EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF WILLIAM C. LOBENSTINE [Illustration: WILLIAM C. LOBENSTINE] Extracts from the Diary of William C. Lobenstine December 31, 1851-1858 Biographical Sketch by Belle W. Lobenstine Printed Privately 1920 COPYRIGHT 1920 BY BELLE W. LOBENSTINE In Loving Memory of My Father WILLIAM C. LOBENSTINE That those of us who follow after may honor and love his memory and live worthy of his name FOREWORD This book does not in any sense purport to be a biography. Often during Father's lifetime, on our long walks together or during long quiet evenings at home, he would tell of his early life, repeating over and over certain incidents which had impressed him deeply and so—when after he had gone we found among his papers two closely written diaries bound in calf, telling of his trip to California and the return from there—it seemed most natural to work over these diaries, to try to make out their closely penciled pages and, when that was done, with as few changes as possible, to publish these, together with a brief sketch of his early life and a few explanatory notes, for his family, friends, and any others who may be interested in these early experiences of one who came seeking the best in this country. The construction has been left unchanged and is very suggestive of the German, while the use of words, if at times inaccurate and somewhat flowery, is remarkable when one considers that but three years before he had come to this country an immigrant boy, knowing no English whatever. He was constantly reading, both books and the daily papers (has spoken often of how, later on, he took the _New York Tribune_ to study the editorials by Horace Greeley), and then trying to use the new words which he found—doubtless keeping his diary partly for that purpose. On the whole it would seem that he has succeeded in making his thoughts remarkably clear. Some of these are very characteristic of him as we knew him in later years—but in religious matters he had reacted from the despotism of a strong established church and of a narrow-minded bigotry without as yet knowing the deep personal religious experience which was afterwards his. As to his political views—it is hard to believe that they were written in 1852 when they might equally well have been expressed at any time since 1914. BELLE WILLSON LOBENSTINE INTRODUCTION Christian Lobenstine or William C. Lobenstine, as he called himself later on in this country, was born in Eisfeld, Dukedom of Meiningen, on November eighth, eighteen hundred and thirty-one. He was the youngest in his family. The others were Theodore, Caroline, Frederic, Bernard, Dorothea, Georgia, and Henry. They were the children of Johanne Andreas and of Elizabeth Lobenstein.