Family Ties and Flooded Fields: A Letter from the Centennial Summer

“Now I would like to acomodate you I have Binn dividing My meens with The Chilldren & have None to Spear at this time But need all that I Can Collect”

Pull up a chair, friends, and let me share a little treasure I found in the archives. It is a letter from a man named H. Gwinn, written on a warm July day back in 1876. When you look at the physical paper today, you can see the marks of time—the lined pages have turned a soft, aged yellow, and there are stains along the fold lines where it was likely kept in a pocket or a drawer for years. You can even see a bit of faint blue ink at the top, a tiny ghost left behind by a postal worker or an archivist from long ago.

Writing from Idaville, Indiana, H. Gwinn was reaching out to Galen Gwinn during what he called the “Centenial yeare.” While much of the country was looking back at a century of history, the Gwinn family was looking at the skies. The letter tells a story of “awful fludes” and heavy rains that had been washing out the corn crops for two years straight. It is a humble, grounding look at how ordinary folks lived through extraordinary times, worrying more about the wheat in the shock than the grand celebrations happening in the big cities.

There is a bit of a heavy heart in this letter, too. Galen had written asking to borrow two hundred dollars—a significant sum for the era—but H. Gwinn had to gently turn him down. He explains that he had already been “dividing My meens” among his other children and simply had nothing left to spare. He was firm about his needs, even asking for a specific note to be sent via registered letter to his address in Burlington. It shows us that even in the closest families, the reality of “hard times” meant making some very difficult choices.

Reading these handwritten lines today reminds us that we are part of a long chain of people who worked the land and looked out for their kin as best they could. This letter isn’t just about a failed crop or a denied loan; it is about the resilience of the human spirit. It tells us that no matter the weather or the state of the world, we keep writing, we keep working, and we keep holding on to our connections with one another.

Original Transcription

Idaville Ind
July the 15th 1876
Mr Galen Gwinn Ser
Yors of June 26th 76 Came
To Hand & found us all in
Tollerable Good Health
This Centenial yeare
We are having Variy Wet
Wether & Have Had for the
Last two years we had
awful fludes all last sum
mer whitch destroyed all
the Corn on the Botom
lands & This summer it
Has alredey destroyed a
great deel on the upland
wheat was poore last
year But good this yeare
But is out in shock
as yet But the wether looks
favorable to it now

you Spoke of Varey
Hard times in west I
Supose that is the Case
Eveary Where at least it
is the Case Heir Espaciley
In Regard to Money
If I understod
yore letter you wished to
Borrow Two Hundred dollers
Now I would like to acom
odate you I have Binn
dividing My meens with
The Chilldren & have None
to Spear at this time But
need all that I Can Collect
So tell Carrollton fathers
adminstreter to Send the
amount of that note to my
adress Burlington p o
Carroll Cty Indiania
Send in A Redgestered
letter H . Gwinn