An extract from a letter from Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, written recently from Florida, is published in the Cincinnati Commercial and tells exactly who the original "Uncle Tom" was. She writes:

The first conception of the character of Uncle Tom came to me while I was living in Cincinnati. I had a free woman-cook, whose husband was a slave in Kentucky and had the management of his master’s place. I used to write her letters for her to him. She said, that he was such a Christian she could not get him to run away from his trust, though his master constantly broke his word to him, having repeatedly promised to emancipate him at certain times, but never doing it. Whether he ever got free I never heard. This was the first suggestion of the character. Other incidents were added by reading the Life of Father Henson in Canada. Yours truly,

H. B. STOWE