Lyman Family Papers
The descendants of Joseph Lyman (1767-1847) flourished in nineteenth century Northampton, Mass., achieving social prominence, financial success, and a degree of intellectual acclaim. Having settled in Northampton before 1654, just a generation removed from emigration, the Lymans featured prominently in the development of the Connecticut River Valley. A Yale-educated clerk of the Hampshire County courts, Joseph’s descendants included sons Joseph Lyman (an engineer and antislavery man) and Samuel Fowler Lyman (a jurist), and three Harvard-educated grandsons, Benjamin Smith Lyman (a geologist and traveler in Meiji-era Japan) and brothers Joseph and Frank Lyman (both trained in the natural sciences).
Consisting of the scattered correspondence and photographic record of three generations of an intellectually adventurous Northampton family, the Lyman collection explores the ebb and flow of family relations, collegiate education, and educational travel in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century, with important content on antislavery and the Free State movement in Kansas. Although the family’s tendency to reuse names (repeatedly) presents a challenge in distinguishing the various recipients, the focal points of the collection include the geologist Benjamin Smith Lyman, his uncle Joseph (1812-1871), cousins Joseph (1851-1883) and Frank, and Frank’s son Frank Lyman, Jr. Antislavery is a major theme in the letters of Samuel F. Lyman to his son Benjamin, and in the letterbook of the Kansas Land Trust, an affiliate of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, of which the elder Joseph was Treasurer.
Background on Lyman Family
The descendants of Joseph Lyman (1767-1847) flourished in nineteenth century Northampton, Mass., achieving social prominence, financial success, and a degree of intellectual acclaim. Having settled in Northampton before 1654, just a generation removed from emigration, the Lymans featured prominently in the development of the Connecticut River Valley, and by the Revolutionary generation of which Joseph was part, they had become both prolific and prosperous, enjoying strong connections with learned and commercial circles from Boston to New Haven and New York. Having studied at Yale (1783) and read law, Joseph rose to become a highly respected member of the bar in the Valley, first as a Clerk of Courts and later as Judge of Common Pleas and Probate, as well as High Sheriff.
Joseph’s love of learning proved a longer lasting legacy than his contributions to the law, and he littered the pages of Harvard’s record of graduates with the names of his sons and grandsons. A son by his first marriage, Samuel Fowler Lyman (Harvard 1818), followed Joseph into the legal profession, becoming the long-time Register and Judge of Probate in Hampshire County. Another son by a second marriage, Joseph (1812-1871; Harvard 1830), shared his half-brother’s antislavery sentiments, but abandoned his pursuit of the law in favor of engineering and investment in railroads. A third son, Edward H.R. Lyman, entered into a mercantile house while still in his teens, becoming a partner in the prominent New York firm of A. A. Low & Brother, after marriage into the Low family. Not to be outdone by their brothers, Joseph’s daughters also enjoyed the privilege of connection: Susan Inches Lyman married the prominent geologist Joseph Peter Lesley, an officer of the American Philosophical Society and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while the youngest Lyman child, Catherine Robbins Lyman, married Warren Delano, grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Succeeding generation of Lymans only deepened the Harvard connections and inquiring spirit. The more prominent among them was Samuel’s son Benjamin Smith Lyman (Harvard 1855), who became a noted mining engineer and student of Japan, while two of Edward’s sons also shared ties to Harvard and the sciences: Joseph (1851-1883) graduated with a degree in the natural sciences in 1873 before joining his father and grandfather as a partner in Low & Bros., while Frank (Harvard 1874), built on his Harvard foundation to pursue additional studies in the natural sciences as a post-graduate in mining-engineering at MIT, followed by a master’s degree at Columbia School of Mines (1878) and still more study in Germany and at the Ecole des Mines in Paris. Joseph died in 1883, just 31 years old, while Frank ultimately became President of the Brooklyn Gas Light Co.
Consisting of the scattered correspondence and photographic record of three generations of an intellectually adventurous Northampton family, the Lyman collection explores the ebb and flow of family relations, collegiate education, and educational travel in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century, with important content on antislavery and the Free State movement in Kansas. Although the family’s tendency to reuse names (repeatedly) presents a challenge in distinguishing the various recipients, the focal points of the collection include the geologist Benjamin Smith Lyman, his uncle Joseph (1812-1871), cousins Joseph (1851-1883) and Frank, and Frank’s son Frank Lyman, Jr.
The collection is particularly rich in the period 1850-1880 and includes a long series of letters written by Joseph (1851-1883) during his post-graduate tour of Germany and France and family letters written from both Jamaica Plain and Northampton. Perhaps most significant is an important series of nearly 800 letters to Joseph Lyman (1812-1871) while he served as Treasurer of the Kansas Land Trust, an affiliate of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, regarding investments in “surplus” Delaware Indian lands in Kansas for antislavery settlers in 1856-1857. Although the majority of the letters is comprised of simple inquiries on lands and financial arrangements, many also make reference to the political struggle over slavery in the territory, the founding of Quindaro as an antislavery town, and related matters. Originally bound into a letterbook, but disbound for preservation purposes, many of the letters are addressed to Amos A. Lawrence, founder of the NEEAC and one of John Brown’s “Secret Six.” The correspondents include significant antislavery figures such as Gerrit Smith (who curtly declines), Charles Robinson, Sarah Pellett, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Descendants of Joseph Lyman (1767-1847) and 1) Elizabeth Fowler (1772-1808) and 2) Anne Jean Robbins (1767-1847): names in bold figure prominently in the collection
- Elizabeth Lyman (b. 1792)
- Edmund Dwight Lyman (b. 1795)
- Frances Fowler Lyman (b.1797, died early)
- Samuel Fowler Lyman (1799-1876) m. in 1824 to Almira Smith
- Elizabeth (b. 1828)
- James Fowler Lyman (b. 1830)
- Harriet Willard Lyman (b. 1834)
- Benjamin Smith Lyman (1835-1920)
- Mary Lyman
- Mary Lyman (b. 1802)
- Jane Lyman (b. 1804)
- Joseph Lyman (1812-1871) m. Susan Bullfinch
- Anne Jean Lyman (b. 1815)
- Edward Hutchinson Robbins Lyman (1819-1899) m. 1) Sarah Elizabeth Low (1822-1863) and 2) in 1865 to Catherine (b. 1823)
- Edward R. Lyman (1848-1848)
- Annie Jean Lyman (1850-1920) m. Alfred Tredway White
- Joseph Lyman (1851-1883)
- Frank Lyman, Sr. (1852-1938) m. 1) Mary Sanger (1859-1890) and 2) Florence Chapin Moodey (1870-1960)
- Edward Hutchinson Robbins Lyman (1886-1893)
- Joseph Lyman (b. Aug. 26, 1906)
- Frank Lyman, Jr. (1908-1992) m. Jeanne Sargent (2013-2005)
- Hannah C. Lyman (b. ca.1910) m. R. Blenner-Hassett
- Catherine Lyman
- Edward Hutchinson Robbins Lyman (1859-1859)
- Susan Inches Lyman (b. 1823) m. Joseph Peter Lesley
- Catherine Robbins Lyman (1825-1896) m. Warren Delano
Acquired from Christine Lyman Chase, 2009 (2009-164).
Processed by Kristin Van Patten and Dex Haven, August 2014.
SCUA holds two other collections for the Lyman family:
- Benjamin Smith Lyman Papers (MS 190)
- Frank Lyman, Jr. Papers (MS 735)
Other significant collections for Benjamin Smith Lyman are housed at the American Philsophical Society (which also houses a large and valuable collection of the papers of Lyman’s uncle J. Peter Lesley) and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (MS 0388).
- Kuwada, Gonpei, Biography of Benjamin Smith Lyman. Tokyo: Sanseido Co., 1937. Call no. RBR 638
- Kuwada, Gonpei, Shojiki Shokichi: The Honest Rikisha Man (Supplement to “Biography of Benjamin Smith Lyman”). Tokyo: Sanseido Co., 1937. Call no. RBR 639
- Lyman, Benjamin Smith, Vegetarian Diet and Dishes. Philadelphia: Ferris and Leach, 1917. Signed copy. Call no. RBR 637
)Cite as: Lyman Family Papers (MS 634). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst.