"Uncle Tom."

A letter from Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe to the Indianapolis Times should set at rest forever the long-disputed subject as to who was the real Uncle Tom of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It was generally believed that Mrs. Stowe drew her character from an old negro in Indianapolis, whom she met there while on a visit to her brother, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. The editor of the Indianapolis Times wrote to Mrs. Stowe and received the following answer:
SACO, July 27th, 1882.

Dear Sir:--In reply to your inquiries, I will say that the character of Uncle Tom was not the biography of any one man. The first suggestion of it came to me while in Walnut Hills, Ohio. I wrote letters for my colored cook to her husband, a slave in Kentucky. She told me that he was so faithful, his master trusted him to come alone and unwatched to Cincinnati to market his farm product. Now this, according to the laws of Ohio, gave the man his freedom, since if any master brought or sent his slave into Ohio he became free, de facto. But she said her husband had given his word as a Christian, his master promising him his freedom. Whether he ever got it or not I know not. It was some four or five years later, when the Fugitive Slave Law made me desirous of showing what slavery was, that I conceived the plan of writing the history of a faithful Christian slave. After I had begun the story I got, at the Anti-Slavery Rooms, in Boston, the autobiography of Josiah Henson, and introduced some of its most striking incidents into my story. The good people of England gave my simple good friend, Josiah, enthusiastic welcome as the Uncle Tom of the story, though he was alive and well and likely long to live, and the Uncle Tom of the story was buried in a martyr's grave. So much in reply to your inquiries. I trust this plain statement may prevent my answering any more letters on this subject.
Truly yours,
—H. B. STOWE