Joseph Bardwell Lyman

Background

Joseph Bardwell Lyman was born on October 6, 1829, at Chester, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Timothy and Experience (Bardwell) Lyman and a descendant of Richard Lyman who emigrated to New England in 1631.

Education

Lyman graduated from Yale Univesity in the class of 1850. Thereafter he studied at the law department of the University of Louisiana. He graduated in 1586 and was admitted to the bar.

Career

From 1850 to 1853 Lyman taught school first in Cromwell, Connecticut, then in Mississippi. In June 1853 he went to Nashville, Tennessee, where, until he moved to New Orleans early in 1855, he again taught school. Later he practised law for five years in New Orleans.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted as a private in the 16t Louisiana Cavalry. Taken prisoner at Loudon, Tennessee, in September 1863, he was sent to the military prison at Louisville, Kentucky, from which he was released later in the month upon taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. He spent some months in Massachusetts, farming part of the time, then moved to New York City in 1864 to engage in journalism. In 1865 he published Resources of the Pacific States.

His various writings brought him to the attention of the New York press and in 1867 he became agricultural editor of the New York World. From December 1868 to August 1869 he was also managing editor of Hearth and Home. In 1868 he had published some of his observations on Southern husbandry in Cotton Culture, and in 1869, in collaboration with his wife, he published The Philosophy of Housekeeping. In the latter year he became agricultural editor of the New York Weekly Tribune.

In New York City Lyman was a member of the American Institute, a group of agricultural experts who met periodically to discuss questions of all sorts coming from farmers from all over the nation. These discussions he summarized in clear and simple language for his Tribune readers. He was conscientious and diligent rather than brilliant, and he gave as patient attention to letters requesting the most elementary information as to those dealing with the most interesting of contemporary questions. He constantly impressed upon American farmers the necessity of sustaining home manufactures, of diversifying their products, and of supporting every movement by which the power of association could be employed for the public good. Much of his time during 1871 he spent in supervising the building of a house at Richmond Hill, Long Island. He had barely moved his family into the new home when he died of smallpox on January 28, 1872.

Achievements

• Lyman was well-known chiefly as an agricultural editor of various periodicals and for his considerable influence on the development of agriculture.

Works

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• book

  • Cotton Culture

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Beacon Gems for You; Or, the Philosophy of Housekeeping

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Connections

On July 14, 1858, Lyman was married to Laura Elizabeth Baker. He had six children.

Father:

Timothy Lyman

Mother:

Experience (Bardwell) Lyman

Spouse:

Laura Elizabeth Baker

References

• Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work (Critical Companion (Hardcover))
• Genealogy of the Lyman Family, in Great Britain and America: The Ancestors and Descendants of Richard Lyman, From High Ongar in England, 1631 (Classic Reprint)
• Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Louisiana Confederate Commands, Vol. 1 of 3 (Classic Reprint)