SEYMOUR, SARAH (HITCHCOCK) SEYMOUR, and ST. JOHN FAMILY.

The add. 1981 fills several important gaps in the Seymour Family Papers. These papers focus on the family of Thomas Day Seymour. The chief correspondents and recipients of letters are Thomas Day Seymour, Sarah (Hitchcock) Seymour, and their three children, Elizabeth Day (Seymour) Angel, Clara Hitchcock (Seymour) St. John, and Charles Seymour (1885-1963).

The single most important correspondent is Clara Hitchcock (Seymour) St. John. Clara's college years at Bryn Mawr are well documented. Letters written by Clara from college to her family fill folders 37-58 of Series VII. The correspondence covers her freshman, junior, and senior years at college. (Letters from her parents, sister Elizabeth, and brother Charles to her are found in Series X.) After graduation Clara and her sister travelled to Europe in the company of their uncle Charles Seymour (1843-1913). Sixty letters written by the two young women between June and September 1900 describe this exciting journey. See Series VII folders 11-12, 58-61. The same series also contains several letters written by Clara and her mother from Italy in 1903.

Clara married George St. John in June 1906 and correspondence in Series VII folders 64-68, and Series VIII, folder 115, describes their honeymoon in pastoral New Hampshire and George's experiences teaching at the Adirondack-Florida School. In a letter to her parents written September 6, 1909 from Windsor, Vermont, Clara describes a visit to the home of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and recounts his problems designing a new $20 gold piece. The Adirondack-Florida School was located at Rainbow Lake in Franklin County, New York and Coconut Grove, Florida. The bride who was accustomed to the amenities of life had to adjust to living in a primitive cabin in the Adirondack woods. Moreover, when the headmaster became ill in early October, Clara took over his teaching assignments.

In one particularly significant group of letters in Series VIII, folders 116-119, Clara St. John relates the difficulties endured by her first child, Elizabeth Seymour St. John, "Betty," in her first year. Although she weighed a healthy eight pounds at birth on August 3, 1908, Clara was unable to nurse the child and the infant suffered from severe adverse reactions to cow's milk, formula, medicines, and baby food. The baby weighed only 71/4 pounds at three months and her ordeal culminated with a bout of diphtheria in April 1909. (See Series IX, folder 148, and Series XI, folders 245-246 for additional material on this subject.)

In addition to the extensive Clara Hitchcock (Seymour) St. John correspondence in Series VII, the same series contains two other important groups of letters. The Seymours' elder daughter, Elizabeth Day (Seymour) Angel, taught Greek from 1901 to 1903 at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio. Letters in folders 13-17 cover her activities for much of the 1902-1903 academic year. (Series VIII, folder 91, and Series X, folder 156, contain further Lake Erie College correspondence.) In letters written betwen 1892 and 1894 Thomas Day Seymour's colorful brother Charles discusses his financial activities, national politics, and his brother's children. Charles Seymour (1843-1903) held strong Republican views. In several letters he blasts the Democratic party for its mismanagement of the economy. "I stood the panic of '73," he asserts on November 14, 1892, "the broken leg, the grip[pe], and the nerve exhaustion that followed it last Spring, but the election news fairly knocks me out. I never dreamed that the liars and robbers would be able to deceive the entire body of the people." Bachelor Charles Seymour in a letter written on October 18, 1893 says that a college education for women was useless. He was also deeply pessimistic about the nation's future. He mourned the decline of "the Puritan stock" and advised his brother on February 7, 1894 to keep his namesake Charles Seymour (1885-1963) "out of doors." Due to Puritan decadence, "only those will survive who abolish intellectual stuffing" and follow the "manly sports."

Series VIII SARAH (HITCHCOCK) SEYMOUR contains correspondence addressed to Thomas Day Seymour's wife, twelve folders of Hitchcock Family Papers, and a small amount of other papers. It has several interesting letters written by Charles Seymour (1885-1963) from Athens, Constantinople, and Munich in the summer of 1909. One ten page letter dated August 18 describes his journey from Constantinople to Munich. This series also includes a substantial group of letters of Sarah (Hitchcock) Seymour's parents, brothers, and sister. Two brothers, John Ford and Henry Valentine Hitchcock, served in the Union armies. John Ford Hitchcock enlisted in September 1861 and served in the 18th U.S. Infantry of the Army of the Ohio. He was killed in battle, probably at Stones River on December 31, 1862. Several of his letters contain interesting commentaries on the military and political situations. Henry Valentine Hitchcock, John's older brother, enlisted in 1863 and became a chaplain. In one letter dated May 12, 1865, he discusses the reaction in North Carolina to President Lincoln's assassination. See folders 109-110 and 135-137. Several other Hitchcock letters, written by Sarah's parents, describe their trip to Europe in 1867-1868. The series also contains several folders of correspondence of school friends of Sarah (Hitchcock) Seymour.

Series X ST. JOHN FAMILY contains a large number of letters written to Clara (Seymour) St. John by her family and friends, folders 155-200, and a large group of letters addressed to Seymour St. John in 1928-1929 when he was attending the Insitut Carnal in Gstaad, Switzerland. The largest volume of correspondence in Series X covers Clara's Bryn Mawr years. The letters are personal and discuss normal mother and daughter, brother and sister, and school friend subjects. Clara's mother, for example, wrote about clothes, her social activities in New Haven, family doings, and news of friends and relatives. During her senior year at Bryn Mawr, Clara was "Chairman" of the De Rebus Club, which provided a forum for visiting speakers. She corresponded with potential speakers, including Jacob A. Riis and William Dean Howells, both of whom declined her invitation.

Folders 201-220 contain letters written to Seymour St. John in 1928-1929 from family and friends. The most interesting are those from his mother and older brother George St. John, Jr. Clara (Seymour) St. John in a letter written December 12, 1928, for example, describes a dinner she and her husband attended at the home of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon in Washington, D. C. The affair was also attended by President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge. Due to a social error, the St. Johns rode up on the elevator with the President and his wife, thus when the receiving line was formed, "Cal skipped us, with a laconic 'I believe I met you downstairs.'" The 1928 presidential election is alluded to in several letters, folders 204, 206, and 216.

George St. John, Jr., called Jimmy, was at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge at the same time his younger brother was in Switzerland. George's letters give a good view of his activities at the English university, for his correspondence is filled with discussions of concerts, rowing, skating, bicycling, hockey, the food, and the weather. Indeed, the letters of all the boys show a preoccupation with sports, especially baseball and football.

Henry Lawrence Hitchcock, Thomas Day Seymour, George St. John, and Charles Seymour (1885-1963) were all leaders in the field of education, yet little in this collection concerns their professional careers. The Seymour Family Papers Add. 1981 provides a good deal of documentation on the family of Thomas Day Seymour, in particular for Sarah (Hitchcock) Seymour and Clara (Seymour) St. John, although there is also useful information on the Hitchcock family, Elizabeth Day (Seymour) Angel's teaching career, and the youth and early adulthood of Charles Seymour (1885-1963). The addition also contains letters written by a large number of Day and Hitchcock relatives. The correspondence is personal in character and should be of use primarily to researchers interested in family history or biography.