Horace Sumner Lyman was born on a farm near Dallas, Polk County, Oregon, on December 18, 1855. His father was Horace Lyman of an old Massachusetts family. His mother, Mary Denison Lyman, belonged to an equally old Vermont family of French Huguenot descent. Young Horace suffered from a malady in early childhood that left him so crippled that the use of crutches was necessary