5

EDMUND BOOTH

(1810–1905)

Unlike the other authors in this volume, Edmund Booth spent most of his adult life on the American frontier. A tall, imposing man, he moved out west to Iowa when he was twenty-nine. Like many settlers, he did a variety of jobs. He helped construct buildings, worked on a farm, held several minor government positions, and even sought gold in California. In 1856 he began a long career in journalism, editing the Anamosa Eureka, a weekly Iowa newspaper. Despite his somewhat isolated location, he also actively participated in the deaf community, writing on deaf issues and working for the advancement of deaf people.

Booth was born on August 24, 1810, in Chickopee, Massachusetts. His family had a farm. When he was four, his father caught “spotted fever” (most likely meningitis) and died suddenly. Booth contracted the same disease, which left him blind in one eye and partially deaf. At age eight, he lost the remainder of his hearing. His mother taught him to read and write, skills he cherished throughout his life. When he was sixteen, Booth learned about the school for deaf students in Connecticut. He applied, was accepted, and—over the protests of his uncle, who wanted him to stay and do farmwork—went by stagecoach to Hartford.

Later, he recalled how it felt to encounter signing deaf people for the first time. “It was all new to me … the innumerable motions of arms and hands,” he wrote. “I was among strangers but knew I was at home.”1 His teachers included Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. He excelled at his schoolwork; before he graduated, he was invited to become an instructor. He taught for seven years. One of his pupils was fourteen-year-old Mary Ann Walworth, his future wife. In 1839, he resigned because of pneumonia, a dispute over pay, and a desire to see the world.

Booth traveled 1,300 miles to Iowa, where Walworth lived with her family. He worked building a sawmill, a dam, and houses. The following year, he and Walworth were married. They would eventually have four children, three of whom survived infancy (the youngest, Frank, later became the superintendent of the Nebraska School for the Deaf. Ironically, he was a rigid oralist, banning sign language from the school although both of his parents used sign to communicate). To support his family, Booth worked at different times as county recorder, postmaster, and as a clerk for the Iowa House of Representatives. He also had a small farm.

In 1848, Booth decided to join the California gold rush. He left his family with his brother and departed with another deaf man, identified only as Clough. The trip took six months. Booth stayed in California five long years, during which time he and Mary Ann maintained a remarkable correspondence. One of these letters is excerpted here. The letters demonstrate again the important role writing played in connecting deaf people who were separated from each other. Booth did not find enough gold to become wealthy, but he did earn a significant sum. At his wife’s plea, he returned to Iowa in 1854. Two years later, he became editor of the Anamosa Eureka, making it a strongly abolitionist paper in the years before the Civil War. In 1862 he purchased the paper and gave up farming. He continued editing the paper until his retirement in 1895.

Edmund Booth

In the 1840s, Booth helped to convince the Iowa legislature to provide for sending deaf children to the Illinois School for the Deaf. Later, he played an instrumental role in lobbying for the Iowa State School for the Deaf. He penned many articles for deaf publications; the essay on emigration included here appeared in the American Annals of the Deaf in 1858. In its lean, practical style, it typifies Booth’s writing. Booth also took part in the debate over a deaf commonwealth (see chapter ten). In 1880 the National Deaf-Mute College awarded him an honorary degree in recognition of his “high attainments as a scholar and as a journalist.” The same year, he helped to found the National Association of the Deaf. He was nominated for the presidency of the new organization, but he gracefully declined in favor of a younger man. Booth died in 1905, at age ninety-four.

Letter to Mary Ann Booth

While Booth prospected for gold in California, his wife and children remained in Iowa. At the time of this letter, Booth had not seen his family in over three years.

Chili Camp, Tuolumne Co., California

Jan. 21, 1852

My Dear Wife,

Your letter of Nov. 17th was brought to me from Sonora last night by Mr. Buck, one of my partners. I was most heartily glad to receive it and equally glad to hear that at last you and the children are in your own house and living by yourselves and so comfortably. I hope you and they will continue to live pleasantly and comfortably. We do not fully know the value of a home till we leave it.

Everything that tells me of home is intensely interesting; and I hope to be there next summer. It is not probable that I shall be rich, but my coming will have done some good in enabling us to live more easy and comfortably. You need not feel any concern about what others say in regard to my not being able to come home. It is all folly. Your statements about others who return with nothing make me laugh, but it is in the nature of the thing; for gold digging is much like lead digging—uncertain. I can find gold in a thousand places within a mile, but in few cases would it be rich enough to pay for digging. I have made but little in the past two months. In Dec. rain most of the time, and prospecting took up the rest of the month. In January (this month) we worked while we had water, and joined a sluicing company—to wash with a sluice 500 feet long with a torn at the tail—but we had not sufficient water. A race has since been finished, five miles in length, to bring water from Sullivan’s Gulch, but we cannot get it till another heavy rain.

Last night two more men joined our company, so we are four in all, the lawyer & Englishman having left us during the last rain to work their own claims at Yankee Hill. All my partners are from Boston. All came together around the “Horn”—arriving, when I did, in ’49 after eight months’ voyage. All are married. One has four children, one three and one has lost his only child. …

We have sold our mule and cart and have some talk of buying another because the rain holds off so long. It costs as much to board a horse as to board three or four men. What we most want is frequent showers of rain all winter and spring. …

I cannot give up the idea of removing you all at some future time to Cal. At present, things are too unsettled. This will not continue so forever. Gen. Wilson—wellknown in Dubuque, etc.—came here on a pleasure trip, and probably likewise from curiosity, and the wonderful climate took away his head. He has done what he would not do in regard to Iowa or Wisconsin, viz., made Cal. his permanent home. …

Thomas2 is a brave boy, but he must not use his courage rashly. He is not old enough and must not cut down trees yet. The danger is always great and requires the greatest caution. Many men (not boys) have been killed by the trees, which they were cutting, falling on them. He must be careful likewise not to cut his legs or feet when chopping wood. I am glad he helps you and is useful and obedient. Every man is made for some use; and he will find it more pleasant to be useful than to be otherwise. Let him help you cultivate the garden next spring and summer. I will give him a dollar for his biggest melon.

I hope you will keep in good heart & comfortable. Make home pleasant to the children that they may love their home. Use the money in the way you think best. Get fresh beef, etc., and salt it yourself;it is more healthy than pork, and much better for children—also dried apples, etc.

I will remain in this country six or ten months longer.3 I do wish it would rain. I could make twenty dollars a day if we had rain. We cannot haul the best dirt to water because the mountains are in the way. The gulches where is water are dug out. In a few years men will make but two or three dollars a day except in quartz. I have an offer of a share in a quartz mine for $50—good but no machinery to work it. May accept it; think I shall and afterwards sell again.

Love to all,

Edmund

On Emigration to the West by Deaf Mutes

The following article was written when Booth was living in Anamosa, Iowa.

About eighteen months ago a friend of mine (S. A. L.), formerly a pupil of the American Asylum, paid a visit, at my request, to this part of the country, with a view of removing his family here, in case he was satisfied with the appearance of things and future prospects. After several days’ observation, and when he had become well posted in regard to the advantages of a removal to and permanent settlements here, he, seated quietly in his chair, awoke from a brown study of some minutes duration, and turning to me, with a sad, reproachful look, asked why I had not some years sooner informed him of the advantages of removing to the West?

The question, and especially the manner of his putting it, came upon me with something of an electric shock. I had long known that, as a general rule, a deaf-mute could, if he had learned a mechanical trade and was skillful, industrious and temperate, do better here, in a worldly point of view, than he could in the East. Here he could have equally good and sometimes better wages. He could live cheaper, and buy land at a rate which, compared with eastern prices, is nearly nothing. These reasons inclined me to advise educated deaf-mutes to come West; but another and a darker side of the picture deterred me.

I came here over eighteen years ago, when wolves, deer, rattlesnakes and Indians were far more numerous than white men. The land all belonged to government or to the Indians, and every white man was a “squatter” from necessity, as no land was in the market. The times, too, were emphatically hard times, as they are now. …

To advise deaf-mutes to come at such a time, seemed to me of doubtful propriety. The danger was not that they would not find work and good wages, for there were an abundance of both. It was that they would fall into the loose habits which then prevailed among a loose and more miscellaneous population than, as a general rule, we have now. Another reason I had. I was certain some would be dissatisfied; for, unless a man has more romance, or courage and energy, than fastidiousness in his composition, a frontier life is not to him a bed of roses, and you, Mr. Editor, will readily understand that it is not very pleasant, after inviting a man to the best feast that caterer ever prepared, to find him complaining at every turn of his knife and fork.

Within the past five years, things have greatly changed. Population has poured into the West as it never poured before. Iowa has grown at the rate of a hundred thousand annually, and now numbers over six hundred thousand. So it is with other and contiguous States. Railroads are stretching in every direction. Cities and towns are building every where, and not men enough to build them. The great influx of emigrants has created a proportionate demand for lands, and where advantageously situated in regard to railroads, etc., the price has ran up to a point almost fabulous. True, the financial revulsion has brought it down, and in measure checked many works of improvement and a multitude of wild dreams, yet it is only for a few months or years at most. The land grants by Congress will insure the completion of the main lines of railroad; and the stream of emigration must enlarge with the coming spring, forced to do so by the contraction in the East, and by the ready facilities now provided for removing West. Why should not many educated deaf-mutes follow the general rush?

And now let me speak seriously to them. Brethren! If you have farms that are productive, and are thus or otherwise well off, or have aged parents who depend on you, I cannot say, come West. There is a class of persons among the hearing as well as among deaf-mutes, who for want of active habits, energy, judgment, or some other quality, never make their way in the world. These may better their condition by coming West, but they need not expect to become wealthy. It might be cruel to suggest to such the old proverb: “Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.”

There are those among you skillful in the use of the plane and the saw, the plow and other implements of labor, who are industrious, temperate, hopeful, and possessed of a reasonable share of common honesty and common sense, who would be largely benefited by a settlement in or near some of our Western towns. Mechanics, such especially as carpenters, builders, cabinetmakers, etc., are in great demand. The many thousands of people pouring in, need houses and household furniture, and this offers you abundant opportunity for work, and at as good or better wages than most of you receive in the East. And while you are at work, you are living cheaper, and, by the use of economy and good judgment, you are enabled to purchase real estate, build houses of your own, and grow with the country.

With all these fair prospects laid before you, truth requires me to state that, just now, it is “hard times” with us, as with you in the East. “The people’s money,” as certain politicians call it, and “bank rags” have become scarce. The highest price paid now for wheat is fifty cents per bushel, in trade, for no one will give money for it at this time. In fact, wheat has become a superabundant article, as have most other agricultural products. Therefore, if you come at the present time, you must expect to take pay for work, as we all do, not in money, but in trade, until times improve.

Should you decide to remove westward, make up your minds at the same time to depend each on himself. I have known hearing men come West, and expect their friends or neighbors to give them fifty acre lots, town lots, houses, etc., for nothing. Such men are of no value in any sense and it were better that they stayed in the East. They do not consider that these friends and neighbors have struggled for years through privation, hardship and difficulties, until have made themselves what they are. Do not waste weeks and months hesitating where to go. Go anywhere, if the work to be performed suits you. Towns spring up every year, and almost every where; and at all such places mechanics are wanted. If you are not a mechanic, and intend to engage in agriculture, still go any where, and engage in such work as offers, until you can learn about the country and determine where to purchase land for a farm. In any cases, it is better to buy an improved farm, if you have money, than to buy wild land. In the former case you will at once have a home and the products of the farm. In the latter, you must build, plow and fence, and wait eighteen months or two years before the farm begins to pay for cost in money and labor. Hence, if you have the means, it is cheapest to purchase a farm already under way. In settling in Iowa, or any one of the prairie States, do not, as some do, grumble about the scarcity and high price of timber. A few acres of timber is all that a family needs; and as it is not so abundant as prairie, it of course commands a higher price. I haul my fencing staff five miles and do not consider it much of a hardship. Men are here who go further than that for firewood and fence and building materials.

Let me suggest to deaf-mutes coming West, that perhaps it were not the wisest plan for a large number to settle in one town, if all are of the same trade or mechanical occupation.4 They may, as the saying is, eat up one another. In the winter season, when building operations are suspended, the amount of work for each may be small. The country is vast in extent, and the amount of room abundant. Do not crowd into one spot. Do your work well and faithfully; be honest and temperate; be good citizens, and you will command respect and confidence, and will make friends among the best people of your locality, wherever it may be. If you fail in that, the fault must be your own, for men usually, everywhere, see and appreciate real worth. It may be delayed for a while. It may be hidden under a cloud, but it will almost certainly come out clear in the end. If, then, you stand high in the community, the merit is yours. If you stand low, the fault—not always it may be, for there are men who are never understood, if understood ever, until they are dead—is most generously yours.

A common question with persons removing West is, “Is this location or that healthy?” It is a question which makes an old Western settler smile, if he does not involuntarily laugh in your face. Every locality in the West is liable to afford its inhabitants a taste of the fever and ague. It is true that some places have little of it, but the stories that fever and ague is a disease never known in such and such a place, are moonshine. The elevated grounds away from water courses or ponds and marshes are the most healthy. But some persons I have known exposed for many years to the miasma of the marshes, and they were never affected in any way. It depends much on a person’s constitution, temperament, or something else which the doctors with their finespun theories do not appear to understand, and I do not pretend to be wiser. …

I ought to state, before closing this rather long communication, that, as a general rule, shoe-makers do not fare as well in the West as men engaged in other active occupations. The cause lies in the cheapness of shoes of Eastern manufacture, and in the high price of leather in this region, owing to the fact that the country does not produce the kind of barks used in tanneries.

In conclusion, I would suggest to those New England deafmutes who may decide to remove to the prairie regions, that they will find it preferable to settle in Northern Illinois, Southern Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Northern and Central Iowa. Further North, there is more cold than most of them would desire. Further South, the soil has more of clay, and the people are more generally from the South and less from the Northern States.

1. Quoted in Harlan Lane, When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf (New York: Vintage, 1984), 233.

2. Booth’s oldest son, approximately eleven years old at the time.

3. The indeterminacy of Booth’s plans shows clearly in this letter, in which he considers returning home in the summer, moving his family to California, and now staying almost another year.

4. Booth repeats this opinion more forcefully when arguing against the idea of a deaf commonwealth (see chapter ten).