The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-08-17
UNCLE TOMS CABIN.
Another Version of How Mrs.
Stowe Came to Write 1t.

If there-, is anything in Generalization
Harriet Beecher Stowe was predestinated to
write Uncle Toms Cabin" She did not
intend to do it. Size has said that "for
many years of her life she avoided all read
ing upon or allusion to the subject of slav-
cry" But in Cincinnati it was thrust upon
her at every turn.
An incident which increased her interest
in the problem of freedom was the coming
to Walnut Hills OF family from the far
Sou tn, who for conscience sake mad sepa-
rated themselves from the associations of
a lifetime and sought home in the then
unbroken forests on the banks Of the Ohio.
writes Eleanor p. Allen in LipplncOtt for
August. Here the Tichenors iand Oyerak-
ers, family of aristocratic English de-
scent, made for themselves a home in the
Southern style, the first of those really du-
cal estates of which so many crown the
banks of the Ohio and the crests of Cincin-
MATHS hills.
This family brought with them a retinue
of house-servants in order to set them free.
They were scattered among the various
families of this lovely vicinage, some being
employed at one Time or another in Profess
sor Stoves family and some in that of his
next neighbor, also professor in the semi
nary. One of these neighb0rs has SAID that
she has seen Mrs. Stowe sitting whole aft
families and the young blacks at play.
1t was then and there that Mrs. Stow saw
Topsy and took her cOmlcal likeness in un-
fading colOrs. TOpsy WAS a stray bit of
ebony humanity that in some unTeeOTded
way came to be one of the pickaninnies
who perched on the porticos of the Oyeraker
mansion in New Orleans, where the family
had winter home. or hung around the
quarters, ran errands,. or played with the
dogs on the Tichenor plantation at Natchez
She was such little imp of darkness that
it was agreed on all sides that that limb
was past saving" and so she was left among
the field-handS, who were TO work out their
freedom there on the plantation at Natchez.
But the case of the abandoned wait ap-
pealed to the sympathy of Mrs.
Stoves neigh6nr, and the ,elhsh TopSy
was brought North and placed in the
family of the young professor to be trained
for service. 1t must be confessed that the
effort to develop her into reasonable being
was not shining success. Joan-for that
was her real name-drifted into the aban-
doned stratum OF Cincinnati life and was
seen no more by her former friends till the
day of Mrs. TichenOT'S funeral. Black
Sam, also, he of the "o'bobseryation"
faculty, was at service in the same family;
but he will be best remembered by the act
of putting the beech-nut under Haley's
saddle when they were about to start alter
Eliza. Other of the small fry named were
members of the same group.
1t was at Walnut Hills also that Mrs.
Stowe knew the original of Uncle Pete in
''DEed," or Nina Gordon" as it was after
ward called. He was then an old man,
known as "Colored Williams" and he GER
tainly was of as "rOckfast" and deep-set
black dye as mortal flesh could take. Like
that faithful old soul who took care OF the
PeytOn children and always spoke OF him
self and them as 1--WE Peyton folks" so
this devoted retainer of the professors.
families for odd jobs always spoke of him
self and them as "we seminary folks"
Peace to his gray ashes! He died a few
years ago at Walnut Hills, aged, it was
said, 112 years.
In 1850 DR.. Stowe had accepted profess
sorship at Bowdoin, and was living in
Brunswick when the fugitive slave law of
that year was passed. This was the final
fire which set the cOlors of Mrs. Stoves
resolution to write something (which should
hold up slavery to the world as dramatic
reality" She chose the form of story,
knowing we'll that
Where Truth in closest words shall fail.
There Truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at open doors.
Not for fame's sake did she write, but that
she might execute the commission which
the Divine Guide, by the nature of her
genius and culture and by the circumstances
of her life, had laid upon her. The intense
absorption of her theme held her away from
every other interest, for circumstances were
never less favorable to the execution of
great work. She was then in the midst of
heavy domestic cares, with young infant
and with party Of pupils in her family to
whom she was imparting lessons daily with
her own children; but the story was so
much more intense a reality to her than any
other earthly thing that the weekly INSTALL
ment for DR.. Bailey's National Era never
failed. Once Mr.. Jewett who was to pub
lish it, wrote to ask her not to make it too
long, as the subject was an unpopular one
Mrs. Stowe replied that she did not make
the story, that the story made itself, and
This feeling increased In Intensity to the
end. 1t is even said that in these last days
Of her life she has said: God wrote it. l
merely did his dictatiOn,"