Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts & Archives
User Information
Historical Sketch
Scope and Content Note
Cataloguing Information
Processed by
Charles Latham
8 May 1996
VOLUME OF COLLECTION: 2 items
COLLECTION DATES: 1815, 1818
PROVENANCE: Tom Butler, Fort Wayne, IN, 6 May 1996
RESTRICTIONS: None
REPRODUCTION RIGHTS: Permission to reproduce or publish material in this collection must be obtained in writing from the Indiana Historical Society
ALTERNATE FORMATS: None
OTHER FINDING AIDS: None
RELATED HOLDINGS: SC 2639 Samuel Mudford
ACCESSION NUMBER: 96.0420
NOTE: Although technically this collection should be named for Louisa Bourne as the theoretical source of provenance, she has no connection with Indiana, and the collection has been named instead for the writer, Evalina M. Leonard.
Evalina M. Leonard (d. 1833) was born in Middleboro, Massachusetts, the daughter of David Augustus and Mary (Pierce) Leonard. She and her sister Helen attended a seminary, and were both noted for their ability to read Latin. By 1818 the family had moved to Indiana, to Northampton in Harrison County, a town founded in 1815 and "noted in fifteen years of existence for its drinking, gambling, horse racing and fighting." The family soon moved to Corydon, and there Evalina met, and married in 1821, John Hay Farnham (1791-1833).
Farnham, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard in 1811 and moved, first to Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1818, and then by 1819 to Jeffersonville, Indiana, where he practiced law. During sessions of the General Assembly he lived in Corydon, and served as clerk of the Senate from 1822 to 1833.
The Farnhams moved to Salem in 1824, and became part of a coterie of political leaders of whom the best known was Benjamin Parke. In 1826 Farnham made a quinquagenary (fiftieth anniversay of the Declaration of Independence) speech urging that Indiana fulfill its consitutional obligation to set up a public school system. For a time he was ostracized for having advocated such a waste of taxpayers' money. He was a principal founder of the Indiana Historical Society. Calvin Fletcher found an address of Farnham's before a "moote legislature" to be "worthy of imitation." In 1833 Farnham and his wife and two of their four children died in a cholera epidemic. His eulogy was read by Samuel Merrill, who spent most of his address apologizing for his subject's lack of tact.
Sources: Materials in collection
Indiana's Birthplace--A History of Harrison County, p. 70
The Diary of Calvin Fletcher, I 192; II 55, 56n
Ruegamer, A History of Indiana Historical Society 1830-1990, p. 13-20, 40-42
Indiana Magazine of History, XX (1924) 154-159, 397; LIII (1953) 260
Thsi collection contains two items, letters written in 1815 and 1818 by Evalina M. Leonard to her cousin Louisa Bourne in Massachusetts.
The 1815 letter, written from Bristol [Rhode Island?], refers to a recent visit by Louisa and describes the "delightful prospects, refreshing sails, beautiful gardens &c" of the town in summer.
The 1818 letter, written from Northampton, Harrison County, Indiana, describes the "wild state" of the country, but also the fertility of the land and the easy transport of goods to market. Evalina's father is looking for a "plantation." She deplores being surrounded by "indolent, intemperate, uncouth people...satisfied to dwell in a habitation inferior to most of the N. England barns." However, "genteel people from all parts of the United States are constantly removing" thither. "Every lady must be provided with a good pacer and saddle, if destitute even of necessaries," and a good pacing horse is an essential part of a girl's dowry.
MAIN ENTRY: Leonard, Evalina M., d. 1833
SUBJECT ENTRIES: Leonard, Evalina M., d. 1833
Frontier and pioneer life--Indiana--Harrison County
Harrison County (Ind.)--Description and travel
END