[Page 91]

  March 6, 1870.-- I have borrowed of Uncle, and on his name,
of John G. Deshler eight thousand dollars and invested it in
one hundred and sixty acres of land one and one-fourth miles
from the dock at Duluth, Minnesota. I expect Duluth to grow
rapidly and that this property will increase in value about one
hundred per cent for the next three or five years. The cash
and deeds pass this week. General George B. Sargent, care J.
Cooke and Co., New York, is my correspondent's address.
  I have been digging into Savage and other books on genealogy
during the last week. I trace my lineage up almost to the May-
flower but not yet into it. I have only run back on the line of
my father's side of the house, and the important family of the
Smiths is left out!!  Almost one-half of the stock!  To be
exact, it leaves out exactly one-fourth of the stock, as I find nearly
one-half of the Smiths. Now, the new idea I get by this study is,
how futile it is to trace one's descent from a distinguished name
in the past. Two hundred and thirty or forty years ago my
ancestors were from thirty to a hundred different persons. The
Hayes or the Rutherford of 1625 was only one out of forty or
more who are equally my ancestors. What does it signify that
John Russell was able and pious in 1640? I am but one part
in forty to sixty of his blood. We attach more importance to the
deeds of ancestors of our own names. But this is a mere figment
of the imagination. I am just as much a Trowbridge, referring
now to the Thomas Trowbridge who founded the family in New
Haven in 1640, as any of those now living there who bear his
name. The blood, the physical, mental, or moral qualities which
distinguished an early "father," do not follow the name; do not
accompany it.
  I have always thought of myself as Scotch, but of the fathers
of my family who came to America about thirty were English
and two only, Hayes and Rutherford, were of Scotch descent.
This, on my father's side.  On my mother's side, the whole
thirty-two were probably all of other peoples beside the Scotch.
Again, I have been proud of my descent (not very of course,
only a trifle so,) from the famous Rutherfords; but it is plain
that the brains, energy, and character possessed by my grand-
father's children and grandchildren-- by the children and grand-
children of Rutherford Hayes--are mainly derived from our
plain ancestor, whom [who] Uncle Sardis says was the homeliest
woman he ever saw (!), Grandmother Chloe Smith.