An unsigned letter by Elizabeth Theresa Boise (1826-1904) to Mary Denison Lyman (1828-1874) regarding race relations in Salem, Oregon. The letter discusses the marriage of an African American woman named America Waldo in Salem in early January, 1863.
Boise recounts attending the wedding along with some other white women and two white men. (Other sources identify America Waldo's husband as Richard Bogle, also an African American.) She describes how the next day, the people of Salem verbally attacked them for having participated in the integrated wedding, and that their names were published in two newspapers in order to shame them. Boise goes on to describe other unrest regarding race relations, including tensions over the preaching of the abolitionist Congregational Church minister Obed Dickinson ("a monomaniac upon the negro equality question"); and the birth of a mixed-race baby to a woman named Roxanna. This was very likely Roxanna Holmes, an African American woman whose parents were brought to Oregon as slaves in 1844.
The letter is unsigned, but the writer has been identified as Elizabeth Theresa Boise (1826-1904) by researcher Brian W. Johnson. Boise was an unmarried woman teacher who immigrated from Massachusetts to Oregon in 1853-54. At the time this letter was written, she was likely teaching in or near Salem. She had known Mary Denison Lyman for at least nine years. Mary's husband, Rev. Horace Lyman, had been the head teacher at La Creole Academy near Dallas, Oregon, circa 1855, while Elizabeth was the assistant teacher. The "Reuben" mentioned in this letter was Elizabeth's brother, Judge Reuben Boise; and the "Ellen" mentioned was Reuben's wife, Ellen Frances Lyon Boise.
